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Black and white side by side of Presidents Nixon and Trump

Watergate's Ironic Legacy

Amidst the January 6 hearings, the fiftieth anniversary of Nixon’s scandal reminds us that it has only gotten harder to hold presidents accountable.
A picture of an assault rifle on a red background.

The Rifle That Ruined America

As an NRA-approved icon and the mass shooter’s weapon of choice, the AR-15 has done untold harm.
People looking at the Tops grocery store where police are in the parking lot after a mass shooting.

Making Sense of the Racist Mass Shooting in Buffalo

An expert on the white-power movement and the “great replacement” theory puts the act of terror in context.
Paul Ryan against a background of graph paper and a dotted line.

The Struggle for the Soul of the GOP

Is the Republican Party compatible with democracy?
Image of Anita Hill.

Anita Hill Saw History Repeat Itself at Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Supreme Court Hearings

The key witness in Clarence Thomas’s nomination process discusses how sex and race shaped the new Justice’s experience, and her own.
Illustration by Nilé Livingston of the many flags used throughout America as symbols of freedom, patriotism, and protest.

Scars and Stripes

Philadelphia gave America its flag, along with other enduring icons of nationhood. But for many, the red, white and blue banner embodies a legacy of injustice.
Donald Rumsfeld in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in 2005 (Jim Young-Pool/Getty Images).

Lasting Cruelties

A new book situates the War on Terror as a story of domination which traces back to the founding of the US as a settler-colonial and slaveholding behemoth.
Portrait illustration of Volodymyr Zelensky with the colors of the Ukrainian flag.

The Zelensky Myth

Why we should resist hero-worshipping Ukraine’s president.
A man carries a Confederate battle flag through the halls of the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021.

A Brief History of Violence in the Capitol: The Foreshadowing of Disunion

The radicalization of a congressional clerk in the 1800s and the introduction of the telegraph set a young country on a new trajectory.
Postcard image of a painting of the Mayflower at sea.

Looking for an American Myth

The fevered hunt for basic symbols.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump tosses a paper with polling statistics during a town hall event on Oct. 6, 2016, in Sandown, N.H.

‘He Never Stopped Ripping Things Up’: Inside Trump’s Relentless Document Destruction Habits

Trump’s shredding of paper in the White House was far more widespread and indiscriminate than previously known.
Compilation of images: signs at the 1963 March on Washington, poster about censorship, confederate flag, KKK members in hoods, drawing of overseer wielding whip, classroom with portrait of Lincoln on the wall.

Behind the Critical Race Theory Crackdown

Racial blamelessness and the politics of forgetting.
A bronze statue of Civil War soldiers on horseback, in front of the U.S. Capitol building.

How Twitter Explains the Civil War (and Vice Versa)

The proliferation of antebellum print is analogous to our own tectonic shifts in how people communicate and what they communicate about.
Major General Smedley Butler addresses nearly 16,000 veteran bonus marchers camped in Washington, D.C., July 20, 1932. Smedley urged them to stay until the bonus has been paid. (AP Photo)

The Plot Against American Democracy That Isn't Taught in Schools

How the authors of the Depression-era “Business Plot” aimed to take power away from FDR and stop his “socialist” New Deal.
A picture of armed militias

What the Term “Gun Culture” Misses About White Supremacy

The rise of tactical gun culture among civilians reveals a new front in the U.S. battle against nativist authoritarianism.
Painting of: Napoleon Bonaparte in Egypt, 1867, by Jean-Leon Gerome.

What Is the Relationship Between Democracy and Authoritarianism?

The Age of Revolution inaugurated a new era in modern history defined not only by new democratic institutions but also by despots and charismatic leaders.
Rioters during the January 6th capitol siege

White Supremacists Declare War on Democracy and Walk Away Unscathed

The United States has a terrible habit of letting white supremacy get away with repeated attempts to murder American democracy.
A pro-Trump mob storms the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6., 2021
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Far-Right Extremism Dominates the GOP. It Didn’t Start — And Won’t End — With Trump.

How a decades-long movement helped the far-right fringe gain control of the GOP.
Image of McClure's book, Winter in America: A Cultural History of the Neoliberalism, from the Sixties to the Reagan Revolution.

The Conservative Culture War

American innocence, the possession of history, and January 6, 2021.
Three panels depicting the Freedmen's Bureau, the march for Jobs and Freedom in 1963, and Trump at a podium..

America’s Most Destructive Habit

Each time political minorities advocate for and achieve greater equality, conservatives rebel, trying to force a reinstatement of the status quo.
Portrait of Steve Bannon with a serious expression

Executive Privilege Was Out of Control Even Before Steve Bannon Claimed It

A short history of a made-up constitutional doctrine that gives presidents too much power.
George W. Bush giving speech

In the Shadow of 9/11

Two new books argue that the War on Terror changed American politics, but what if the sources of its violence were already long present in the country?

Mocking the Klan

Was cartoonist Billy Ireland’s pen really mightier than the burning crosses of the KKK?
Document from the first session of Congress

California’s Vigilante Tradition

The far-right protestors in Huntington Beach aren’t as novel as they seem.
Image interference of Tucker Carlson on Fox News.

3 Tropes of White Victimhood

Leading conservative pundits today are pounding themes that were popular among opponents of Reconstruction.
People standing in the National WWII Museum

What Should You Do With a Captured Nazi Flag?

During WWII, American soldiers brought the flags home as a remembrance. Now, family members and historians must decide what should become of them.
Illustration of microphones and newspaper cutouts

Men in Dark Times

How Hannah Arendt’s fans misread the post-truth presidency.
German American Bund members
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The Long History of American Nazism — And Why We Can’t Forget it Today

Even as the United States mobilized to defeat Nazi Germany, anti-democratic forces simmered at home.
Graphic of Earth surrounded by red and white squiggles

What Is the Most Damaging Conspiracy Theory in History?

"What makes this conspiracy theory so damaging is its adaptability."

The Unreconstructed Radical

Thaddeus Stevens was a fierce opponent of the “odious” compromises in the Constitution, and of the North’s compromises after the Civil War.

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