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Woody Guthrie

Will Rogers & Woody Guthrie, Two Great Americans

Popular culture and social critique through Rogers' writing and Guthrie's songs.
by Greg Mitchell via Between Rock and a Hard Place on June 29, 2023

In 1968, When Nixon Said "Sock It To Me" on 'Laugh-In,' TV Was Never Quite the Same Again

The show's rollicking one-liners and bawdy routines paved the way for cutting-edge television satire.
by Ryan Lintelman via Smithsonian on January 19, 2018

Trump Hasn’t Killed Comedy. He’s Killed Our Stupid Idea of Comedy.

You and I have grown up during a period in which comedy became strangely bound up with truth and virtue. Trump has cut the knot.
by Andrew Kahn via Slate on July 19, 2017

Ronald Reagan Jokes about the USSR

Reagan's use of jokes to openly mock the Soviet system were part of his broader Cold War strategy.
via Voices & Visions on March 28, 1988
Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln's Duel

In the summer of 1842, young Abraham Lincoln’s razor-sharp wit almost got him into a whole heap of trouble.
by Harold Holzer via The Saturday Evening Post on February 12, 2025
"Spy vs. Spy" pointy-headed characters facing each other

Rethinking Spy vs. Spy: A Hand From One Page, A Bomb From Another

Like the spies themselves, the image we have of something is often what gets us in trouble.
by Gyasi Hall via Longreads on September 12, 2023
Political cartoon with Nixon and his inner circle tied up with wires, each pointing the finger at another.

8 Cartoons That Shaped Our View of Watergate — And Still Resonate Today

Herblock, Garry Trudeau, and others created memorable cartoons that skewered Nixon and Watergate, making the era a boom time for political satire.
by Michael Cavna via Washington Post on June 16, 2022
Collage of a radio and Rush Limbaugh's mouth.

How Rush Limbaugh Broke the Old Media — and Built the New One

Whether you like Rachel Maddow, Stephen Colbert, Joe Rogan, or Sean Hannity, you're engaging the media world created by the late radio host.
by Brian Rosenwald via The Week on February 20, 2021
Collage combining photograph of pets with the White House in the background.

The Best (and Worst) Presidential Pets in American History, Ranked

A cat named Miss Pussy! A racist parrot! Benjamin Harrison’s possums, which he later ate!
by Matthew Dessem via Slate on January 31, 2021
Rush Limbaugh.

From Entertainment to Outrage: On the Rise of Rush Limbaugh and Conservative Talk Radio

How the alienated margins arrived at the center of American politics.
by Brian Rosenwald via Literary Hub on November 5, 2019
Rush Limbaugh sits next to Newt Gingrich during NBC's "Meet the Press" taping on Sunday Nov. 12, 1995.

They Just Wanted to Entertain

AM stations mainly wanted to keep listeners engaged—but ended up remaking the Republican Party.
by Brian Rosenwald via The Atlantic on August 21, 2019
Donald Trump, holding microphones, surrounded by shock jocks

The Trigger Presidency

How shock jock comedy gave way to Donald Trump’s Republican Party.
by Ben Schwartz via The New Republic on April 24, 2019
Soldiers burning books.

How We Roasted Donald Duck, Disney's Agent of Imperialism

Why a 47-year old anti-colonialist critique by Chilean dissidents may be newly relevant in the Trump era.
by Ariel Dorfman via The Guardian on October 5, 2018
William F. Buckley Jr. surrounded by piles of books in his office.

What Made William F. Buckley So Unusual

The author of a new biography talks about the conservative journalist’s life and legacy.
by Sam Tanenhaus, Cullen Murphy via The Atlantic on June 1, 2025
Ross Perot laughing, surrounded by reporters.

Donald Trump Didn’t Spark Our Current Political Chaos. The ’90s Did.

In ‘When the Clock Broke,’ John Ganz revisits the era of Pat Buchanan and Ross Perot to find the roots of our populist moment.
by Becca Rothfeld via Washington Post on June 13, 2024
Larry David.

The End of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” Marks the End of an Era

Larry David is the last of his kind—and in several ways.
by Daniel Bessner via The Nation on April 8, 2024
Three men fight on a rooftop, above a large city on a river.

The Golden Age of the Paranoid Political Thriller

On the grand tradition of movies reflecting a deep distrust of those in charge.
by Keith Roysdon via CrimeReads on March 25, 2024
A political cartoon of Spiro Agnew holding an axe behind his back.

Oh, We Knew Agnew

On Spiro Agnew's lasting legacy.
by Jerald Podair, Zach Messitte, Charles J. Holden via Los Angeles Review of Books on August 27, 2023
Marijuana leaves superimposed over photo of two men.

The Dank Underground

In the late Sixties, countercultural media was distributed by the Underground Press Syndicate and bankrolled by marijuana.
by J. Hoberman via New York Review of Books on May 26, 2023
Image of theater proscenium with '1776' on the stage.ng

The '1776' Project

The Broadway revival of the musical means less to reanimate the nation’s founding than to talk back to it.
by Jane Kamensky via The Atlantic on October 13, 2022
Black and white photograph of Mark Twain

Mark Twain in Buffalo

Mark Twain would be hopelessly out of favor with both wings of the modern duopoly.
by Bill Kauffman via The Spectator on January 3, 2022
Photo collage of Republican men, with Donald Trump at the center.

A Short History of Conservative Trolling

On the laughing emptiness at the center of the Republican Party.
by Rick Perlstein via Intelligencer on October 26, 2021
Book entitled: This Little Book Contains Every Reason Why Women Should Not Vote, 1917

Why Women Should Not Vote (1917)

A humorous 1917 blank notebook invites consideration of the fight for women’s suffrage in the USA.
by Melissa McCarthy via The Public Domain Review on October 27, 2020

What Ever Happened to Chicken Fat?

Comedy from Mad Magazine to The Simpsons.
by Jackson Arn via 3 Quarks Daily on July 27, 2020

The Fall and Rise of the Guillotine

Ideologues of left and right have learned to stop worrying and love rhetorical violence.
by Parker Richards via The New Republic on June 12, 2020

“The Russians are Coming, the Russians are Coming”

It’s hardly a secret, but, for a land that bills itself as a land of freedom and opportunity, America can be inhospitable to just about anyone.
by Olivia Rutigliano via Public Books on March 12, 2020

The Strange Decline of H.L. Mencken

No American writer has wielded such influence. So why is he so little known today?
by John Rossi via The American Conservative on July 9, 2018
A collage of a still from "All in the Family" on a stylized television with another television in the background.

Fandom's Great Divide

The schism isn't between TV viewers who love a show and those who hate it—it’s between those who love it in very different ways.
by Emily Nussbaum via The New Yorker on March 31, 2014

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