Power

Gouverneur Morris wrote the preamble to the Constitution. Later in life, he rejected the foundational document as a failure.

The twentieth century saw America discard representative government when it comes to war.

Louis Ludlow’s war referendum amendment was the high-water mark of American antiwar populism.

A detailed, exhausting, and ultimately too-gentle treatment of the midcentury writer and editor, Frank Meyer.

Both presidents have records as avid deregulators of environmental rules for industry, but Trump’s efforts to cast doubt on science go in a different direction.

Proposed as a compromise to ensure the ratification of the new US Constitution, the Bill of Rights has become a critical protector of civil liberties.

Frank Meyer’s journey took him from communist agitator to conservative kingmaker.

There’s a lot more to Founding Father John Dickinson than not signing the Declaration of Independence.

If he wins the New York City mayoral election, Zohran Mamdani will not be in totally uncharted territory.

If we want democracy to survive, we need a vision that’s going to be more compelling than the one the authoritarians are offering.

Nixon’s 1973 firing of a Watergate prosecutor raised questions about executive power, accountability and the limits of the law.

He has produced a crisis much like the one the colonists faced two and a half centuries ago. Now it’s our responsibility to uphold the Founders’ legacy.

The often-overlooked institutions of the federal government truly do matter and so do the individuals who lead those institutions and give them direction.

The history of gerrymandering suggests that the current redistricting race for short-term partisan gain indicates a period of political instability on the way.

How an astrologer's direction steered presidential travel, public appearances, and meetings.

Historians have long grappled with “the American Paradox” of Revolutionary leaders who fought for their own liberty while denying it to enslaved Black people.

The conservative movement "assumed it had intellectual ownership over the presidency," but an NEH appointment fight reveals the Reagan administration disagreed.

The agency once projected America’s loftiest ideals. Then it ceded its ambitions to Elon Musk.

Ideological entrepreneur, architect of ruin.

JFK's presidential win in 1960 offers a guide for how Democrats can rebound in 2025.

George Lunn, socialist mayor of Schenectady, New York rose to power in 1911 by making a difference in people's lives.

Can Zohran Mamdani reshape New York—and national—politics like Mayor Fiorello La Guardia once did?

Both Trump and Cleveland employed the rhetoric of worthiness and efficiency, anti-fraud and anti-corruption, as justifications for their austerity measures.

Robert La Follette saw politics as a never-ending struggle for democracy and fairness and preached perseverance.

Where they come from, how they've evolved, and how they could change.

He didn’t give the tech right new ideas—not really. What he gave them was permission.

"The Cycles of American History" foresaw American voter dealignment, and an age of voters prioritizing personality over party—but it didn’t anticipate Trump.

He believes in Federalist 70’s “Energy in the Executive.”

During the Reagan revolution, Democrats settled on a new way to win—and it’s destroying them now.

Truths self-evident no more.