Election of 2016 — Bunk History

Female Trouble

Clinton's memoir addresses the gendered discourse and larger feminist contexts of the 2016 presidential campaign.

by Annette Gordon-Reed via New York Review of Books on January 22, 2018

What Facebook Did to American Democracy

And why it was so hard to see it coming.

by Alexis C. Madrigal via The Atlantic on October 12, 2017

Trump and the Historians

What the election of 2016 should mean for the future of studying the past.

by Brent Cebul on September 1, 2017

Obama and Trump at Trump's inauguration.

Why Obama Voters Defected

New findings explain how Trump won them over—and why he probably wouldn’t next time.

by Jamelle Bouie via Slate on June 20, 2017

Why Do They Hate Her?

Hillary Clinton is the most maligned presidential loser in history. What’s going on?

by Joshua Zeitz via Politico Magazine on June 3, 2017

What Trump Gets Right—and Progressives Get Wrong—About Andrew Jackson

In the 19th century, Jackson broadened the electorate, but the self-righteousness of some Democrats impedes their efforts to do the same.

by Theodore R. Johnson III via The Atlantic on May 2, 2017

Trump's Predictable Rise

Trump's election isn't cause for reassessing politics as we know it.

by Josh Mound via Jacobin on April 21, 2017

Trump Isn't the Apotheosis of Conservatism

Writers like Rick Perlstein miss the ways in which Trump’s rise is a story of discontinuity.

by David Frum via The Atlantic on April 15, 2017

Don’t Look to History for an Analogue to Trump’s Victory

Looking to history for an analogue to Trump’s victory does a disservice to the present and the past.

by Rebecca Onion via Slate on November 9, 2016

How the Demise of Her Health-Care Plan Led to the Politician Clinton Is Today

As first lady, Clinton rejected the ways of Washington and paid a price.

by Amy Goldstein via Washington Post on August 25, 2016

Kamala Harris on stage at a campaign rally

The Polling Imperilment

Presidential polls are no more reliable than they were a century ago. So why do they consume our political lives?

by Rick Perlstein via The American Prospect on September 25, 2024

Crowd marching on Wall Street.

Nationalize the Banks

Grassroots support for public banks early in the 20th century revealed the popularity of socialism-aligned economic ideas.

by Christopher W. Shaw via Catalyst on September 20, 2024

Collage of popular culture references from 2008 onward.

That Feeling You Recognize? Obamacore.

The 2008 election sparked an outburst of brightness and positivity across pop culture. Now hindsight — and cringe — is setting in.

by Nate Jones via Vulture on August 20, 2024

Rural front lawn with a Trump sign.

Our Urban/Rural Political Divide is Both New — And Decades In The Making

Policies dating to the 1930s have helped shape the conflict defining today’s politics.

by Guian McKee via Made By History on October 8, 2021

‘The President Was Not Encouraging’: What Obama Really Thought About Biden

Behind the friendship was a more complicated relationship, which now drives the former vice president to prove his partner wrong.

by Alex Thompson via Politico Magazine on August 14, 2020

Presidential candidates after a Democratic primary debate.

South Carolina May Well Determine Whether Democrats Can Win the Presidency

Winning the South Carolina primary requires exciting a crucial constituency.

by Robert Greene II via Made By History on February 28, 2020

'Evangelical' Has Lost Its Meaning

A term that once described a vital tradition within the Christian faith now means something else entirely.

by Alan Jacobs via The Atlantic on September 22, 2019

The Electoral College Was Terrible From the Start

It’s doubtful even Alexander Hamilton believed what he was selling in “Federalist No. 68.”

by Garrett Epps via The Atlantic on September 8, 2019

Bernie Sanders

The Transformation of Bernie Sanders

How the Vermont senator went from a third-party independent to a 2020 frontrunner.

by Matthew Karp via The Nation on May 7, 2019

How Mark Burnett Resurrected Donald Trump as an Icon of American Success

With “The Apprentice,” the TV producer mythologized Trump as the ultimate titan, paving his way to the Presidency.

by Patrick Radden Keefe via The New Yorker on December 27, 2018

Trump among a group of people with heads bowed in prayer.

Evangelicalism and Politics

Four historians weigh in on evangelicals' affinity for Trump – and their commitment to the conservative movement more broadly.

by John Fea, Lerone A. Martin, Laura Gifford, R. Marie Griffith via The American Historian on November 30, 2018

Goodbye, Cold War

For the first time, we are living in a truly post-cold-war political environment in the United States.

by Aziz Rana via n+1 on November 30, 2018

What Thucydides Knew About the US Today

His accounts of polarization in ancient Athens are as relevant today they were thousands of years ago.

by Edward Mendelson via New York Review of Books on October 29, 2018

The U.S. Needs to Face Up to Its Long History of Election Meddling

Russian electoral interference has renewed the temptation for American leaders to do the same.

by Peter Beinart via The Atlantic on July 22, 2018

Evangelical Fear Elected Trump

The history of evangelicalism in America is shot through with fear—but it also contains an alternative.

by John Fea via The Atlantic on June 24, 2018

The New Old Democrats

It’s not the 1990s anymore. People want the government to help solve big problems. Here’s how the Democrats must respond.

by Jake Sullivan via Democracy Journal on June 20, 2018

White Supremacy Is the Achilles Heel of American Democracy

Even in a high-tech era, fears about minority political agency are the most reliable way to destabilize the U.S. political system.

by Vann R. Newkirk II via The Atlantic on April 17, 2018

Fighting Words

No, “liberal” and “progressive” aren’t synonyms. They have completely different histories—and the differences matter.

by Sean Wilentz via Democracy Journal on March 20, 2018

Book cover of "What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia."

Appalachia Isn’t Trump Country

A region that outsiders love to imagine but can’t seem to understand.

by Elizabeth Catte, Regan Penaluna via Guernica on March 7, 2018

This, Our Second Nadir

Why the Trump Era demands a better understanding of how racism got us into this mess.

by N. D. B. Connolly via Boston Review on February 21, 2018

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