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"A National Game that is Played Out," political cartoon, engraving by Thomas Nast. From Harper's Weekly, 23 December 1876, page 1044.

Who Counts?

A look at voter rights through political cartoons.

The Tyranny of the Minority, from Iowa Caucus to Electoral College

The problem of minority rule isn’t Trumpian or temporary; it’s bipartisan and enduring.

When Adding New States Helped the Republicans

DC statehood would be a modest ploy compared with the mass admission of underpopulated western territories.
Frederic Remington illustration of Wounded Knee massacre.

Midterms and Troops: The Bid to Save a Party that Led to the Wounded Knee Massacre

The political context for one of the worst atrocities ever to take place on U.S. soil.
Voters casting ballots in 2008.
partner

The United States Isn’t a Democracy — And Was Never Intended to Be

Voting has always been restricted to empower a minority.

You Probably Don't Know This About U.S. Elections

From voting rights to the electoral college, a brief explainer on three widespread misconceptions about voting.

No Matter What He Does, History Says Trump Will Never be Popular

Presidents who win the electoral college but lose the popular vote never really recover.

How Impeachment Ended Up in the Constitution

James Madison thought of a lot of good reasons to impeach a President. Members of Congress might want to consult his list.
Delegates on the floor at the Democratic National Convention at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, August 26, 1964.

How to Steal an Election

The crazy history of nominating Conventions.
A political cartoon depicting the candidates in the 1824 election.

Was Andrew Jackson Really the People's Choice in 1824?

In 1828, Jackson's campaign argued that an 1824 victory was stolen from him. Is it really so clear-cut?
A sign in support of Donald Trump in front of an Ohio junkyard in 2024.
partner

The 2024 Election Marked the Inversion of the Electoral Map

Instead of trying to recapture working class votes, Democrats should be focused on building the kind of economy they need to expand the political map.

The Echoes of 1800 in the 2024 Election

This year’s momentous vote strangely resembles one of the most consequential elections in American history.
Horace Greeley

This Presidential Candidate Died in a Sanatorium Less Than a Month After Losing the Election

Horace Greeley ran against incumbent Ulysses S. Grant in November 1872. Twenty-four days later, he died of unknown causes at a private mental health facility.

Not “Three-Fifths of a Person”

What the three-fifths clause meant at ratification.
Collage of Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and Ted Kennedy on the campaign trail.

The Debate Gaffe That Changed American History

And cost Gerald Ford the presidency.
Photo of Donald Trump at a podium and pointing.

The Supreme Court Must Unanimously Strike Down Trump’s Ballot Removal

Excluding him, wrongfully, by a close vote of the Supreme Court could well trigger the next Civil War.
Gen. Robt. E. Lee, 1886.

After the Civil War, Robert E. Lee Couldn't Run for President, but Trump Can?

Despite Trump’s efforts to overturn the election, a Colorado state judge stretches the word “officer,” permitting him to remain on the state’s ballot.
Fourteenth Amendment.

The Fourteenth Amendment's Ambiguous Section Three

Scholars and pundits are suddenly interested in the section disqualifying insurrectionists from offices. But text and history don't offer clear answers.
Engraving of "We the People," in which the words "We" and "the" are painted over.

How Do We Survive the Constitution?

In “Tyranny of the Minority,” Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt argue that the document has doomed our politics. But it can also save them.
The community organizer Sylvester Hoover and Nikole Hannah-Jones, Greenwood, Mississippi; from episode 6 of The 1619 Project.

History Bright and Dark

Americans have often been politically divided. But have the divisions over how we recount our history ever been so deep?

Republicans Have Won the Senate Half the Time Since 2000 Despite Winning Fewer Votes than Democrats

How the Senate has become a bastion of Republican minority rule.
Neon cowboy on I-80 at Nevada’s border with Utah.

The Senate's Anti-Democratic Nature Is Even More Toxic Than I’d Realized

Whole states of the Union owe their very existence to nothing more nation-building than 19th-Century pols’ wanting to add new senators to one side of the aisle.
Drawing of Al Gore at the 2000 Democratic Convention.

Has the United States Ever Been a Democracy?

Jedediah Purdy's new book examines why the U.S. has continuously failed to qualify as a system defined by popular rule.
Donald Trump supporters storm the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

The Failure of Reconstruction Is to Blame for the Weakness of American Democracy

A new book argues that the American right emerged out of a backlash to multiracial democracy following the Civil War.
An American flag stylized as a ball bearing maze.

The United States’ Unamendable Constitution

How our inability to change America’s most important document is deforming our politics and government.
Picture of a cross necklace over a suit.

The Faith and Its Keepers

In the 1990s, liberal intellectuals complained that evangelicals were moralistic on political questions. Now the complaint is reversed.
Graphic design of a red, fractured United States on a yellow background

There Is Absolutely Nothing to Support the ‘Independent State Legislature’ Theory

Such a doctrine would be antithetical to the Framers’ intent, and to the text, fundamental design, and architecture of the Constitution.

Toward a Non-Usable History

"The New York Times" as the world's most exhausted professor.
Collage of photos including man in NYC Census 2020 shirt, chairs in the House chamber, and a "critical error" message

Democracy Is Asking Too Much of Its Data

The latest US Census—used to decide representation in Congress—is flawed. One surprising solution? Enlarge the House of Representatives.
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?

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