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Mitch McConnell

How Did the Senate End Up With Supermajority Gridlock?

The Constitution meant for Congress to pass bills by a simple majority. But the process has changed over the decades.
Image of John C. Calhoun

How Slavery Haunts Today’s Big Debates About Federal Spending

John C. Calhoun knew what a strong federal government might do.
A portrait of John C. Calhoun

No, John C. Calhoun Didn’t Invent the Filibuster

As convenient as it might be to blame the filibuster on the famous defender of slavery, the historical record is much messier.
The word "bipartisanship" with the "bi" scribbled out.

The Case for Partisanship

Bipartisanship might not be dead. But it is on life support. And it’s long past time we pulled the plug.
Newt Gingrich and applauding Republicans

My Front Row Seat to the Radicalization of the Republican Party

As a political reporter, I've seen four Republican revolutions — Reagan’s, Gingrich’s, the Tea Party’s and Trump’s — each of which took the party farther right.
Four stars with different designs

How America Fractured Into Four Parts

People in the United States no longer agree on the nation’s purpose, values, history, or meaning. Is reconciliation possible?
Cartoon of politicians arguing

The Gilded Age’s Democratic Contradictions

How the late 19th century’s raucous party system gave way to a sedate and exclusionary political culture that erected more and more barriers to participation.
partner

Tucker Carlson’s Cries About Immigrants Have a Disturbing 19th-Century Parallel

The “great replacement theory” is nothing new.
Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.).
partner

House Republicans’ Leadership Fight Signals a New Direction

Leadership battles tell us a lot about where a party is headed.
Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln’s Rowdy America

A new biography details the cultural jumble of literature, dirty jokes, and everything in between that went into the making of the foremost self-made American.
Eleanor Holmes Norton speaks, with Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer behind her.
partner

Is the Two-Century Battle for D.C. Statehood Finally Near an End?

The struggle for autonomy and representation has been full of gains followed by setbacks.
Senator Chuck Schumer walking to the Senate floor through a room filled with cots in preparation for an all-night debate in an attempt to break a Republican filibuster, July 2007

Can the Senate Restore Majority Rule?

The filibuster, invented to uphold slavery, must be eliminated if Democrats hope to deliver progressive legislation.
The GOP elephant depicted as falling apart

What Is Happening to the Republicans?

In becoming the party of Trump, the G.O.P. confronts the kind of existential crisis that has destroyed American parties in the past.
Representatives Young Kim and Michelle Steele
partner

What the Election of Asian American GOP Women Means For the Party

While American conservatism remains largely White, it has slowly but surely become less so.

The Murder Chicago Didn’t Want to Solve

In 1963, a Black politician named Ben Lewis was shot to death in Chicago. Decades later, it remains no accident authorities never solved the crime.
class politics graphic of voters facing off

The Politics of a Second Gilded Age

Mass inequality in the Gilded Age thrived on identity-based partisanship, helping extinguish the fires of class rage. In 2021, we’re headed down the same path.
"We the People"; US Constitution

It Would Be Great if the United States Were Actually a Democracy

The pervasive mythmaking about the supposed wisdom of the founders has covered up a central truth: the US Constitution is an antidemocratic mess.
A red, white, and blue star over a cropped portrait of James Madison.

America Must Become a Democracy

The authors of the Constitution feared mass participation would unsettle government, but it’s the privileged minority that has proved destabilizing.
Civil rights era photo of young people protesting for voting rights in between black and white photos of black people lined up to vote

American Democracy Is Only 55 Years Old—And Hanging by a Thread

Black civil-rights activists—and especially Black women—delivered on the promise of the Founding. Their victories are in peril.
A man during the Capitol Siege holding a Confederate flag.

The Case for a Third Reconstruction

The enduring lesson of American history is that the republic is always in danger when white supremacist sedition and violence escape justice.
Demonstrators at the 1970 Hardhat Riot in New York City.

Backlash Forever

It’s time to abandon the assumption that workers have a “natural” home on the center-left.
Headshot of Angie Maxwell.

Political Scientist Angie Maxwell on Countering the 'Long Southern Strategy'

For decades, the Republican Party has used what's known as "the Southern Strategy" to win white support in the region.
A composite photograph of South Carolina's majority-black legislature created and circulated by opponents of Reconstruction

The Austerity Politics of White Supremacy

Since the end of the Confederacy, the cult of the “taxpayer” has provided a socially acceptable veneer for racist attacks on democracy.
Rudy Giuliani and a graphic that says "multiple pathways to victory."

Disenfranchisement: An American Tradition

Invoking the specter of voter fraud to undermine democratic participation is a tactic as old as the United States itself.

The Real History of Race and the New Deal

Material benefits trumped FDR's terrible civil rights records.
Henry Wallace.

The Past and Future of the Left in the Democratic Party

Centrist Democrats who blamed the left for election losses would do well to remember the people who have fought for and shaped the party’s history.

Republicans Rediscover the Dangers of Selling Bunk to Their Constituents

Cynical public speech aimed at winning political power has consequences.
Drawing of Lincoln with his hand on a Bible during a swearing-in with two other people

The Presidential Transition That Shattered America

A Trump-Biden transition is sure to be scary. But it’d be hard to beat Buchanan-Lincoln.
A political cartoon of one hand holding another down on a gun.

“If Anybody Says Election to Me, I Want to Fight”

The messy election of 1876.

Making the Supreme Court Safe for Democracy

Beyond packing schemes, we need to diminish the high court’s power.

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