Person

Donald Trump

Related Excerpts

John Brown stands armed, positioned before Union and Confederate people fighting amid smoke and devastation.

Why Donald Trump Wants to Erase John Brown’s Fiery Abolitionist Legacy (and Why He Will Fail)

Reflections on Harper's Ferry amid a government shutdown.
Illustration of a Revolution, of a mob holding forks and knives, fighting men on horses.

The Insurrection Problem

Violence has marred the American constitutional order since the founding. Is it inevitable?
Sen. Joseph Lieberman watches videos with David Walsh, on the effects of video games on children.
partner

Video Games Have Long Been a Convenient Scapegoat

Blaming video games for violence saves Americans from having to grapple with deeper, harder to solve societal problems.
1952 artwork of six different people standing in separate boxes.

Nothing Left Inside

How America learned not to fear the inner self but lost its places of belonging.

America’s Greatest Mistake

Globalization left millions behind as a policy and transformed the world politically, a new book argues.
Rows of men seated at computer terminals at Kennedy Space Center, 1967.
partner

America’s Privacy Policy

Recent news coverage has called the Privacy Act of 1974 “Watergate-inspired,” but such framing misses the big picture.
White paper peeled back to reveal presidents Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon and Donald Trump in red stripes.

Backlash Presidents

How three eras of racial progress gave way to the presidencies of Johnson, Nixon, and Trump.
President Woodrow Wilson delivers an address in, 1915.

Democratization and Congressional Decline

To understand Congress’s abdication, look at the history of presidential selection.
Chief Justice John Roberts.

The Roberts Court Is Winning Its War on American Democracy

Chief Justice John Roberts has now overseen 20 years of increasingly illiberal rulings by the Supreme Court.
Sam Francis in front of a Confederate flag.

Only Power Matters

How Samuel Francis wrote the recipe for MAGA.
Georgia Bulldog Football team warms up at their stadium.

A Historian’s Notes on College Football’s New Money Era

College football’s NIL era has freed athletes but fueled chaos, soaring costs, and fan backlash.
Screen capture of Robert Redford in the film "Sneakers"

Robert Redford, Environmentalism, and the Most Prescient Movie Ever Made

Redford’s legacy as an environmental activist and his 1992 film "Sneakers" reveal his foresight on climate, politics, and surveillance.
A US military LeTourneau LCC-1 Sno-Train carrying supplies near Camp Century in 1959.

Thin Ice: The History of US Involvement in Greenland

Donald Trump's quest to acquire Greenland has a precedent in US Cold War history. We should consider it a cautionary tale.
Split rectangle: one side blue, one side red.

How Today’s America Came About

Two different accounts from former Democratic Party insiders about the “giant U-turn” from postwar prosperity to the polarization and inequality of today.
The author and other children picketing the Board of Education in protest of her father's firing.

A General Air of Anxiety

The Red Scare targeted my father. He taught me the meaning of resistance.
Pancho Villa

Where is the Skull of Pancho Villa?

Pancho Villa’s death reveals how the border blurs the relationship between Mexico and the United States.
National Guard troops enforce desegregation at Central High School in Little Rock, AK, 1957.
partner

The History of School Desegregation Reveals the Job Isn't Done

One of the most famous episodes of school desegregation was actually just the starting point for a half-century struggle.
Edit of different mayoral candidates distored to spiral

Fusionism Has Never Worked. Democrats Keep Trying Anyway.

Mamdani’s NYC mayoral rise revives debates over Democratic fusionism, echoing 1890s Populist struggles with establishment power.
A WTO protest banner in front of the Space Needle in Seattle.

When Trade Was at a Crossroads

When the WTO gathered in Seattle in 1999, protests erupted. Their strategy offers a model for resisting globalization at a time of renewed urgency.
Collage of photos of Lionel Trilling.

Lionel Trilling and the Limits of Crisis-Thought

Lionel Trilling defends humanism amid crisis culture, warning that obsessing over evil can erode the self and our capacity for moral and creative agency.