Joseph McCarthy

The late historian and author of “The Paranoid Style in American Politics” misdiagnosed the fate of modern conservatism.

Even knowing every awful thing Richard Nixon would go on to do, you had to respect, as the phrase goes, his hustle.

In 1950, the U.S. State Department fired 91 employees because they were homosexual or suspected of being homosexual.

The long history of politicians claiming to be victims of lynching and racial violence.

A documentary about his life and circle is a study in complicity.

Despite a thriving queer community in Washington, the 1950s State Department fired gay and lesbian workers en masse.

The self-congratulatory legacies of ‘A Face in the Crowd.’

On the 50th anniversary of RFK's death, a glimpse inside one of his closest relationships.

Fifty years later, the legacies of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy still loom large.

The actor who played the loveable grocer found his way to Sesame Street after being blacklisted during the Red Scare.

Warnings against "normalizing" outrageous political acts misstate the problem. It’s never the immediate present that gets normalized — it’s the not-so-distant past.

How Angels in America put Roy Cohn into the definitive story of AIDS.

It's the transatlantic commentariat’s favorite political put-down. It’s also historically illiterate.

It's not as new as it seems.

Decades before Watergate, mobsters helped turn hearings into must-see television.

American has long been suspicious of “elites”, but just who they are has changed a lot over the last 200 years.

Remembering the switchboard operator who listened in on Cohn’s calls with Nancy Reagan, Gloria Vanderbilt, Carlo Gambino, and Trump.

If you're wondering how Trump happened, all you have to do is let Pat Buchanan beguile you with a history no one else can tell.

President Trump’s criticisms of government workers have something in common with Joe McCarthy’s.

How Joseph McCarthy henchman Roy Cohn became Donald Trump’s mentor.