Departments

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2020 Election

  • SOURCE: Vanity Fair
    7/7/2020

    Why a Biden Administration Shouldn’t Turn the Page on the Trump Era

    by Kevin M. Kruse

    The Obama–Biden administration wanted to move forward rather than hold Wall Street bankers and CIA torturers accountable. If elected, Biden should follow FDR’s playbook and expose his predecessor’s corruption and mismanagement instead.

  • SOURCE: Washington Post
    7/5/2020

    Trump is Running an Openly Racist Campaign

    by Max Boot

    Trump is running an openly racist campaign at odds with public opinion that has shifted against Confederate monuments and in favor of Black Lives Matter. So he prefers to pretend that he is battling against the unreasonable demands of “cancel culture” — and his supporters pretend to believe him. 

  • SOURCE: The Atlantic
    6/30/2020

    Leave Lincoln Out of It

    Andrew Ferguson argues that the Lincoln Project's anti-Trump ads follow Abe Lincoln's lead in one respect: they echo the young Lincoln's talent for partisan attacks and inflammatory rhetoric. They inflame and agitate, but don't persuade. 

  • SOURCE: Politico
    6/19/2020

    The Woman Who Helped Save Joe Biden

    In 1993, Carol Moseley Braun, the first black woman in the Senate, joined Biden’s Judiciary Committee. It solved an image problem for Biden. The results were groundbreaking.

  • 6/21/2020

    Dear Vice President Biden: Bring Achievers Back to the White House

    by Joseph A. Esposito

    Joseph Biden is urged to remember John F. Kennedy's admiration and celebration of achievement and Franklin Roosevelt's spirit of pragmatic experimentation in his campaign. Should he be elected, he'll need inspiration to lead the nation out of dire circumstances.

  • SOURCE: The Atlantic
    6/16/2020

    It Didn’t Have to Be Like This

    The New Deal, per historian Eric Rauchway, illustrates the relationship between the American economy and American democracy.

  • 6/14/2020

    What if Trump Refuses to Leave?

    by Richard Striner

    History offers few guidelines for how to handle the increasingly plausible scenario of a defeated president refusing to leave office. 

  • 6/7/2020

    Six Reasons Besides Racism Americans Voted For Trump

    by Walter G. Moss

    Donald Trump certainly exploited many white Americans' racism to win votes in 2016. But there are some other disturbing trends--from our anti-intellectualism to our taste for celebrity--that he could exploit again.

  • SOURCE: TomDispatch
    5/31/2020

    Donald Trump May Not Be Herbert Hoover

    by Tom Engelhardt

    Trump, unlike President Herbert Hoover, may usher us into a true Great Depression and possibly not suffer a staggering defeat at the polls in November, as that president did in 1932.

  • SOURCE: Washington Post
    6/2/2020

    Law And Order Won’t Help Trump Win Reelection

    by Kevin M. Kruse

    The call for “law and order” is a complaint that those tasked with upholding the law and maintaining order have failed at the job and need to be replaced.

  • SOURCE: Washington Post
    5/31/2020

    This Election Isn't 1968 or 1992 or 2016

    Richard Nixon won by portraying himself as a unifier against an out-of-control left; Bill Clinton won reelection by carefully navigating the politics of crime and unrest. There is nothing very careful, yet, about what we've seen from this president.

  • SOURCE: Urban Milwaukee
    5/26/2020

    Wisconsin’s Long History As Swing State

    Wisconsin's status as a swing state in presidential elections is nothing new. It reflects the state's part in major trends in American history including immigration, urbanization, and the rural-urban divide.

  • SOURCE: London Review of Books
    5/21/2020

    The Corrupt Bargain (Review Essay)

    by Eric Foner

    Eric Foner argues that reasons both strategic and idealistic informed the establishment of the Electoral College, and recent books support the case for its abolition.