Sublime

After the Civil War, African-Americans had remained loyal to the party that had freed them—the Republican Party of Lincoln—for more than half a century, from Reconstruction to Depression. When the Depression struck, however, the heartlessness of Republicans—and of another Republican President, Hoover—changed that, particularly after the arrival in

Ironically, Wilson had appealed for black votes in 1912 and had actually won the largest number ever given to a Democratic presidential candidate. But the anti-Negro bias of the administration caused most blacks to return to the Republican Party, where they remained until FDR ran in 1932.

During his second year in the House, he wrote—himself, with no staff assistance—a bill embodying the old People’s Party dream of intensified government regulation of railroads, by giving the government authority over the issuance of new securities by the railroads. Happening, by chance, to see the bill, Louis D. Brandeis, then one of President Wils

While totalitarian regimes in Italy, Germany, and Japan were building huge military machines, America scrapped its navy, reduced its army, tried to lull itself into a belief that trouble could best be avoided by ignoring it, and refused to participate in attempts to create a collective security and an international rule of law. The Twenties and Thi

The election turned into a popularity contest between Eisenhower and Stevenson, waged before a backdrop of twenty years of Democratic rule.

Donald Trump kept trying to thread the needle with birther accusations. Maybe this sitting president isn’t a real American. Maybe this election—of a man, by the way, who was scrutinized the first time he ran for office—is a case where we need to take a closer look. This all happens on a more fundamental level than policy disputes. It would be comed

For years, the New Right has had little political representation and been treated as beneath notice by the mainstream press. This is no longer an option, especially in a social media world. Its members are smart, they are organized, and, most importantly, they do have a very coherent worldview. Illiterately tweeting “YOUR RACIST” over and over at o

Pundits on television news programs discuss politics as a horse race or compare the effectiveness of pseudo-events staged by candidates. They do not discuss ideas, issues, or meaningful reform.

the Old Guard’s Warren G. Harding was elevated directly from his Senate desk to the White House, in his ears his colleagues’ admonition to “sign whatever bills the Senate sent him and not send bills for the Senate to pass.” Under Harding and Coolidge and Hoover, this “normalcy” was to last for almost a decade—a decade during which, slowly but stead