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True to form, Donald Trump celebrated his arrest yesterday with a speech before his most loyal sycophants. It was the usual firehose of falsehoods. Among other lies, the former president asserted that “according to the Presidential Records Act, which was a big deal, I was supposed to negotiate with NARA”
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With Donald Trump set to be arraigned on federal charges this afternoon, we’ve heard a great deal of commentary about what this moment means in the course of American history. As I noted previously here, the argument advanced by Trump’s defenders — that it’s “illegal and unprecedented” for
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I promised there would be some additional special features for paid subscribers, including AMA chats so … here’s an AMA! Happy to answer any questions about my research and writing, both past projects and the current one. Or questions about contemporary political developments and social movements and/or the history
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“There are decades when nothing happens,” Vladimir Lenin once observed, “and there are weeks when decades happen.” Changes that seem impossible for so long can, in an instant, unfold in a way that later seems inevitable. Sixty years ago today, just such a revolution took place in the long stalemate
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The diehard defenders of former President Trump have been insisting this week that the Presidential Records Act means that he had the right to keep whatever materials he wanted from his presidency. The National Archives has shot this stupidity down, pointing to the clear language of the law and speaking
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Just a short note for a Saturday, as I cannot stop laughing about the image of Donald Trump’s Combination Toilet and Top Secret Document Storage Facility. In the past, when we’ve thought about the grand history of presidents and potties, there have been a handful of usual suspects.
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I promised that I’d use Campaign Trails to offer historical perspectives on breaking news, and we certainly had that last night with the stunning revelation that Donald Trump will soon be indicted on federal charges. Trump and his allies are already claiming that a federal indictment of a former
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I already had a nice debut post scheduled for Monday, but the news of Pat Robertson’s passing warrants a post today. Though many people know Robertson for his effort to put the agenda of conservative Christians on the national radar — through his presidential campaign in 1988 and through his
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Welcome to Campaign Trails! I’m an American historian who’s spent the last three decades researching, writing and teaching about some of the most important developments in the United States across the twentieth century — the rise of modern conservatism, the civil rights movement, religious nationalism, and a wide range