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I know you’re sick of hearing that This Is The Most Important Election of Your Life, but as a scholar who’s devoted his career to studying American political history, I am telling you that No, Seriously, This Is The Most Important Election of Your Life. Despite the incredibly
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As I’ve noted on Bluesky, one of the hazards of being a scholar who works on modern American politics is that when this nation goes through an important presidential campaign, especially one with high stakes, there’s a constant stream of friends, family members and, of course, random people
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Before I dig into my topic today, I wanted to apologize for the relatively light posting the last month. I’d planned on posting more as we hit the homestretch of the presidential campaign, but a recent family tragedy — a swift decline in my mom’s health and then her
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Part of the appeal of Donald Trump’s gauzy promise to “Make America Great Again” is that it’s vague enough to appeal to constituencies who have little more than an unfocused nostalgia for some mythical golden age in the American past. Whenever reporters have tried to pin Trump or
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I’ve always been puzzled by the pundits who worried that Kamala Harris wouldn’t do well in a debate. Again, this is the senator who reduced Brett Kavanaugh to rubble. Yes, her 2020 presidential campaign didn’t pan out, but that was largely because she was running in a
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This morning, New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger authored a piece in the pages of his competitor, the Washington Post, chronicling the rising dangers to a free press in America. It’s a lengthy read, but it does a thorough job of detailing the rising dangers to American journalism
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Just a short follow-up on yesterday’s post: As I noted last time, the Democrats have been moving closer to an embrace of the capacious meaning of freedom advanced by Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Second World War. In his famous formulation of “The Four Freedoms,” FDR championed “freedom of
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The third night of the Democratic National Convention was framed around the theme of “freedom,” a word that has increasingly become a mainstay of the Harris campaign (and not just because it’s great walk up music). And a night focusing on “freedom” marks the culmination of a subtle but
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The second night of the Democratic National Convention kicked off with a raucous roll call of the states, set to a soundtrack of hit songs (and a live appearance by Lil Jon) and orchestrated by a literal DJ on stage. It was all fun, but also a fitting start for
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As I noted yesterday, the first night of the Democratic National Convention turned into a pretty defiant and pretty impressive union rally. And that was crystal clear even before the incumbent president took the stage and basked in chants of “Union Joe!” Not surprisingly, President Biden gave one of the
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Just as I did with the bizarre train wreck that was the Republican National Convention, I’ll be posting each day of this week’s Democratic National Convention. Joe Biden is technically the headliner for the first night of the convention, which is an unusual spot for an incumbent president,
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For those of you who wisely decided to avoid the conversation between Elon Musk and Donald Trump, or who were unable to tune in due to Twitter’s crapulence, or who were unable to understand Trump’s mouthful of marbles, I’m sad to report that there’s a full