Newsletter
In recent months, the breathtaking radicalism and brazen corruption of the current Supreme Court has reignited the longstanding debate over reforming the Court by expanding the number of Justices. As often happens, these discussions about a potential change in our government are shaped significantly by our understanding — or misunderstanding — of
Newsletter
In the wake of the recent rout of the far right in France — with all the deserved attention to the ways in which leftists and centrists put aside their infighting to defeat a common foe — I thought I’d write a short post on a bizarre idea that keeps cropping
Newsletter
The current Supreme Court of the United States has just cemented its place in history as the most radical Supreme Court ever. For a century and a half, that dishonor has gone to the antebellum court led by Chief Justice Roger Taney, whose pro-slavery perversions of the Constitution brought us
Newsletter
When I saw today’s news that Louisiana has become the first state to mandate the display of the Ten Commandments in all public school classrooms, I thought it sounded a lot like the 1950s campaign to put the Ten Commandments in classrooms that I chronicled in One Nation Under
Newsletter
Work in Progress is a recurring feature on CAMPAIGN TRAILS for paid subscribers. I’m using it to share some of the more interesting materials I’ve uncovered in the past few years of research for my book-in-progress on the work of John Doar and the Civil Rights Division in
Newsletter
Over the past few months, as Donald Trump was indicted, booked, fingerprinted, tried and then convicted on 34 felony counts, his campaign has been sadly pushing an incredibly racist argument that these convictions would only make him more relatable to African American voters. And when most people reacted as though
Newsletter
So, this Saturday is my 52nd birthday but, more important for this space, the 1st birthday of this little newsletter. (Throws confetti.) Because I’ll be away all weekend taking part at the American Political History Conference at Vanderbilt, I thought I’d go ahead and mark the moment now.
Newsletter
I noted in my last post that the Republican Party is engaged in an anti-democratic campaign of minority rule, and the Texas GOP has helpfully provided yet another stark illustration of that fact. The excellent reporting of the Texas Tribune tells us that the Texas Republican Party is currently considering
Newsletter
This post is a little unusual for CAMPAIGN TRAILS, but we’re heading into a long holiday weekend, so … why not. This morning I woke up to an email from a columnist at a major newspaper, asking for my input on a topic they were considering for an upcoming piece
Newsletter
Work in Progress is a recurring feature on CAMPAIGN TRAILS for paid subscribers. I’m using it to share some of the more interesting materials I’ve uncovered in the past few years of research for my book-in-progress on the work of John Doar and the Civil Rights Division in
Newsletter
Being an academic means attending a lot of conferences. Some are sprawling ones for the whole profession (in my case, historians), or large parts of the profession (U.S. historians), or smaller subsets of the profession (urban, Southern, etc.). But every now and then, there’s a small focused conference
Newsletter
This afternoon, Senator Tom Cotton — whom you might remember from his previous principled stances like “drivers should simply assault left-wing protesters,” “the military should simply attack left-wing protesters” and “right-wing protesters may have assaulted cops but they’re the *real* victims here” — has offered more of the kind of high-minded