You Can't Have Ideological Conflict When One Side Abandons Ideas

by Timothy Noah

Sociologist Daniel Bell described ideology as "the commitment to the consequences of ideas." If this doesn't describe the GOP today, the author wonders how well the term "party of ideas" ever applied. 

Jefferson Cowie: A Long History of White Grievance Aimed at the Federal Government

A microhistory of one Alabama county suggests that "freedom" has always been imagined by many white Americans to encompass their ability to dominate or exploit others, a vision that has been antagonistic to federal intervention.

Ailing Empires: The Rhetoric of Decline in Britain and the US

by Jed Esty

If the US is following behind Great Britain in experiencing the strains of a collapsing empire, can Americans, their leaders, and their thinkers learn any lessons from the comparison and make a post-imperial society that is more humane and less nasty? 

Satanic Panic Has Featured in American Politics Since the Revolution

by Zara Anishanslin

Revolutionary patriots used the symbol of the Devil to convey the ideas of corruption and tyranny, and to elevate political disagreements to the plane of good and evil. 

White Backlash is America's Most Destructive Habit

by John S. Huntington and Lawrence Glickman

The authors endorse the term "counterrevolution" for a repeated pattern of political mobilization among White Americans combining distrust of democracy, apocalyptic rhetoric about the effects of racial equality, and the endorsement of antidemocratic and violent means to halt change.

The Next Lost Cause?

by Caroline E. Janney

The South’s mythology glamorized a noble defeat. Trump backers may do the same.

The Violence at the Root of the Silent Majority

by Brian Tochterman

As a vigilante film, “Joe” inaugurated a genre that exploded onto screens in the 1970s.

Madison’s Sorrow Goes Beyond Pompeo's Dinners

by Kevin C. O'Leary

We are stuck with two major parties and when one party abandons the broad liberal-conservative center, the system stops working.