Confronting "Who We Are"
By Verena Erlenbusch-Anderson
The Latest 
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Pardon Me?: The History of the Washington Territorial Government and the Self-Pardon
Michael Schein
The question of self-pardons by an executive isn't a theoretical one. It was resolved – in the negative – by events in the Washington territory in 1856.
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Biden Isn't the First President to Have to Change Tracks en Route to Inauguration
Jeff Rogg
The threat of violence forced Joe Biden to cancel plans to travel from Wilmington to Washington by Amtrak, as he famously did during his Senate years. The decision recalls Lincoln's efforts to avoid the (possibly apocryphal) Baltimore Plot.
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The Politics of an Inauguration Unlike Any Other
Michael A. Genovese
Joe Biden's inauguration will be unlike any other, but he will need to draw on inaugural traditions of declaring purpose and invoking solidarity if he is to begin to repair national division.
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The History of Skipping a Successor's Inauguration
Michael Patrick Cullinane
Trump's decision to skip Biden's inauguration might seem like a mere petty gesture. But it harkens back to previous episodes that reflected times of deep division and political conflict.
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The Free Press and Democracy in a "Murder the Media" Age
Wendy Melillo
Journalism as a profession needs to embrace its historical role as a guardian of democracy and refuse to let objectivity work as a shield for authoritarianism; authoritarians won't accept a free press anyway.
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The Great Evasion
Lawrence Wittner
Joe Biden should reverse the nation's long dereliction of duty in leading the world toward nuclear disarmament and reducing the threat of nuclear war.
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The Long Overdue End of the “Serious Conservative"
Charles J. Holden
Two darlings of the conservative movement – Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley – found themselves in hot water last week after supporting the false narrative of election fraud that inspired the Capitol rioting. It's part of a long legacy of media-anointed "serious conservatives" whose smarts have been inflated.
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Donald Trump’s Situational Fascism
Gavriel Rosenfeld
Rather than engage in an unproductive debate about whether Donald Trump is or is not a bona fide fascist, scholars should consider the events of January 6 (and Trump's role in inciting them) as emergent, contingent results of the interplay of factors latent in American liberal democracy.
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Were Trump's Pardons Even Legal?
James D. Zirin
Almost all the pundits, constitutional lawyers, and members of the professoriate are laying down their arms, largely conceding that the President has broad powers to pardon anyone in the world, with the possible exception of himself. But are they giving too much away?"
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Banana Republic or Nut Country? January 6 Put American Exceptionalism in Perspective
Frank P. Barajas
American political elites have responsed to the Capitol riot by comparing it unfavorably to something that would happen in a "banana republic." The historical record of American interference in Latin America and of our own domestic tumults shows that we may not be bananas, but have had our fair share of nuts.
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Restoring Civil Society by Executive Order?: An Inaugural Reverie
John L. Godwin
Joe Biden should defend the First Amendment right to peaceable assembly by a temporary emergency order criminalizing the carrying of firearms at public protest events and make clear that the threat of force is not part of the democratic process.
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The Problem with a Self-Pardon
Robert J. Spitzer
It is likely that the issue of a president's ability to pardon himself will be contested in short order. A constitutional scholar of the presidency explains why such an action cannot be countenanced in a society of law.
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Blog
The Cult of the Lost Cause and the Invention of General Pickett
Ann Banks
George Pickett – Major General George E. Pickett – was our family’s marquee Confederate relation, distant cousin though he was. Every schoolchild in America has heard of him...
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The Roundup Top Twenty for January 15, 2021
This week was extraordinary. Historians have been working overtime to put current events in perspective. It was impossible to pick the ten best, so we're featuring a double dose of the top opinion writing by historians and about history from around the web.
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Teddy Roosevelt and Josh Hawley's History Lessons
David Goldfischer
Josh Hawley wrote a 2008 biography of Theodore Roosevelt balancing praise of the former president's vision of democracy with condemnation of his grasping for power. One wonders how the author of this book could have acted as the Senator did on January 6.
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Editor's Note on Coverage of the Capitol Riot and Related Events
Michan Connor
The events of January 6 and their ongoing political fallout have dictated changes to HNN's publication schedule this week.
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A Modern Day Lynch Mob Invaded the Capitol on January 6
Guy Lancaster
When the Capitol rioters took selfies and posted their exploits on social media, they worked from the same expectation of impunity as drove participants in Jim Crow lynch mobs.
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Black Women Have Been Important Party and Electoral Organizers for a Century
Alison M. Parker
Black women's political organizing was a key to Joe Biden's victory and the Democratic Senate victories in Georgia; these episodes are part of a long historical tradition of activists using partisan politics to press for racial and gender equality.
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Historians, Insurrectionists and Fragile White Folks
James Brewer Stewart
A historian of abolition and an advocate of racial justice argues that historians must reject the psychological framework of some recent popular antiracist books and learn from the history of activists embodying Frederick Douglass's call for a "moral revolution" through engagement with others.
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Trump's Nero Decree
Frank Domurad
Adolf Hitler coped with the realization of incipient defeat by ordering the destruction of vital infrastructure in Germany as vengeance against a people who had, he believed, failed him. Donald Trump has been taking a similar approach to the nation's infrastructure and the COVID response (except for the border wall).
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A New "Trump Precedent" Under the 25th Amendment?
Devan Charles Lindey
If the vice president and cabinet invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Donald Trump from the powers of the presidency, it would set a new precedent in the largely uncharted territory of dealing with Presidential incapacity.
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Public Speech and Democracy
Sandra Peart
American leaders have failed to support public speech that sustains disagreement without violence. That culture of speech must be rebuilt for democracy to survive.
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Will the Republicans Take the Fascist Option?
Kevin Matthews
Before this past week, too many in the GOP seemed too willing to choose the fascist option. Now they have seen what it looks like and where it leads. The question Republicans must answer is simple: Will they choose fascism anyway?
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Introducing Ann Banks' New HNN Blog "Confederates In My Closet"
"After the 2016 election, the Civil War came for me, and there was nothing quaint about it. As a reinvigorated white supremacy began sweeping the country, I knew it was time to take the Confederates out of the closet."
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Blog
How I got into This
Ann Banks
For decades I harbored in the back of my office closet an archive I inherited from my father’s Alabama kin. Wills bequeathing family oil portraits; yellowed newspaper clipping...
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Images of the Capitol Riot Reflect a National Crisis
Danielle Taana Smith
Treating Trumpism as an aberration rather than as the eruption of deep-seated impulses to bigotry and violence is a dangerous delusion.
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Jefferson's Other Legacy: Religious Liberty
Cameron Addis
Thomas Jefferson's critics have pointed out his ownership of slaves as reason to question his continued relevance as a symbol of freedom. But his commitment to religious liberty helped to prevent violent sectarian conflict and should be honored.
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Historical Rhetoric Resurfaced in Georgia's Runoff Election
Alicia K. Jackson
Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock didn't just defeat their Republican opponents on January 5, they defeated a number of racist tropes that have characterized Georgia politics since Reconstruction.
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Blog
Humphrey and Biden: One Presidential Scholar's Two Political Heroes
Ronald L. Feinman
Hubert Humphrey was the author's first political hero; Joe Biden carries forth many of Humphrey's qualities to lead the country in a time of crisis.
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Leaders Have Shirked Responsibility When Pandemics Affected Presidents
Robert Brent Toplin
It's a matter of speculation whether his illness with COVID-19 has contributed to Trump's recent behavior, but it's not unlikely. It's another episode showing the need for rigorous attention to the issue of presidential incapacitation.
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Lessons for Today from FDR and the Progressives?
Walter G. Moss
Drawing lessons for Joe Biden's fraught entry to the presidency from FDR requires considering some unexpected virtues like empathy and humor.
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Will VMI Move Further Toward Change and Away from Stonewall Jackson?
Wallace Hettle
Removing the statue of Stonewall Jackson from campus is just one step that the Virginia Military Institute must take toward separating itself from the Lost Cause myth and serving all Virginians.
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Roundup Top Ten for January 8, 2021
The top opinion writing by historians or about history from around the web this week.
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Georgia Election Official Joins Long Line of Voices to Call for ‘Living in Truth'
Jeffrey H. Jackson
"History shows us that people -- sometimes one at a time -- can defend the truth by pointing out what everyone knows but which the powerful sometimes refuse to believe."
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Worst Pardon Ever? You'll Be Surprised
Michael Genovese
The prospect of Trump issuing pardons to his family (and even trying to pardon himself) and the contentious history of pardons should be cause to limit the pardon power by providing for Congressional oversight.
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Peace is Good. But are More Peace Deals Necessarily Better?
Catherine Baylin Duryea
The recent normalization of relations between Israel and Morocco extends longstanding covert cooperation between the two nations, but troublingly reflects Mideast politics that are increasingly aimed at isolating Iran. It also includes concessions that contribute to the marginalization of the people of Western Sahara.
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A Personal Message from the Editor
2020 showed how important history is for understanding the news. If HNN was an important source of insight and information for you in 2020, please support our work for 2021.
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Defending the 1619 Project in the Context of History Education Today
Alan J. Singer
Critics of the 1619 project may dispute particular claims or interpretations, but an understanding of the minimal attention devoted to slavery and its legacies in secondary school curricula shows that the project is badly needed.
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The Psychology of Election Denial
Robert Brent Toplin
The Republican response to the election results is a lesson in the mental mechanics of cognitive dissonance.
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Actually, It's Doctor....
Suzanne Chod
A recent editorial asking Dr. Jill Biden to stop using the honorific is steeped in sexism and nostalgia for the unchallenged authority of white men. Ironically, her upcoming public role may help to further break down such hierarchies.
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The Plague in Ancient Athens: A Cautionary Tale for America
Fred Zilian
The United States in some respects has fared better under COVID than Athens did during the plague that accompanied the Peloponnesian War: a vaccine is in sight, and our head of state survived the day's most feared disease. But in both cases, disease showed the strains and cracks of a society and political system that will be difficult to repair.
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Create Collaborative Videos to Build Historical Engagement
Andrew Joseph Pegoda
A history professor advocates collaborative, creative performance as a way to encourage students to engage with primary sources and build empathy for the historical other.
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Can Biden Broaden Our American Dream?
Walter G. Moss
Can a program of national service create pathways to individual opportunity while also building the social cohesion America needs to recover?
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Trump's Troop Withdrawal in Afghanistan: Part 2 – Is There Even a "Trump Doctrine"?
Brian Glyn Williams
Many Americans have bought Donald Trump's claim that he seeks to extricate the U.S. from "endless wars," including in Afghanistan. Viewed in the context of his other foreign policy actions, this claim is nonsensical, and undermines the work being done in support of global democracy and American interests.
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"A Christmas Carol" Makes the Same Demand Today: Feed the Hungry
William Lambers
Three ghosts visiting Americans this holiday might show the lifesaving benefits of food aid in the past, the scope of food insecurity today, and the prospects of hunger worsening in the future.
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To Be Or Not to Be... a Republican
James D. Zirin
Donald Trump doesn't expect to prevail in the 2020 election, but may succeed in keeping hold of the Republican Party for years to come; his insistent claims of fraud are a test of loyalty.
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