Roundup

The Supreme Court Has to Choose Between Trump and the Nation’s Founders

by Amanda Frost

The Trump administration's efforts to exclude undocumented immigrants from the Census count is a test of whether the SCOTUS conservatives will sincerely follow originalism. 

History Reminds Us that Vaccines Alone Don't End Pandemics

by E. Thomas Ewing

Positive news about advances on a vaccine for the novel coronavirus should not be taken as a license to stop mask-wearing and social distancing argues a historian of viral pandemics. 

The Roundup Top Ten for November 20, 2020

The week's top op-eds by historians from around the web. 

Patsy Takemoto Mink Blazed The Trail For Kamala Harris – Not Susan B. Anthony

by Judy Tzu-Chun Wu

Patsy Takemoto Mink, elected in 1972 as the first woman of color in Congress, deserves recognition as a pioneering advocate for gender equity and the rights of Americans Caribbean and Pacific territories, and for preparing a path for Kamala Harris's election as Vice President. 

An FDR-Size Executive Order for Biden

by Thomas Geoghegan

Joseph Biden should issue an executive order requiring federal contracts go to firms with collective bargaining agreements in place, boosting wages, strengthening organized labor, and stimulating economic recovery. 

American Democracy Was Never Supposed to Work

by Richard Kreitner

"Merely ousting Trump is not enough without addressing more fundamental weaknesses in our political system, especially an outdated Constitution that continues to serve a minority of wealthy and white citizens and to curb any movements that might threaten their wealth and power."

Can We Hold Trump And His Allies Accountable Without Further Splitting America?

by Samuel Huneke

A process of accountability must target official decisionmakers who broke the law, avoid imposing collective guilt on Trump supporters, and above all, not expect quick or complete success. 

What The Bunker Mentality Really Means

by Benjamin Carter Hett

Trump's refusal of contradictory information will prolong his contestation of a doomed reelection bid and subvert effective responses to COVID. Its most dangerous effect could be to spawn a "backstabbing" narrative that keeps the Republican party tied to bitterness and division. 

What the Greatest Generation had that the Covid Generation Lacks

by Nicole Hemmer

"The crisis, it turns out, is not the selfishness of this generation of Americans. It's the selfishness of the administration and its allies in Congress."

The World Is Never Going Back to Normal

by Anne Applebaum

American allies can read the newspapers, and have adjusted their expectations of American leadership accordingly in the last four years. It's unlikely a Biden administration can restore American leadership. 

Effi Eitam Leading Yad Vashem Disgraces the Memory of the 6 Million

by Derek Penslar and Susannah Heschel

"The politicization and radicalization of the institution will rob it of its legitimacy. Yad Vashem cannot fulfill its responsibilities with Effi Eitam at its helm."

Trump’s Presidential Library Will Be A Shrine To His Ego

by Paul Musgrave

If former presidents aren't interested in hosting official presidential papers at a library center, there is little oversight of how they tell the president's story. Any future Trump presidential center will likely not function as a library at all, but as a propaganda organ for Trumpism. 

Trump has Changed the Way Evangelical Christians Think about the Apocalypse

by Thomas Lecaque

Evangelicals have largely avoided interpreting the COVID-19 pandemic as a sign of the end times because doing so would also demand that they recognize their champion Donald Trump as a morally degenerate leader. The apocalyptic rhetoric that flowed freely under Obama has been silent this year. 

Trump is Testing Democracy. Nine out of 10 Senior Elected Republicans are Failing

by Max Boot

Civil servants have largely put their loyalty to the process of democracy above party. The same cannot be said for Republican elected officials. The Post's columnist argues that even if democracy survives, the party's reputation shouldn't. 

Against Returning to Normal

by David Walsh

Liberal pleas to return to a "normal" defined by bipartisan consensus ignore the long legacy of ideological conflict and the pursuit of division as a political strategy by the conservative movement. 

Once a Symbol of Desegregation, Ruby Bridges’ School now Reflects another Battle Engulfing Public Education

by Connie L. Schaffer, Martha Graham Viator and Meg White

The New Orleans school integrated by Ruby Bridges is now operated by a private charter school company, part of a trend that three education scholars say jeopardizes the survival of the entire system of public education in the United States.

The National Trust is under Attack Because it Cares about History, not Fantasy

by Peter Mitchell

Britain's historic preservation agency has become the target of conservative politicians who have interpreted the Trust's commissioning of a report evaluating the relationship of its projects to slavery as an attack on the nation's historical identity.

The Never-Ending Crisis of the Electoral College

by Bruce Bartlett

"The inane system our founders developed to choose the president is an anti-democratic remnant of the slavery era that only benefits the GOP"--a longtime political observer endorses the National Popular Vote Compact as a way to circumvent the Electoral College without a constitutional amendment.

America's Crises Would Be Daunting for Any President-Elect. But History Can Teach Biden to Navigate Them

by Jon Meacham

A popular historian who has been advising Joe Biden with historical perspective argues the president-elect is disposed to empathy and pragmatism and will work to ease the nation's divisions. 

60 Years after JFK, Biden as Second Catholic President Offers a Refresh in Church’s Political Role

by Steven P. Millies

Joseph Biden's election represents a chance to develop a political agenda informed by broad Catholic teaching, not only opposition to abortion.