Roundup

How the Kerner Commission unmade American liberalism

by Steven M. Gillon

Instead of revitalizing the Democratic coalition, the commission's report exposed the fractures in American society.

Boycotts won't weaken the NRA's bottom line – but that's not the point

by Lawrence Glickman

The ethical point boycotters have tried to raise from that time to our own is that, in an interconnected national and international market economy, there are no innocent bystanders.

There are echoes of the Fugitive Slave Act in today's immigration debate

by Harold Meyerson

Just as the slave catchers argued, speciously, that freed Negroes imperiled the antebellum North, today's anti-immigrant forces, beginning with Trump, argue that immigrants pose a threat to public safety, though crime has fallen precipitously during the past quarter-century.

America has been in an abusive relationship with the GOP since 1980

by Heather Cox Richardson

The GOP moved so far into a fantasy world that a TV reality show host, a conman, became its leader.

Even the Wild West Embraced Gun Control

by Gil Troy

The Wild West wasn't so wild that it—and the Stormy South—couldn’t include gun control.

Roundup Top 10!

This week's broad sampling of opinion pieces found on the Internet, as selected by the editors of HNN.

How the devastating 1918 flu pandemic helped advance US women’s rights

by Christine Crudo Blackburn, Gerald W. Parker and Morten Wendelbo

By disproportionately affecting young men, the virus,  in combination with World War I, created a shortage of labor  –  filled by women.

Gun-rights advocates are right that violent films encourage school shootings. They’re wrong about how.

by Matthew Christopher Hulbert

The problem isn't the violence — it's the celebration of gun culture.

When Emancipation Finally Came, Slave Markets Took on a Redemptive Purpose

by Jonathan W. White

During the Civil War, the jails that held the enslaved imprisoned Confederate soldiers. After, they became rallying points for a newly empowered community.

Realistic Ambitions

by Michael Kazin

Can today’s liberals hope to match the achievements of LBJ’s presidency?

Why Are Conservatives So Obsessed With Gun Rights Anyway?

by John Ehrenreich

Belief in gun rights hasn’t always been a conservative ideology. Psychology helps explain how it took off.

History Trumps Hyperbole

by Scot Faulkner

The outrage over foreign meddling in America’s political system is justified. Declaring it the worst ever experienced is not.

The lesson of Rosenstrasse at 75

by Nathan Stoltzfus and Mordecai Paldiel

German wives who protested attacks on their Jewish husbands in 1943 show that even authoritarians like Hitler can be influenced by mass action.

If this is what conservatism has become, count me out

by Max Boot

Principled conservativism continues to exist, primarily at small journals of opinion, but it is increasingly disconnected from the stuff that thrills the masses.

The NRA Wasn’t Always A Front For Gun Makers

by Neil J. Young

The NRA operated mostly as a sporting club and hunting association for its first 100 years.

Reagan was the Gipper. Trump is the grifter.

by Max Boot

During the 2016 campaign, Donald Trump acolytes claimed that he was the second coming of Ronald Reagan. A perfectly plausible proposition, if you know nothing about Reagan or Trump.

Roundup Top 10!

This week's broad sampling of opinion pieces found on the Internet, as selected by the editors of HNN.

Trump, Democracy, and the Constitution

by Michael Klarman

The American people elected a president who disdains basic tenets of democracy.

What South Korea can learn from Germany

by A. James McAdams

History suggests the enunciation of a South Korean version of Germany’s “change through rapprochement” could be Washington’s best hope.

Billy Graham was on the wrong side of history

by Matthew Avery Sutton

Racial tensions are rising, the earth is warming, and evangelicals are doing little to help. That may be Graham’s most significant, and saddest, legacy.