Roundup

Dictators and Double Standards

by Jeremy Kuzmarov

Rwanda's Paul Kagame has been reelected with 99 percent of the vote. Here's why we shouldn't be celebrating.

How the White House's Immigration Reforms Might Backfire

by Tom Gjelten

Social engineering through immigration policy isn’t simple—and such efforts often produce dramatic, unintended consequences.

The Real History of American Immigration

by Joshua Zeitz

Trump's break with tradition may be good or bad, but it's definitely different.

West Virginia's immigration 'problem'

by Walter D. Kamphoefner

Mainstream America is as seductive as ever, yet immigrants are almost as rare as coal miners in the Mountain State.

Fake news is bad. But fake history is even worse

by Natalie Nougayrède

From Turkey to China, strongmen rewrite the past to suit their ends. But democracies are not immune to this revisionism.

The Lost Cause Rides Again

by Ta-Nehisi Coates

HBO’s "Confederate" takes as its premise an ugly truth that black Americans are forced to live every day: What if the Confederacy wasn’t wholly defeated?

When a Candidate Conspired With a Foreign Power to Win An Election

by John A. Farrell

It took decades to unravel Nixon’s sabotage of Vietnam peace talks. Now, the full story can be told.

Video of the Week: Daniel Ellsberg of Pentagon Papers Talks About Leaks

VICE News examines the Trump administration’s war on leakers, with the Pentagon Papers whistleblower.

So What If Trump Vacations in New Jersey?

by Brian Phillips Murphy

Presidents have been doing it for generations. And you know what? It’s great.

Liberals worried about textbook objections forget about Sambo and the KKK

by Jonathan Zimmerman

My fellow progressives have worked themselves into a good liberal lather over a new law in Florida that allows citizens to object to books assigned in the public schools. Here's why they're wrong.

Roundup Top 10!

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

LBJ Launches Medicare: ‘You Can’t Treat Grandma This Way’

by Bill Moyers

Yes, our health system is broken, but broken systems can be fixed — not easily, but they can be fixed.

What McCarthyism Can Teach Us about Trumpism

by Landon R. Y. Storrs

McCarthyism wound down thanks to the courage of independent journalists, the decision after four long years of McCarthy’s fellow Republican senators to put country above party, and U.S. Supreme Court decisions in cases brought by defendants and lawyers.

Why the second American Revolution deserves as much attention as the first

by Gregory P. Downs

It is not hard to see why people celebrate Independence Day and forget the period of Reconstruction after the Civil War, even though that period was, in many respects, a Second Founding that re-created the republic and the Constitution.

Donald Trump’s transgender ban vs. Harry Truman’s desegregation order: A backward echo of the past

by Jonathan Zimmerman

Many of the same arguments Trump used last week also came up in 1948. Thankfully for history, Truman didn't listen.

What the ‘Government Schools’ Critics Really Mean

by Katherine Stewart

In certain conservative circles, the phrase “government schools” has become as ubiquitous as it is contemptuous.

100 years ago African-Americans marched down 5th Avenue to declare that black lives matter

by Chad Williams

One hundred years later, as black people continue to insist that “Black Lives Matter,” the “Silent Protest Parade” offers a vivid reminder about the power of courageous leadership, grassroots mobilization, direct action and their collective necessity in the fight to end racial oppression in our current troubled times.

The Last Time a General Propped Up a President

by Joshua Zeitz

For examples, maybe John Kelly should look to Al Haig.

The moment in 1993 when healthcare died

by Joseph J. Fins

Bob Dole and Pat Moynihan were ready to cut a deal. Then Bill Clinton said no.

What if Hitler Had Invaded Britain?

by Timothy Egan

That's one counterfactual that is based on reality.  It really might have happened.