Roundup

A Campaign of Voter Subtraction: Trump’s Republican Party Must Subtract Votes in Order to Survive

by Ibram X. Kendi

The greatest myth of the 2016 election is that the polls got the election wrong. What if the polls did not get it wrong? What if the Republican game of voter subtraction got it right?

American Exceptionalism Gives Voters a False Sense of Security about the Election

by Melissa J. Gismondi and Shira Lurie

American democracy won’t endure just because it always has. In this moment, American exceptionalism could prove fatal.

Toward a Global History of White Supremacy

by Daniel Geary, Camilla Schofield, and Jennifer Sutton

We need to understand the history of global connections between white supremacists if we are to grasp what has sustained white nationalism despite global trends toward liberation and equality.

The Roundup Top Ten for October 16, 2020

The top op eds by historians from around the web this week. 

“Nothing Stirred in the Air”

by Stephen Dillon

The architecture of the "supermax" prison targets the senses and emotions of the incarcerated as a means of control in the wake of political organizing inside and outside of prisons in the 1960s and 1970s. 

Why America Must Not Reelect this Demagogue: That’s What Trump is, and it Matters

by Eli Merritt

Trump is a demagogue –– and therefore a poison to democracy. Joe Biden is not. Voters must understand that clearly. The health, and possibly survival, of our democracy depends upon it.

Right Wing Trolls Attacked Me. My Administration Buckled

by L.D. Burnett

"My college administrators were warned of what would come when Campus Reform came calling, and I was warned, and now I will warn you — warn you, and call you to courage."

Why Historians are Very Worried About a Second Term of Trump

by Edward T. O'Donnell

"Many of us see President Trump and his right-wing allies steering this country towards an authoritarianism that will end American democracy as we know it. It’s on account of these dark visions of the near future that nearly every historian I know says they have not slept well in ages."

The Right's War on Universities

by Ruth Ben-Ghiat

"From the fascist years in Europe, nearly a century ago, to our own times, right-wing leaders have accused universities of being incubators of left-wing ideologies and sought to mold them in the image of their own propaganda, policy, and policing aims."

America Has No Reason to Be So Powerful

by Stephen Wertheim

"There was a time when Americans believed that armed dominance obstructed and corrupted genuine engagement in the world, far from being its foundation."

For 200 Years Courts Upheld Rules to Protect Americans’ Health. Until Now

by John Fabian Witt

"Now a new generation of judges, propelled by partisan energies, look to deprive states of the power to fight for the sick and dying in a pandemic in which the victims are disproportionately Black and brown."

Republican Voter Suppression Efforts were Banned for Decades. Here's what Changed

by Kevin M. Kruse

In 2020, as in 1981, the realities of voter fraud don't matter. Republicans are insisting that their very real efforts at voter intimidation are warranted because they insist that Democrats have done or will do or possibly might do something much worse. 

An Open Letter to Dr. Anthony Fauci

by Martin Halpern

A history professor who also has a background in public health research urges Dr. Anthony Fauci to resign so that he can freely speak out about the Trump administration's response to the COVID pandemic. 

The Case Against Packing the Court

by Jeff Shesol

The main risk for Biden isn't that court packing would escalate partisan war over the courts. It's that it might destroy his own Democratic coalition. 

How Do Pandemics End? History Suggests Diseases Fade but are Never Truly Gone

by Nükhet Varlik

"Whether bacterial, viral or parasitic, virtually every disease pathogen that has affected people over the last several thousand years is still with us, because it is nearly impossible to fully eradicate them."

The Real Black History? The Government Wants To Ban It

by Priyamvada Gopal

Tory attacks on "victim narratives" in the history curriculum defend entrenched power and ignore the fact that Black British histories are about the power of protest and activism to make social change. 

Stop Othering Latinos

by Geraldo L. Cadava

When politicians see us as more than voters, we may give them our votes.

What Do We Do About Voter Intimidation?

by Nicholas Grossman

"Americans can vote for any candidate they want. But they should be able to do so absent intimidation, and every vote should count."  

The So-Called ‘Kidnapping Club’ Featured Cops Selling Free Black New Yorkers Into Slavery

by Jonathan Daniel Wells

"It often mattered little whether a black person was born free in New York or had in fact escaped bondage; the police, reinforced by judges like the notorious city recorder Richard Riker, sent the accused to southern plantations with little concern and often even less evidence."

How QAnon Crept Into the Mind of Donald Trump

by Jeff Sharlet

Jeff Sharlet has long examined the role of true believers in politics. As the influence of the QAnon conspiracy theory among Trump's base comes in for scrutiny, he asks what if "he isn’t selling a dream, he’s dreaming it?"