Author: Heather Cox Richardson

Everything now coming from the White House is about Trump’s reelection. While all presidential candidates want to win, they are usually able to accept the idea of a loss. Trump, though, has gone so far as to suggest delaying the election, an unprecedented step which would buy him some time in the hope a coronavirus vaccine would help the U.S. crawl out of the hole it’s in and turn his popularity around. In his quest for reelection, he is attacking the idea of mail-in voting, although he himself has used it often—his distinction between mail-in voting and absentee voting...

For a generation, Republicans have tried to unravel the activist government under which Americans have lived since the 1930s, when Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt created a government that regulated business, provided a basic social safety net, and invested in infrastructure. From the beginning, that government was enormously popular. Both Republicans and Democrats believed that the principle behind it — that the country worked best when government protected and defended ordinary Americans — was permanent. But the ideologues who now control the Republican Party have always wanted to get rid of this New Deal state and go back to the...

Trump is shifting his reelection pitch, and it has frightening implications for the country. Over the weekend, the federal crackdown in Portland, Oregon continued with people in unmarked camouflage uniforms arresting peaceful protesters and taking them away in unmarked vehicles. And then, they appeared — for now — to let them go. The administration appears to be constructing a scene of violence and disorder for the news media to show to viewers. It seems clear that the Trump campaign — which got a new director on July 15 – is going to make its case for reelection on the...