Author: TheConversation

By David Cason, Associate Professor in Honors, University of North Dakota In January 1967, after a gubernatorial election that saw neither candidate gain enough votes to win, the Georgia Legislature was faced with a vital decision: the selection of the state’s 75th governor during the height of the Civil Rights Movement. Legislators chose the candidate who earned the least number of votes and was an ardent segregationist – Democrat Lester Maddox, owner of a chicken restaurant and a perennial candidate. That transformation of Maddox from racist, eccentric business owner to governor was a historical note amid a backdrop of...

By Matthew Wilson, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of South Carolina Americans, it seems, can both value the idea of democracy and not support it in practice. Since 2016, academics and journalists have expressed concerns that formerly secure democracies are becoming less democratic. Different measures of democracy, such as scores produced by the Economist Intelligence Unit, Freedom House and the Varieties of Democracy Institute, have suggested as much based on data over the past decade. The surveys have sounded alarms about the future of democratic governance in places such as the U.S., which the International Institute for Democracy...

By Virginia Raguin, Distinguished Professor of Humanities Emerita, Visual Arts, College of the Holy Cross The striking Emancipation Memorial statue in Washington DC, shows Abraham Lincoln standing, while a man wearing only a loincloth is appearing to rise from a kneeling position. The face in the memorial is that of Archer Alexander, who had escaped slavery in 1863 by fleeing to St. Louis, Missouri. Fundraising for a memorial was launched in 1864 by Charlotte Scott, who had been enslaved in Virginia before moving to Ohio. She did not design the monument, however. As a historian of art, I argue...

By Joseph G. Amoroso, Assistant Professor of American Politics, United States Military Academy West Point; Lee Robinson, American Politics Program Director, United States Military Academy West Point In general, Americans do not trust their government institutions as much as they used to, and that includes the military. In part, that’s because the military can be used as a tool to gain a partisan advantage rather than as a professional group that should be trusted by both parties. For instance, the day he was inaugurated as president, Donald Trump spoke at a luncheon and pointed to retired Marine four-star generals...