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The Roundup Top Ten for October 16, 2020

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. 

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."

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."

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."

Stop Othering Latinos

by Geraldo L. Cadava

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

#WEWANTMOREHISTORY

by Greg Downs, Hilary N. Green, Scott Hancock, and Kate Masur

At historic sites across the United States on September 26, dozens of participating historians presented evidence to disrupt, correct, or fill out the oversimplified and problematic messages too often communicated by the nation’s memorial landscape.

Higher Ed’s Shameful Silence on Diversity

by Hasan Kwame Jeffries

Right-wing diatribes about diversity training often ended with a call for Trump to issue an executive order banning federal agencies from holding them. So it was not unexpected when, on September 22, Trump signed an executive order forbidding diversity training within the government.

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. 

The Political History of Concealing Illness, from Brezhnev to Trump

by Joy Neumeyer

Like his Communist counterparts, Trump’s predilection for pageantry offers a hollow illusion of vitality while letting potentially fatal problems fester.

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."