The Roundup Top Ten for October 9, 2020
The Plot Against Whitmer Won’t Be The Last White Supremacist Threatby Kathleen BelewI'm very concerned that more violence is imminent, and that these ideologies pose an imminent threat to our democracy and to people going about their everyday lives. |
Yes, Mike Lee, America is a Democracyby Jonathan BernsteinMike Lee's insistence that the US is "a republic" and not "a democracy" is a petty distinction that ignores the historically interchangeable usage of the terms in American politics in order to justify undemocratic rule by a minority party. |
The Overlooked Queer History of Medieval Christianityby Roland BetancourtAn attentive reading of the record shows that same-sex intimacy, gender fluidity, and diverse sexual identities were prevalent among early Christians, contrary to the claims made by some fundamentalists today that these represent deviations from historical norms. |
Why Heller is Such Bad Historyby Noah ShustermanAntonin Scalia's opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller ignored the actual history of the early American militia in order to invent an individual right to gun ownership. |
What White Power Supporters Hear Trump Sayingby Alexander HintonDonald Trump's attacks on "political correctness" aren't calls for intellectual openness or academic freedom; they are coded messages invoking white grievance politics, including the longstanding idea that multiculturalism is part of a genocidal attack on the white race. |
The Root of American Powerby Megan Beyer"October is National Arts and Humanities Month. Observing what happens in America when we fail to protect them, invest in them, and recognize their value, is the best case that could ever be made for the Arts and Humanities." |
A Brief History of the Taxpayer in Chiefby Margaret O'MaraThe revelation, at the height of the Watergate investigation, that Richard Nixon had abused deductions to avoid nearly all of his tax obligations initiated modern interest in presidential candidates' tax returns. |
Trump's Call for Freelance Poll-Watchers Summons a Dark Historyby Nicole HemmerIn 1981, the Republican National Committee used threatening signs and deployed off-duty officers to polling places in Black and Latino neighborhoods to help win the New Jersey governorship. This is the first presidential election year since the decree expired, making Trump's call for supporters to "watch the polls" ominous. |
Trump’s Attacks on Refugees Expose the Inadequacy of the Current Systemby Carl J. Bon TempoThe Refugee Act of 1980 is the law allowing the President to set an annual ceiling for refugee admissions to the United States, and is in urgent need of revision by Congress. |
Coronavirus Can Afflict the Powerful. Yet Food Workers Remain the Most Vulnerable.by Angela StuesseThe rollback of workplace protections under a generation of conservative state and federal administrations has made low-wage service workers acutely vulnerable to COVID. |