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The Roundup Top Ten for November 4, 2022

The Line Between Rhetoric and Political Violence is Fading Fast

by Matthew Dallek

By rhetorically signalling contempt for the government, public institutions, and their opponents, the leaders of the Republican Party are failing to maintain the separation of politics and violence.

Broken Faith: What Must Christians Do About the White Nationalists Among Them?

by Anthea Butler

"Three major forces have combined to lead us perilously close to disaster: conspiracy theories, racial and historical panics, and the increasing language of spiritual warfare."

The Robber Barons Had Nothing on Musk

by David Nasaw

Like the Gilded Age robber barons, Elon Musk's self-made mythos hides the government subsidies supporting his businesses. Unlike them, he has the werewhithal to move financial markets to his advantage through Twitter. 

"A League of Their Own" Update Engages Lives of Queer Women in the 1940s

by Lauren Gutterman

"The series’ portrait of queer life amid World War II might seem unrealistic to some, but history reveals that queer women and trans men — from butch to femme and married to unmarried — often found opportunities to act on their desires and build queer communities."

Musk Just Latest in Right's Push To Acquire Media Platforms

by A.J. Bauer

The history of conservative media acquisitions reflects the anxiety on the right that their ideas are broadly unpopular. 

A Warning from Weimar: The Danger of Courts Hostile to Democracy

by Samuel Huneke

Far from being guardrails for democracy, Weimar courts were implacably hostile to it, and paved the way for its overthrow by leniency toward right-wing political violence. 

The Past and Present of Christian Nationalism in America

by Eric McDaniel

"Christian nationalism is a religious and political belief system that argues the United States was founded by God to be a Christian nation and to complete God’s vision of the world. In this view, America can be governed only by Christians, and the country’s mission is directed by a divine hand."

The Tyranny of the Maps: Rethinking Redlining

by Robert Gioielli

The four-color mortgage security maps created by New Deal-era bureaucrats and bankers have become a widely-known symbol of housing discrimination and the racial wealth gap. But does the public familiarity with the maps obscure the history of housing discrimination? And what can historians do about that?

Can Americans Understand the Divisions in Latino Politics?

by Geraldo Cadava

Despite the lip service both parties pay to welcoming (and deserving) the growing Latino vote, do their non-Latino leaders actually understand the complexities of this large demographic category? Do they want to? 

Small Nations, Big Feelings: America's Favored European Nations Before Ukraine

by Madelyn Lugli

"Feeling patriotism for a foreign country is, when you think about it, odd."