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Yuri Gripas / Reuters The End of the Strong Speaker
Paul Ryan’s departure shows how far Congress has come from the heyday of House leaders who tightly controlled their chamber.
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Bettmann / Getty How Trump Channels the 1970s
The one consistent message coming out of the White House was born in the 1970s: Don’t trust any institution.
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AP What Gun-Control Activists Can Learn From the Civil-Rights Movement
The success of the 1963 March on Washington hinged on a confluence of factors—several of which the student-led March for Our Lives won’t have.
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Luke Sharrett / Reuters Where Is Barack Obama?
The former president’s reticence in the Trump era is only hurting his party.
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Ron Edmonds / AP Why the Russia Investigation Could Be More Like Iran-Contra Than Watergate
Complexity, partisanship, and a strong presidential narrative insulated Ronald Reagan from meeting the same fate as Richard Nixon, and those factors could also protect Donald Trump.
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William Philpott / Reuters Gun Control Is Not Impossible
President Clinton showed that with persistence and leadership, legislative restrictions on firearms are attainable.
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Charles Tasnadi / AP What Trump-Era Democrats Can Learn From LBJ
Lyndon B. Johnson was an effective policymaker but failed to protect his legacy—much in the same way Obama’s is being toppled today.
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Saul Loeb / Pool / Reuters America’s Mirror on the Wall
A year into his presidency, Trump has proven to be a reflection of the nation’s darkest political traditions.
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Yuri Gripas / Reuters Out of Control
Nixon’s excesses prompted Congress to reassert its own powers, but those changes eroded over time. Now, Trump is demonstrating anew all the dangers of unchecked executive authority.
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AP How the Tet Offensive Undermined American Faith in Government
Fifty years ago, the January 1968 battle laid bare the way U.S. leaders had misled the public about the war in Vietnam.
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J. Scott Applewhite / AP Blowing Up the Deficit Is Part of the Plan
Republicans are hoping to use the deficits created by their own tax cuts to slash the social safety net—but they may end up setting the stage for tax hikes instead.
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Charles Tasnadi / AP Will Richard Nixon's Three-Pronged Defense Work for Trump?
As Mueller’s investigation heats up, the president is drawing directly from Nixon’s playbook. This time, it might actually succeed.
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Alex Brandon / AP How Congress Blew Its Chance to Curtail Sexual-Harassment
In the 1990s, Republican majorities made a major push to police misconduct on Capitol Hill—but their sweeping reforms didn’t solve the problem.
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Brynn Anderson / AP Will the Senate Expel Roy Moore If He's Elected?
Despite threats from GOP lawmakers, the likelihood of them taking action remains low.
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Mike Segar / Reuters Grading President Trump
While he gets high marks for using his executive power to enact policy changes, by most measures, he is not doing well.
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Joshua Roberts / Reuters What Is Really Unprecedented About Trump?
In many respects, the way that the president thinks about politics is utterly conventional.
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Yoichi Okamoto / LBJ Library What Hollywood Forgets About LBJ
Even as they stress his civil-rights legacy, popular portrayals ignore the issue that loomed largest over Lyndon B. Johnson's presidency: the Vietnam War.
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Bryan Woolston / Reuters How America's Vision of Progressive Tax Reform Died
Only by reclaiming an earlier ideal will Congress be able to counteract the influence of corporations and the affluent.
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Bria Webb / Reuters Is Free Speech Really Challenged on Campus?
Two historians debate the role of universities in fostering a commitment to the open exchange of ideas.
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Andrew Harnik / AP What Would It Take for Democrats and Republicans to Work Together?
Bipartisanship most often occurs in moments when one party has deep internal divisions, or when there are strong political incentives to cooperate.
