logo

Trump is “weaponizing antisemitism” to win Jewish voters. Can it work?

Sep 22, 2024 | ,

Donald Trump made antisemitic comments at a pair of Jewish-hosted events on Thursday. One might expect this to hurt his chances among Republican Jews, yet as historians explained to Salon, partisan loyalties may very well trump self-preservation among a substantial set of Jewish voters.

In his first Thursday speech, Trump falsely claimed that his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, supports “Hamas sympathizers, antisemites, Israel haters on college campuses and everywhere else.”...

Originally posted on salon.com

read more

“It’s shocking”: Experts ring the alarm on a “kind of dissonance” following thwarted attack on Trump

Sep 18, 2024 | , ,

Even though the two would-be assassins were reportedly both former supporters of Donald Trump whose subsequent politics can be best described as murky, President Trump and his supporters are now blaming the Republican nominee’s political opponents for the recent assassination attempts against him. Trump accused both President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, of taking “politics in our Country to a whole new level of Hatred.”...

Originally posted on salon.com

read more

Kamala Harris will continue Biden’s climate policies, say experts. But is that good enough?

Jul 26, 2024 | ,

With President Biden’s withdrawal from the 2024 presidential campaign, Vice President Kamala Harris has become his heir apparent and the near-certain Democratic nominee. Most climate scientists and activists expect that a potential Harris administration would continue Biden’s climate policies. Whether that’s a good or bad thing, however, is very much up for debate....

Originally posted on salon.com

read more

Lincoln’s midterms: The lessons of 1862, and how they may still apply

Aug 14, 2022 | , ,

Abraham Lincoln Speaking During one of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, Charleston, Illinois, USA, September 18, 1858. Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

When Joe Biden met last week with a “select group of scholars” for a “Socratic dialogue” about America’s future, the esteemed historians compared the current crisis facing our democracy with two other historical periods: The years immediately preceding the Civil War, which broke out shortly after Abraham Lincoln’s victory in the 1860 presidential election, and the years before World War II, when proto-fascist or explicitly fascist movements like those led by aviator Charles Lindbergh popped up all over the land....

Originally posted on salon.com

read more

Right-wing snowflakes love to whine about free speech — this socialist went to jail for it

May 29, 2022 | , ,

American labor leader, US Presidential candidate, and prominent socialist Eugene V. Debs (1855 – 1926) waves to supporters following his release from prison on Christmas Day, December 25, 1921. PhotoQuest/Getty Images

Nothing divides Americans like the question of free speech: What it means, who deserves it and who does not. Conservatives like to complain about being “censored” or “canceled” for their attacks on LGBTQ rights or mask mandates, but lately have started trying to impose all kinds of restrictions on speech in education, especially on issues of gender identity, sexual orientation and race....

Originally posted on salon.com

read more

Can Democrats break the midterm curse? Maybe — consider the example of 1934

Dec 26, 2021 | , ,

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris Photo illustration by Salon/Getty Images

Now that Joe Manchin has sounded the death knell — at least for the moment — for Joe Biden’s Build Back Better package, Democrats are doomed in the 2022 midterm elections.

Or, wait: Are they? Sometimes the “laws” of politics (or economics) are characterized as immutable, akin to the laws of physics....

Originally posted on salon.com

read more

The Revolution of 2020: How Trump’s Big Lie reshaped history after 220 years

Nov 14, 2021 | ,

John Adams vs. Thomas Jefferson, Donald Trump vs. Joe Biden Photo illustration bu Salon/Getty Images

There are few words as overused as “revolution,” which has many Merriam-Webster definitions and here means “a fundamental change in political organization.” While people who discuss politics are prone to dramatic talk of “revolutions,” few of the American presidential elections described that way really merit the term....

Originally posted on salon.com

read more

Is Trump like Andrew Jackson? Yeah — in all the bad ways, and none of the good ones

Oct 10, 2021 | ,

U.S. President Donald Trump, beneath a portrait of populist President Andrew Jackson, speaks before the swearing-in of Rex Tillerson as 69th secretary of state in the Oval Office of the White House on February 1, 2017 in Washington, DC. Michael Reynolds-Pool/Getty Images

In a recent editorial for The Washington Post, historian J.M....

Originally posted on salon.com

read more

Think Biden is a “failed” president who can’t get re-elected? Consider Bill Clinton

Oct 3, 2021 | ,

Joe Biden, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump Photo illustration by Salon/Getty Images

It is historically ignorant to describe Joe Biden as a failed president, which hasn’t stopped pundits from trying. From MSNBC to New York Magazine, the view has emerged that if Biden’s package of infrastructure and spending bills falls flat, it will be his political death sentence....

Originally posted on salon.com

read more

Fascism makes a comeback — but nothing about its methods is especially new

Sep 19, 2021 | ,

Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler Photo illustration by Salon/Getty Images

On Nov. 3, 2020, the American people conclusively decided to make Donald Trump their first one-term president in more than a quarter-century. On every previous occasion when an incumbent president was defeated — it had happened 10 times before Trump, the loser president at least swallowed his pride and honored the democratic process....

Originally posted on salon.com

read more

Follow Matt