2,628 words
Kevin M. Kruse & Julian E. Zelizer
Fault Lines: A History of the United States Since 1974
New York: Norton & Company, Inc., 2019
Professors Kevin Kruse and Julian Zelizer have written a book in which they argue that the fault lines of America’s polarized political culture started to emerge around 1974. (more…)
Robert F. Kennedy eulogizes Martin Luther King on April 4, 1968
1,406 words
It’s a take as old as time: “our leaders divide us by race to stay in power.”
The take resonates with a lot of Americans. We’re instructed to believe we would all get along if it weren’t for meddling politicians and conniving journalists. Black, white, red, yellow — what’s the real difference to the average Joe? (more…)
Sen. Jesse Helms on the cover of Time, September 14, 1981.
5,765 words
Part 1 here
Editor’s note from the foreword by Beau Albrecht: The following Jesse Helms speech was recorded in the Congressional Record, volume 129, number 130 (October 3, 1983): S13452-S13461. It’s available in hardcopy as a rare book, Martin Luther King Jr., Political Activities and Associations. For further context, hyperlinks and a captioned photo are added here.
C. Internal Documents of SCEF (more…)
The late Senator Jesse Helms (R — North Carolina)
6,531 words
Foreword by Beau Albrecht
It’s Black History Month, an occasion to celebrate the remarkable race that’s done so much to make America what it is today. With so many towering giants of history to remember, where does one begin? Looking to the past, there is Harriet Tubman; imagine Obersturmbannführer Otto Skorzeny as a black lady from Philadelphia. (more…)
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One of President Trump’s last acts in office offered his view of American history. Just a few days before Joe Biden’s inauguration, the Trump administration released both the 1776 Commission Report and the list of statues for the proposed National Garden of American Heroes. (more…)
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Anyone who remembers the 1980s can recall exactly what they were doing when the space shuttle Challenger exploded just 73 seconds after lifting off on January 28, 1986. People at the Florida launch site openly wept, pounded their fists on the hoods of their cars, and held each other. Schoolchildren looked at the televised images of the disaster with horror. The news media went into a frenzy, and President Reagan delivered a televised eulogy that evening that was probably his best speech ever. (more…)
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A crime scene. The aesthetics of a horror movie. Sinister music. This is the latest Trump attack ad exposing Joe Biden’s “racism problem,” released a day after rioting in Chicago. The Trump campaign is engaging in offense archaeology, digging up a Biden statement from all the way back in 1973. Other Trump ads criticized Biden’s (more…)
4,280 words
Theodore G. Bilbo
Take Your Choice: Separation or Mongrelization
Poplarville, Mississippi: Dream House (1947)
The final political testament by Senator Bilbo of Mississippi, Take Your Choice, is a useful opportunity to see how well old documents stand in the light of the present day. (more…)
2,535 words
David Paul Kuhn
The Hardhat Riot: Nixon, New York City, and the Dawn of the White Working-Class Revolution
New York: Oxford University Press, 2020
The Hardhat Riot of May 8, 1970 left a subtle and lasting impact on American culture. Sensitive liberals of the Useful Idiot type, like the horror author Stephen King, (more…)
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It is fashionable, even among Rightist intelligentsia, to dismiss “conspiracy theories.” In doing so, one overlooks the covert forces that are funding — and always have funded — the forces of pseudo-revolt. These oligarchic sponsors are not fools or dupes, whose funds have been “taken over” by their anti-capitalist enemies, as was once assumed by conservatives during the Cold War. Since the establishment of the tax-exempt foundations over a century ago, the aims have been to promote what is now called a globalized “inclusive economy.” (more…)
2,271 words
Jon Ward
Camelot’s End: Kennedy vs. Carter & the Fight that Broke the Democratic Party
New York: Twelve, 2019
The US Presidential Election of 1980 turned into a vicious civil war within the Democratic Party. The conflict centered upon the incumbent President Jimmy Carter and Senator Edward “Ted” Kennedy of Massachusetts. (more…)
1,422 words
Cal Thomas & Ed Dobson
Blinded by Might: Can the Religious Right Save America?
Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1999
The late Jerry Falwell (1933–2007) [1] was a politically-involved preacher. He was not much different from the abolitionist ministers in New England active a century before his birth. In 1979, Falwell founded an organization called the Moral Majority. It would serve as the “far-right” in the mainstream American political ecosystem (more…)
1,844 words
Christopher Caldwell
The Age of Entitlement: America Since the Sixties
New York: Simon & Schuster, 2020
In January, when I first read and reviewed Christopher Caldwell’s The Age of Entitlement, I couldn’t help noticing that the book was being hit by a broadside smear-attack, impressive in its vitriol. (more…)
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Although he was a supporter of President Obama, Henry Louis Gates Jr. did the President no favor when Gates made a scene and was arrested by a Massachusetts cop in 2009. Obama unwisely commented on the matter and had to hold a “beer summit” to smooth things over later. The cost of Gates’s temper tantrum was staggeringly high: In no small part due to their racial animus, Gates (and the President) turned a minor misunderstanding into a national firestorm, all during a massive economic crisis and while Obama was trying to navigate his health care reform through Congress. (more…)
1,691 words
Kent Alexander & Kevin Salwen
The Suspect: An Olympic Bombing, the FBI, the Media, and Richard Jewell, the Man Caught in the Middle
New York: Abrams, 2019
Richard Jewell was an obese Georgia homeboy who wanted to be a hero and serve in law enforcement. He got his wish: His short life was crowded with heroism. (more…)
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Christopher Caldwell
The Age of Entitlement: America Since the Sixties
New York: Simon & Schuster, 2020
The 1960s forever transformed America. Race relations, sexual relations, popular culture, music, foreign policy, trust in government, and urban life were all dramatically changed. (more…)
2,512 words
Clay Risen
A Nation on Fire: America in the Wake of the King Assassination
Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, 2009
“Events have unmistakably shown that any municipality in the country with a Negro population is susceptible to a racial outbreak.” — From an FBI report dated May 26, 1967
Remember what they stole from us.
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“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” — L. P. Hartley
There’s an old time capsule video from 1987 titled “2:30am at a 7-11 near Disney World” that has made its way around the Internet over the years and has been viewed millions of times. (more…)
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Ryan T. Anderson
When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment
New York: Encounter Books, 2018
“At the heart of the transgender moment are radical ideas about the human person – in particular, that people are what they claim to be, regardless of contrary evidence.” — Ryan T. Anderson[1]
Martin Luther King with Nelson Rockefeller in 1961.
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Every year, the third Monday of January is designated Martin Luther King Day, and the much-lauded paragon of “passive resistance” and “equality” is praised to high heaven with the aura of sainthood, or even godhood, perhaps only equalled by his South African counterpart, Nelson Mandela. I will not argue here whether desegregation has improved anyone’s lot, blacks included, any more than the dismantling of apartheid did, other than its having intended to create an “inclusive economy,” as the Rockefeller Foundation and others call it, and an expanded consumption market.
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The Great Republican Revolution took a brief trip to the benches last summer when committees in both House and Senate paused in their deliberations to burrow into the federal atrocities at Waco and Ruby Ridge. (more…)
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Today let’s talk about racism and related matters. There’s hardly a subject the average White person is more uptight about, hardly a subject that makes him more uncomfortable. Fifty or 60 years ago people were really uptight about sex. Very few people could talk about it honestly and openly and comfortably. It embarrassed them. (more…)