Trump Is the Republican Party’s Past and Its Future

The appalling siege of the U.S. Capitol by pro-Trump insurrectionists, on the heels of their upset defeat in two Georgia Senate races the previous night, will require soul searching among Republicans about the direction of their party. Republicans will certainly seek to pivot from the riot, but the nativism, extreme […] Read more »

Misogyny in the Capitol: Among the insurrectionists, a lot of angry men who don’t like women

U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, shown during her weekly press conference Jan. 7, was a particular target of some of the Capitol insurrectionists. BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images Mona Lena Krook, Rutgers University Among the various forms of violence on display during the U.S. Capitol insurrection, one has […] Read more »

False fraud claims fanned Capitol riot. Now they’re fueling GOP efforts to restrict voting.

Even after President Donald Trump’s disproven allegations of voter fraud fueled last week’s deadly assault on the US Capitol, Republicans across an array of swing states are still touting his baseless allegations to advance measures that would make it tougher to vote. When Congress voted last week, in the immediate […] Read more »

How Trumpism May Endure

One hundred and fifty years after the emergence of the Confederate Lost Cause ideology, a new Lost Cause invaded the U.S. Capitol with the incitement of the president of the United States. Waving American, Confederate, Gadsden and, especially, Trump flags, Donald Trump’s loyalists desecrated the greatest symbolic edifice of America. […] Read more »

The American Abyss

… Post-truth is pre-fascism, and Trump has been our post-truth president. When we give up on truth, we concede power to those with the wealth and charisma to create spectacle in its place. Without agreement about some basic facts, citizens cannot form the civil society that would allow them to […] Read more »

Trump Helped Take Extremist Views From The Fringes Of Society To A Mob Attacking The Capitol

Faith in the integrity of the presidential election has been concerningly low for months — in large part because of President Trump’s repeated false claims that the election was stolen from him. And on Wednesday, we saw an extreme example of the consequences of that mistrust when pro-Trump extremists briefly […] Read more »