Donald Trump ends his tumultuous presidency with the nation confronting the greatest strain to its fundamental cohesion since the Civil War. The January 6 assault on the US Capitol capped four years in which Trump relentlessly stoked the nation’s divisions and simultaneously provided oxygen for the growth of White nationalist […] Read more »
If the Capitol mob had been Black? Most Americans say the police would have been harsher
By a wide margin, Americans say the police response to the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol would have been harsher if the rioters had been mostly Black rather than mostly white, a new USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll finds. A 55% majority says law enforcement would have employed harsher tactics […] Read more »
Americans see democracy under threat
Americans see President-elect Joe Biden taking office amid both the health crisis of the pandemic — and what they decry as a confusing vaccine rollout that is far too slow — then more broadly, they voice deep concern about the health of democracy itself. And it seems too facile to […] Read more »
The Trump-fueled riot shocked America. To some, it was a long time coming.
To countless scholars, advocates and political actors, the violent mob that stormed the halls of Congress on Jan. 6 was not exactly surprising. To some, it wasn’t a matter of whether a mob inspired by Donald Trump would kick down the doors of the Capitol, but when. “This situation, in […] Read more »
Some in the GOP parrot far-right talk of a coming civil war
War-like imagery has begun spreading in Republican circles after the attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of President Donald Trump’s supporters, with some elected officials and party leaders rejecting pleas to tone down rhetoric calling for a second civil war. … The heightened rhetoric mimics language far-right extremists […] Read more »
Joe Biden’s Looming War on White Supremacy
For four years, Donald Trump downplayed the risk of white-supremacist violence and denied that racial bias is pervasive in law enforcement. In a single, searing day, the assault on the U.S. Capitol exposed the price of both of those choices—and may have provided Joe Biden new political momentum for reversing […] Read more »