Tag Archives: Heather Cox Richardson

History is a Bitch

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[I have reprinted verbatim this essay by the remarkable historian, HEATHER COX RICHARDSON, who posted it in her Substack column on June 26, 2026, with a “share” button indicating her consent to faithful redistribution of her words. As we approach the nation’s 250th anniversary, just hours away, these words should be read by every American. Regardless of whether you do that, do yourself, and the people you care about, a favor and watch the YouTube video linked at the end]
Wednesday night, after President Donald J. Trump refused to sign a landmark bipartisan housing bill into law and melted down at a midday lunch at which he shouted at senators, Senate Republicans appeared to try to mollify him by voting against advancing a war powers resolution the Senate passed the day before.

The Republican senators’ apology for their brief flash of independence was not enough for House MAGA loyalists. Trump said he would not sign any more legislation until the Senate passed the so-called Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, known as the SAVE or SAVE America Act, to limit voting before the 2026 election. According to Representative Melanie Stansbury (D-NM), members of the far-right Freedom Caucus said that if Trump wasn’t going to sign any measures into law, there was no reason to debate any more. They voted against procedural measures to enable the House to conduct business. Unable to accomplish anything, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) sent House members home on Thursday.

Stansbury noted: “[N]obody has ever seen a Congress like this before. It is truly a bizarre time here in Washington, DC…. This is not good. This is not good for our country. It is not good for our communities. It’s not good for our democracy. It’s not good, just for basic common sense and basic human dignity. Like, these guys need to get it together.”

The turmoil in Washington, D.C., reflects the changing world of American politics as the Republicans become a far-right party that embraces white nationalism while those Americans standing firm on the nation’s historic democratic principles jockey to create a political system that will represent their movement.

On June 25 the Supreme Court allowed Trump and his administration to end the legal status of more than 350,000 people who are in the United States under temporary protected status, or TPS, after fleeing wars and violence in Syria and Haiti. The six right-wing justices cited procedural reasons for their decision, but Trump loyalists read it as an endorsement of their white nationalism.

White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller told reporters: “This country doesn’t have a future if we don’t end birthright citizenship…. One way or another, this nation has to end birthright citizenship.”

Yesterday, at a Faith and Freedom Coalition town hall in Washington, D.C., Representative Tom Emmer (R-MN), the third-ranking Republican in the House, made the white nationalism of the Republican Party clear. He said: “Minnesotans are so afraid that you’re gonna call us a racist, you’re gonna call us an Islamophobe…. You know what? I would argue that I never did care, but I’m done being careful, even the least bit careful…. [Somalis] don’t assimilate. And if they don’t assimilate, then they should go the hell back to where they came from.”

Eric Henderson of CBS News notes that Emmer has moved dramatically rightward in the past decade. In 2016, Emmer told NPR that the Somali community in Minnesota was among “the fastest-assimilating populations that we’ve had.” “I’m going to say it out loud,” he said, “when you move to a community, as long as you are here legally, I am very sorry, but you don’t get to slam the gate behind you and tell nobody else that they’re welcome. That’s not the way this country works.”

The once grand Republican Party has become a party of radical extremists, coalescing around white nationalism.

Meanwhile, voters in Tuesday’s Democratic primaries in New York rejected two established Democrats in favor of newcomers with more progressive policies. In response, as Isaac Arnsdorf and Natalie Allison of the Washington Post reported, Trump is trying out midterm messaging that calls Democrats “hard core, godless communists.” “They’re animals,” Trump said of his political opponents today in a speech to Christian conservatives at a convention of the Faith & Freedom Coalition in Washington. “We have to stop this, this horrible thread of cancer that’s permeating our country called communism.”

Trump’s rhetoric shows just how far to the right American politics have slid.

Communism is a political ideology that calls for public ownership of major resources as well as the means of production, so that the state, rather than private individuals or corporations, owns factories, farms, mines, and so on. In theory, although seldom in practice, the state then redistributes wealth according to need.

Communism has never been popular in the United States, and the only politician calling for state takeover of private industries is Trump, under whom the government has taken stakes in at least nine companies involved in steel, minerals, nuclear energy, and semiconductors, costing at least $10 billion in taxpayer money.

Unlike communism, the sort of government both Democrats and Republicans embraced from 1933 to 1981 was very popular, and those opposed to the Trump administration appear to be starting to demand such a government again.

Their views are a response to the extremes of wealth in today’s United States. Mary Cunningham of CBS News reported in January that the third quarter of 2025 showed the top 1% of households in the U.S. owning 31.7% of all U.S. wealth. That’s the highest share they’ve had since the Federal Reserve started tracking household wealth in 1989. That means the wealthiest 1% held roughly as much in assets as the bottom 90% of Americans combined: about $55 trillion.

At the same time, according to a Gallup poll released earlier this month, fewer than half of Americans say they can afford health care. Since the Republicans cut Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) funds in last July’s so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act, 4.7 million Americans have lost food assistance, about 11% of those previously enrolled in the program.

“People are really unhappy,” former senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH), who is running for the Senate seat J.D. Vance vacated when he became vice president, told Scott MacFarlane of MacFarlane News today. “They believe the system’s rigged. They see corporations making more and more money,… corporate executives taking more and more of those dollars for themselves, stock buybacks, bonuses, compensation of all kinds. They know they’re working harder than ever…and they know that…more money’s going out than coming in.”

A Brennan Center survey released in early June showed that 92% of Americans worry about corruption in government. That number includes 90% of Republicans, 93% of Democrats, and 93% of Independents. Seventy-nine percent of those polled want a constitutional amendment to restore limits on money in elections. Sixty-six percent of Americans think the government has a responsibility to make sure all Americans have health care versus 33% who say it does not.

The Democratic candidates Trump is railing against as “communists” actually argue that robust private enterprise cannot survive unless the government combats dramatic wealth inequality through regulation and taxation, and operates the segments of society that people need to survive, like transportation, utilities, and health care.

Across the country we are seeing Democratic candidates calling for an end to government corruption; the breaking up of monopolies that hurt workers, farmers, and consumers and shut entrepreneurs out of markets; protection for workers and consumers; universal health care; and an end to big money in politics. These policy demands are not radical; they are firmly within the political tradition not just of the Democrats, but also of the Republicans.

In 1956 the Republican Party platform approvingly quoted “the great truth first spoken by Abraham Lincoln” that “[t]he legitimate object of Government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done but cannot do at all, or cannot so well do, for themselves in their separate and individual capacities. But in all that people can individually do as well for themselves, Government ought not to interfere.”

The platform went on to affirm the party’s determination “that our children and their children, without distinction because of race, creed or color, may know the blessings of our free land.”

It called for “unimpeachable ethical standards and irreproachable personal conduct by all people in government.” Honesty was “an indispensable requirement of public service,” party officials said.

The Republicans of 1956 also said they were “proud of and shall continue our far-reaching and sound advances in matters of basic human needs—expansion of social security—broadened coverage in unemployment insurance—improved housing—and better health protection for all our people. We are determined that our government remain warmly responsive to the urgent social and economic problems of our people.”

They called for helping foreign countries strengthen their economies and supported “U.S. participation in an international fund for economic development.” “We shall continue,” they said, “vigorously to support the United Nations” and to maintain U.S. military strength “as a deterrent to aggression and as a guardian of the peace…for these objectives only.”

Then the Republican Party platform addressed the needs of workers. Quoting President Dwight D. Eisenhower, it said: “Labor is the United States. The men and women, who with their minds, their hearts and hands, create the wealth that is shared in this country—they are America.”

The platform noted that Republicans had worked to raise the minimum wage and to expand Social Security and unemployment, workers’ compensation, and retirement benefits. They supported the growth of labor unions, and collective bargaining.

They would, they said, “continue to fight for dynamic and progressive programs which, among other things, will: [s]timulate improved job safety of our workers; [c]ontinue and further perfect its programs of assistance to the millions of workers with special employment problems, such as older workers, handicapped workers, members of minority groups, and migratory workers;…improve the effectiveness of the unemployment insurance system;…[a]ssure equal pay for equal work regardless of Sex;” extend minimum wage laws; [c]ontinue to fight for the elimination of discrimination in employment because of race, creed, color, national origin, ancestry or sex;” and “[p]rovide assistance to improve the economic conditions of areas faced with persistent and substantial unemployment.”

“The Republican Party believes that the physical, mental, and spiritual well-being of the people is as important as their economic health,” the platform said. “It will continue to support this conviction with vigorous action.”

[End of Richardson essay]

Now compare the following with any speech of comparable length by the traitor Donald J. Trump:

https://www.youtube.com/live/JztQx56c2nA?is=djBM1ZeGGjuCmvuj

On the Precipice

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As we approach with bated breath the change of years on the calendar, the flow of events continues. The calendar is an artificial device invented by humans for counting time but time ticks forward regardless. So, here we are, about to celebrate another “year” lived and with hope, we hope, for a better future for everyone.

Given all that, it’s a good idea to review some things about the recent past that have a large bearing on the near future. For this, I turn to Heather Cox Richardson, brilliant Boston College historian to whose daily newsletter [Letters From an American] I have recently subscribed. I’m pretty sure she’s ok with my repeating her thoughts/information because each issue of the newsletter as a “Share” button at the end with options for email, Twitter, Facebook, and others. And we’re on the same team.

Here are some of HCR’s observations about the Biden administration’s performance:

  • The U.S. economy is stronger than that of any other country in the Group of Seven (G7)—a political and economic forum consisting of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, along with the European Union—with higher growth and faster drops in inflation than any other G7 country over the past three years.
  • … growth accelerated to an astonishing 4.9% annualized rate in the third quarter of the year while inflation cooled from 6.4% to 3.1% and the economy added more than 2.5 million jobs.
  • The S&P 500, which is a stock market index of 500 of the largest companies listed on U.S. stock exchanges, ended this year up 24%. The Nasdaq composite index, which focuses on technology stocks, gained more than 40%.
  • … new businesses are starting up at a near-record pace.
  • … holiday sales this year were up 3.1%.
  • Unemployment has remained below 4% for 22 months in a row for the first time since the late 1960s.
  • … unionized workers in the automobile industry, UPS, Hollywood, railroads, and service industries [won] higher wages and other benefits.
  • Real wages have risen faster than inflation, especially for those at the bottom of the economy, whose wages have risen by 4.5% after inflation between 2020 and 2023.
  • the nation has had a record drop in homicides and other categories of violent crime. The only crime that has risen in 2023 is vehicle theft.

One must wonder why this kind of news does not get more attention from at least the so-called Mainstream Media. I get a vast array of news articles from a vast array of sources every day and you would think from the headlines/content of most of them, that the United States is on the brink of economic collapse. I have wondered in other posts why the Democratic Party’s message of progress/achievement/hope is not keeping up with the relentless drumbeat of lies/deceptions/deflections from Donald Trump and his acolytes. I will wonder.

The “new” science of Behavioral Economics [see Kahneman, Thinking Fast and Slow] teaches us about cognitive biases and the influence of salience on how we generalize our understandings of “reality.” To some significant degree, the repetition of the lies and distortions of Trump’s dark vision of America have led many people to believe we are on the precipice of collapse brought on by immigration, socialism, communism, abortion, and transgenderism, etc etc. The facts say otherwise.

That is not to say, obviously, that there are no problems. One of them, that gets too little attention, is our continued dependence on other countries, most notably but not solely China for many vital products, including critical microchips. See https://www.ted.com/talks/rob_toews_ai_s_single_point_of_failure/transcript?user_email_address=f286772a6726b8e7d0d1da2e91e7f0c9 There are many others but the scale of the United States, its history and its attachment to capitalism inevitably cause problems. For an honest explanation of some by a brilliant scholar who believes in capitalism, see Charles Lindblom’s The Market System (2001), as valid today as when written.

So, as we approach the “New Year,” there is much to celebrate and much about which to be concerned. Maybe this is nothing new, but it feels more ominous for reasons I have discussed in other recent posts. For now, just for today, I will desist from worrying and, with Heather Cox Richardson, accept that we have much to appreciate in our current political leadership, that we still have hope because the good guys outnumber the bad guys, and trust that the good guys will, as they have in past, do what must be done as Americans who still believe in our aspiration set out in the Preamble to the Constitution:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Former Speaker Resigns House Seat to Seek Backbone

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I have just started reading the remarkable daily newsletter published by Heather Cox Richardson, professor of history at Boston College. You too can subscribe: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/subscribe

Today’s post discusses the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision to bar Donald Trump from the state ballot because of his participation in the January 6 insurrection. Although I profoundly wish it were otherwise, I do not believe the U.S. Supreme Court will sustain that decision. I will explain why in another post shortly. But the HCR piece also reminded me that Kevin McCarthy, “the first speaker ever thrown out by his own party, today officially resigned his seat.”

McCarthy needs more free time to search for his backbone that went missing when he was on his knees trying to placate all sides, but ultimately just Donald Trump, on the questions raised by Trump’s efforts to overthrow the government. McCarthy’s persistent lying is recounted in gruesome detail in Liz Cheney’s remarkable memoir, Oath and Honor, A Memoir and a Warning. I am only halfway through her mesmerizing recounting of the days leading up to, through and beyond the January 6 attack on the Capitol but the pattern is clear, especially regarding McCarthy’s behavior. Most of the Republicans in Congress then do not come out much better. But McCarthy was one of their leaders.

To be clear, I abhor most of Liz Cheney’s political views (and those of her father, W’s former VP) but her courage in the face of Donald Trump’s criminality warrants our endorsement. It cost her a position as a Republican Party leader and ultimately her seat in Congress. As recounted in Wikipedia [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liz_Cheney], Cheney supported Trump’s second impeachment and rejected his claim that the 2020 election was stolen.

Slithering on his belly, a characteristic of invertebrates, Kevin McCarthy supported her removal from party leadership. The final straw came when Cheney accepted service as Vice Chair of the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack. The Wyoming Republican Party, ever obedient to Trump, revoked her membership and she was defeated in the next primary by a Trump-endorsed robot.

We can never undo the past, but we can learn from it. Cheney’s book contains a multitude of chapter-and-verse revelations from inside the Congress throughout the period around January 6. This is a must-read book for anyone who wants to understand more deeply what transpired, who was responsible and all the ugly rest.

It’s good that McCarthy is gone. The ethical quotient of the Congress went up the moment he departed, though it remains to be seen who will replace him in the House. The mind boggles. We hope McCarthy finds his backbone though the odds seem long. It’s more likely he will hang around Mar-a-Lago licking Trump’s boots and hoping for a job in the next Trump administration.

You will recall that is what most of the Republicans did who opposed Trump’s nomination for the presidency in 2016. Even Mitt Romney bent the knee to Trump after the election. Lindsey Graham called Trump a “race-baiting xenophobic religious bigot” among many other things, concluding with “tell Donald Trump to go to hell.” http://tinyurl.com/yh59tz3b Then Graham, like McCarthy, became one of Trump’s strongest defenders.

Read Liz Cheney’s book and you will understand more deeply, if you don’t already, why Donald Trump must never set foot in the White House again. Also subscribe to Heather Cox Richardson’s newsletter for amazing daily insights into America’s descent into hell.