President Trump was direct in announcing he had COVID-19. But presidents in the past have been very good at deceiving the public about the state of their health. Which direction will Trump go now?
Five of the six contested presidential elections in U.S. history were resolved and the country moved on – one ended in civil war. What will happen if the upcoming election is contested?
The absence of trust in a nation’s leader and government jeopardizes an effective response to a health crisis. It also creates a political crisis, a loss of faith in democracy.
Debates may help voters identify which candidate shares their views but they do not help them think critically about those views. That’s because presidential debates don’t live up to their name.
While other countries set strict limits on the length of campaigns, American presidential races have become drawn-out, yearslong affairs. It wasn’t always this way.
No matter how well-intentioned, volunteers who may be inexperienced can’t solve the entrenched and complex social problems low-income communities endure.
As former director of the US Information Agency, Edward R. Murrow, once put it, presidential travel should be treated as a ‘weapon’ to influence popular opinion.
Amid all the Mueller report uncertainty, one thing is clear: Donald Trump did some wildly improper things to win the presidency. So did Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, JFK and George W. Bush.
JFK pushed consumer rights to the top of the national agenda in 1962, leading to a raft of new laws offering new protections. But without enforcement, such rights are meaningless.
Russians have been charged with interfering with the 2016 US presidential election. If true, it’s not an isolated incident. Twice before, foreign powers tried to influence who won the Oval Office.
President Trump has been criticized for the appointment of political allies as attorney general. But history is filled with examples of AGs who were friends and political supporters of the president.
Arguments on religious freedom have taken place throughout US history and have landed in the Supreme Court as well. Interpretations have changed over time.
SNAP and its precursors have weathered plenty of efforts to shrink the safety net. Its decades of bipartisan support make it likely to survive this one.
In the minds of many, the assassination remains a tragedy cloaked in mystery. How does this lack of closure – and the general distrust it fomented – resonate in American culture and politics today?
Global Scholar at Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, DC and Hopkins P Breazeale Professor, Manship School of Mass Communications, Louisiana State University