For the first time, a former US president has been indicted, and two scholars describe what it means for democracy – and for them.
People wait in line for a free morning meal in Los Angeles in April 2020. High and rising inequality is one reason the U.S. ranks badly on some international measures of development.
Frederic J. Brown/ AFP via Getty Images
The United States came in 41st worldwide on the UN’s 2022 sustainable development index, down nine spots from last year. A political historian explains the country’s dismal scores.
Supporters of Ukraine, like these demonstrators in Boston on Feb. 27, 2022, are likely to be disappointed by any peace deal.
Vincent Ricci/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Jeffrey Fields, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
The US frequently chooses to put its own interest ahead of its professed values. That approach to foreign policy is called ‘realpolitik’ and it may lead to an unsatisfying peace deal in Ukraine.
Legal rally of the National Socialist Movement, one of the major neo-Nazi groups in the United States, on April 21, 2018, in Draketown, Georgia.
Spencer Platt/AFP
The First Amendment to the US Constitution protects Americans’ freedom of speech, so much so that even the most hateful speech has the right to be quoted.
An evangelical outreach in Uganda led by the prominent and wealthy pastor Robert Kayanja.
WALTER ASTRADA/AFP via Getty Images
African evangelism is born from – and often funded by – American evangelism, and with it comes a damaging cocktail of rightwing ideologies, especially during the Donald Trump years.
DC National Guard stand outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, after Trump supporters stormed the building in an attempt to overturn the U.S. presidential election.
(AP Photo/John Minchillo)
Donald Trump uses language like a dangerous demagogue. The author of a book on Trump’s rhetorical skill gives a guide to the six most important rhetorical strategies Trump uses.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, center, speaks with U.S. President Donald Trump, at the contentious G7 Leaders Summit in Canada in June.
AP/Jesco Denzel/German Federal Government
Gordon Adams, American University School of International Service
President Trump is criticized for wreaking havoc on the international order, where the US was the established leader. But Trump is simply hastening a change that has been a long time coming.
In the 19th century, Russian intellectuals launched a search for historical evidence of their moral and military superiority. What they found drives what today some call “Russian aggression.”
When is might right?
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American presidents have spent a great deal of time proclaiming US leadership of the global system. The decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement undermines much of what they have said.
Workers wash freshly harvested bananas on a banana plantation near Parrita, Costa Rica.
AP Photo/Kent Gilbert
While Costa Ricans pride their country for being an oasis of stability in Latin America, the nation has struggled with restrictive laws and social attitudes toward immigrants from Nicaragua.
President Ronald Reagan on stage with his wife Nancy, 1984.
AP Photo/Reed Saxon
Abram Van Engen, Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis
Trump’s budget would eliminate the National Endowment for the Humanities, breaking a tradition of funding humanities scholarship that goes back to the nation’s founding.
Some say coddled kids need to be taught how to persevere through setbacks and disappointments.
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One of the newest trends in education is teaching students how to develop grit. But what’s even meant by ‘grit’? And what if grit means something different for everyone?
Does Hillary Clinton have her own brand of American exceptionalism?
Aaron Bernstein/Reuters
Abram Van Engen, Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis
Is America exceptional? An expert on rhetoric examines how the idea has changed over time, and how Democrats are claiming their own version.
“Every day I wake up determined to deliver for the people I have met all across this nation that have been neglected, ignored, and abandoned.”
Mario Anzuoni/Reuters
Trump appeared surprisingly presidential. According to a scholar of American political rhetoric, there were echoes of Roosevelt, Eisenhower and Reagan.
The latest instalment of wildly popular videogame Call of Duty, Advanced Warfare, shows the narratives of today’s games can reveal the motives behind real-world politics. Over the past decade, fictional…
Professor of Public Theology in the Department of Beliefs and Practices, Faculty of Theology, at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (Free University of Amsterdam), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam