Years of research about the people who work in the federal government finds that most of them are devoted civil servants who are committed to civic duty without regard to partisan politics.
Former U.S. president Donald Trump points up during a Fox News Channel town hall on Feb. 20, 2024, in Greenville, S.C.
(AP Photo/Chris Carlson)
Canada relies on established norms, rules and institutions to make the world stable. These concepts would be a great risk if Donald Trump made good on threats to disregard NATO.
Voters in a county election, 1854.
Etching by John Sartain after painting by George Caleb Bingham; National Gallery of Art
Is American democracy an ‘experiment’ in the bubbling-beakers-in-a-laboratory sense of the word? If so, what is the experiment attempting to prove, and how will we know if and when it has succeeded?
At the Cherokee Heritage Center in Park Hill, Oklahoma, life-size sculptures depict the walk of the Cherokees along the Trail of Tears.
Department of Transportation/Federal Highway Administration
The right is explicitly laid out in the same treaty that led to the Trail of Tears.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, standing at center and facing left just above the eagle, takes the presidential oath of office for the third time in 1941.
FDR Presidential Library and Museum via Flickr
A president’s persona is always a public act. In that way, Trump’s shtick – vulgar man of the people – was not exceptional. And every president has had to invent his version of the role.
A cartoonist’s image of Sen. Charles Sumner’s May 1856 beating by South Carolina Rep. Preston Brooks.
Wikipedia
‘Mind your manners’ isn’t just something your mother told you. Manners – and civility – are an essential component of how things get done in government, and the Founding Fathers knew it.
Trump put a portrait of Andrew Jackson in the Oval Office when he was president.
Oliver Contreras-Pool/Getty Images
For decades, presidents beginning with Andrew Jackson routinely replaced large swaths of the government workforce, often requiring them to pay fees to political parties in exchange for their jobs.
A picture of Andrew Jackson hung in the Oval Office during Trump’s tenure.
AP Photo/Patrick Semansky
For decades, presidents routinely replaced large swaths of the government workforce, often requiring them to pay fees to political parties in exchange for their jobs.
Republican nominee Gov. Mike Pence and Democratic nominee Sen. Tim Kaine stand after the vice-presidential debate in Farmville, Va., Oct. 4, 2016.
Joe Raedle/Pool via AP
‘Mind your manners’ isn’t just something your mother told you. Manners – and civility – are an essential component of how things get done in government, and the Founding Fathers knew it.
Trump falsely declaring a win in the early hours of Nov. 4, 2020, the day after the US election, as ballot counting continued in Pennsylvania and other battleground states.
Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images
Five of the six disputed presidential elections in US history were resolved and the country moved on – but one ended in civil war. What will happen if the 2020 election is contested?
This combination of Sept. 29, 2020, file photos show President Donald Trump, left, and former Vice President Joe Biden during the first presidential debate in Cleveland, Ohio.
(AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
The U.S. presidential election is again serving as a symptom and a symbol of a troubled society. Whatever the outcome, history suggests anything but a quick resolution to deeply rooted problems.
President Donald Trump works on a smartphone, a common tool in his political communication efforts.
AP Photo/Alex Brandon
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?
Voters in Nashville, Tennessee, faced long lines in March 2020.
AP Photo/Mark Humphrey
The framers of the Constitution never mentioned a right to vote. They didn’t forget. They intentionally left it out.
Soldiers and African American workers standing near caskets and dead bodies covered with cloths during Grant’s Overland Campaign.
Matthew Brady/Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division
Lincoln’s chances of reelection in 1864 were dim. He was presiding over a bloody civil war, and the public was losing confidence in him. But he steadfastly rejected pleas to postpone the election.
What message is Attorney General William Barr sending citizens in defying court order?
Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images
For more than two centuries, one particular epithet has resonated through US politics – and even helped inspire the unofficial mascot of a major political party.
Election fraud is not usually as obvious as this.
Victor Moussa/Shutterstock.com
When the electoral process was helped along by practices that either were or appeared to be underhanded, the resulting wounds took a long time to heal – and may not ever have healed.
Trump invites Barr to speak about efforts to gain citizenship information in the 2020 census.
Reuters/Carlos Barria
President Trump hinted that he would defy a Supreme Court ruling recently, though he later yielded to its authority. Andrew Jackson – Trump’s hero – likewise challenged the rule of law in the 1830s.