Author: Heather Cox Richardson

One hundred and fifty nine years ago this week, in 1862, 75,000 United States troops and about 38,000 Confederate troops massed along Antietam Creek near Sharpsburg, Maryland. After a successful summer of fighting, Confederate general Robert E. Lee had crossed the Potomac River into Maryland to bring the Civil War to the North. He hoped to swing the slave state of Maryland into rebellion and to weaken Lincoln’s war policies in the upcoming 1862 elections. For his part, Union general George McClellan hoped to finish off the southern Army of Northern Virginia that had snaked away from him all...

Early in the wake of Trump’s presidency, Republican Party lawmakers that face upcoming elections appear to have made the calculation that radicalized Trump voters were vital to their political futures. They seemed to worry that they needed to protect themselves against primary candidates from the right, since primaries are famous for bringing out the strongest partisans. If they could win their primaries, though, they could rely on tradition, gerrymandering, and voter suppression to keep them in office. So Republicans tried to bury the January 6 insurrection and former president Trump’s role in it. Although both Senate Minority Leader Mitch...

“The Supreme Court ruling was an unprecedented assault on a woman’s constitutional rights. Complete strangers will now be empowered to inject themselves in the most private and personal health decisions faced by women.” – President Joe Biden In May, Governor Abbott signed the strongest anti-abortion law in the country, Senate Bill 8, which went into effect on September 1. It bans abortion after 6 weeks — when many women do not even know they are pregnant — thus automatically stopping about 85% of abortions in Texas. There are no exceptions for rape or incest. Opponents of the bill had...

The lightning speed takeover of Afghanistan by Taliban forces, which captured all 17 of the regional capitals and the national capital of Kabul in about nine days with astonishing ease, was a result of “cease fire” deals. That amounted to bribes, negotiated after former president Trump’s administration came to an agreement with the Taliban in February 2020. When U.S. officials excluded the Afghan government from the deal, soldiers believed that it was only a question of time until they were on their own and cut deals to switch sides. When Biden announced that he would honor Trump’s deal, the...