Tag: Alexander Hamilton

Racist Roots of GOP War on Obama

Exclusive: Right-wing Republicans in Congress are plotting to cripple the U.S. government if Barack Obama, the first African-American president, doesn’t submit to their demands. The battle pretends to be over the size of government but it echoes the whips, chains…

Rethinking Thomas Jefferson

Exclusive: Americans are proud that their Declaration of Independence was also a declaration of universal rights. But the hard truth is that, in 1776, the words were mere propaganda cloaking the fact that a third of the signers were slaveholders,…

The Right’s Dubious Claim to Madison

Special Report: James Madison, so-called “father of the Constitution” and fourth U.S. president, is at the center of a historical debate over what the original intent of the Framers was and whether a strong federal government fits with those principles. The…

The Tea Party’s Legacy of Racism

Exclusive: The American Right demeans racial minorities for playing the victim’s role, but today’s Tea Party is draped in “victimhood,” claiming to be the target of an African-American president and feeling threatened by the nation’s demographic shift. But racist fears have always…

Source of Anti-Government Extremism

Exclusive: The Right’s hostility to “guv-mint” is not new. It traces back to the South’s fears that any activism by the national government, whether building roads or providing disaster relief, would risk federal intervention against slavery and later against segregation, perhaps…

Racism and the American Right

Exclusive: From the start of the Republic to today’s Republican ranting against Barack Obama, racism has been a central element of the American Right. But this ugly feature of U.S. history has often come concealed behind words praising traditions, liberty…

The Power of False Narratives

Exclusive: The defeat of a modest gun-safety bill in the Senate is further vindication of Orwell’s cynical observation that “who controls the past controls the future” since the American Right has persuaded millions of Americans that a false narrative about the Second…