"Arguably the Most Sartorially Influential Person to Ever Hold the Presidency"

"Whether sailing off the coast of Hyannis Port or hosting a glamorous black-tie dinner at the White House, Kennedy's innate charisma and charm were merely enhanced by the approachable way in which he outfitted himself. 'JFK was almost unaware of clothes being of any great importance,' remarks Deeda Blair, whose husband served as U.S. Ambassador to Denmark during the Kennedy administration. 'He always was well dressed and I would even say distinguished, but effortless and easy—unremarkable ties and I suspect no fussing about pocket squares.'"

Andrew Nodell in a 2017 Women's Wear Daily article discusses President John Kennedy's clothes.

"America Has Amused Itself to Death"

"Rule by performers doesn't need to impose an autocrat's lies on the people; people do it to themselves through their entertainments. In 1984, George Orwell described doublethink as the kind of intellectual gymnastics demanded by a totalitarian society: 'To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies.' Reality television and the WWE demand similar distortion-effect gymnastics; their audiences willingly suspend their disbelief and gladly accept events they know are artificial as real. The audiences come to political debate already prepared for the blurring of illusion and reality."

Stephen Marche at The Atlantic calls Donald Trump's government a "histriocracy."

"Dark Counterprogramming to the American Story"

"The most persistent conspiracy theories can survive on the fringes for decades, before suddenly reappearing with new details, villains and heroes, often at a time of social upheaval or economic dislocation. Sometimes, these beliefs can erupt into action, as they did on Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob of President Donald Trump's supporters broke into the U.S. Capitol."

David Klepper of the Associated Press writes that "Even Before The Revolution, America Was A Nation Of Conspiracy Theorists."

If "Good Enough for A Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin, for FDR and JFK, It Should Be Good Enough for Today's Democratic Party"

"A Democratic party that adopts these principles has a real shot at political domination given Republicans' serious problems and weaknesses. Conversely, a Democratic party that continues on its present course dooms American politics to continued stalemate and polarization. Like the prospect of an imminent hanging, that should concentrate the mind."

Ruy Teixeira at The Liberal Patriot writes that it is "time for Democrats to try something that really could unite the country: liberal nationalism."

"America Isn't the Church and the Church Isn't America"

"Winthrop got close to getting the analogy right because he called the Puritans to follow and reflect biblical teachings about charity and mercy as they followed Christ. His shortcoming, as seen by the Puritan breakdown over the next few decades, was thinking that a whole society could possibly do that well over the long term. Reagan's vision of America being a city on a hill wasn't terrible because he was simply building off of biblical imagery to make a point about the goodness and potential example of our country, but it still falls far short of what the saying really means."

At The Bulwark, Alan Cross writes that "America Cannot Be the Biblical City on a Hill."

"Our Enemies Did Us a Favor by Pointing to Our Flaws, Because It Played a Role in Spurring Us to Be Better"

"Today, we still have enemies, but we no longer have the morally organizing idea of liberty versus tyranny that shaped our self-concept during the Cold War. We no longer see the need to sell our way of life to others around the globe. Many Americans shrug at the prospect of the Chinese government crushing freedom in Hong Kong, or Eastern European countries closing universities and independent media. We don't see ourselves as leading Team Liberty."

Mona Charen at The Bulwark writes about "What We Lost When We Won the Cold War."

"Yet Hope Always Remains"

"The city on a hill does not seem very shiny in the year 2020. Pandemic, economic crisis, and an incumbent president attempting to overthrow the democratic election he undoubtedly lost by a large margin: If the eyes of all people are upon America now, they are not witnessing an edifying spectacle." 

David Frum at The Atlantic discusses Abram Van Engen's City on a Hill: A History of American Exceptionalism.

"The Time Nixon's Cronies Tried to Overturn a Presidential Election"

"Donald Trump is fanning fears that if he loses the presidential election in November, he'll try to discredit the vote totals as fraudulent and won’t concede the race. Doing so would amount to a dramatic break from historical precedent, as commentators are noting. But not all of them are getting their history right. Al Gore, we're reminded, accepted defeat in 2000, despite reason to believe he should have won Florida, and Richard Nixon, we're told, declined to challenge John F. Kennedy's razor-thin victory in 1960.                                                                "The part about Gore is true. But Nixon did no such thing." 

David Greenberg at Politico explains the aftermath of the 1960 presidential election.

"If Ever There Was a Time to Rejoin the Two and Leverage Nationalism to Counter Ethno-Nationalism, It Is Now"

"Post-Vietnam progressives answered King's call to eschew imperialism but they mistrusted nationalism. Many came to regard it as just another expression of toxic tribalism that modernization and popular enlightenment would one day wash away. Democrats have told stories of class, gender, and racial injustice, and they have rightly pressed for ameliorative policies, but they have typically failed to scale up their message to a full-blown narrative that joins the pursuit of justice to the nation's ideals, identity, and greatness. Most party leaders have also refrained from taking the lead on national interests and security, leaving that to the Republicans. As a result, they left the flag with politicians who carried it into another reckless war—and eventually turned it over to Trump, whose patriotic pretensions too often go unchallenged despite their manifest hollowness."

M. Steven Fish, Neil A. Abrams, and Laila M. Aghaie at Slate argue that "American liberals have been relatively comfortable talking about race but have forgotten how to speak the language of nationalism."

"Geography Was Far More Predictive of Voting Coalitions on the Civil Rights [Act] Than Party Affiliation"

"In this case, it becomes clear that Democrats in the north and the south were more likely to vote for the bill than Republicans in the north and south respectively. This difference in both houses is statistically significant with over 95% confidence. It just so happened southerners made up a larger percentage of the Democratic than Republican caucus, which created the initial impression than Republicans were more in favor of the act.
"Nearly 100% of Union state Democrats supported the 1964 Civil Rights Act compared to 85% of Republicans. None of the southern Republicans voted for the bill, while a small percentage of southern Democrats did."

In a 2013 Guardian article, Harry J. Enten answers the question, "Were Republicans really the party of Civil Rights in the 1960s?" 

"One of the Best-Kept Secrets of Recent U.S. History"

"Lee Harvey Oswald killed Kennedy before the President's medical ailments could. But the evidence suggests that Kennedy's physical condition contributed to his demise. On November 22, 1963, Kennedy was, as always, wearing a corsetlike back brace as he rode through Dallas. Oswald's first bullet struck him in the back of the neck. Were it not for the back brace, which held him erect, the second, fatal shot to the head might not have found its mark."

In a 2002 Atlantic article, Robert Dallek writes about John Kennedy's health problems.

A Ripple of Hope

"Some of those lofty plans had the most basic of beginnings. David Gergen—an adviser to Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton—once told NPR about an anecdote Goodwin recalled about that famous tagline.
"Gergen said that 'when he worked for Lyndon Johnson,' Goodwin recalled 'Johnson calling him to the swimming pool and instructing him to take his clothes off and get in the pool with Johnson.
"'And Johnson came over to him like a great whale, and looked at him and said, "I need a slogan."'"
"Noting the link between big ideas and branding, Gergen added, 'And that's how they came up with the Great Society.'"

Bill Chappell at NPR remembers Richard Goodwin, as the presidential speechwriter and advisor dies at age 86.

"The Effort to Enact Robust Gun-Control Laws in the Nineteen-Sixties Quickly Revealed America’s Racial Fault Lines"

"The Kennedys' home-town paper, the Boston Globe, hoped that the N.R.A. would get 'its first real comeuppance' in the slain reverend's wake. But the N.R.A. has only gained political strength since then. It has weakened elements of the Gun Control Act of 1968, and generally blocked the passage of major gun-control legislation for decades. In the fifty years since, the number of civilians who have died from firearms in the U.S. has exceeded the number of Americans who have been killed in uniform during all the wars in the nation’s history. In 2017, the Journal of the American Medical Association declared gun violence a 'health crisis.' Meanwhile, donations to the N.R.A. tripled after the Parkland school shooting."

Rich Benjamin at The New Yorker looks at politics, race, and firearms fifty years after the death of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Ask What Your Country Can Do For You

"On an abstract level, I think the worst thing they've done is destroy a sense of social solidarity, a sense of commitment to fellow citizens. That ethos is gone and it's been replaced by a cult of individualism. It's hard to overstate how damaging this is.
"On a concrete level, their policies of under-investment and debt accumulation have made it very hard to deal with our most serious challenges going forward. Because we failed to confront things like infrastructure decay and climate change early on, they've only grown into bigger and more expensive problems. When something breaks, it's a lot more expensive to fix than it would have been to just maintain it all along."

Vox updates the interview Sean Illing did of Bruce Gibney, author of A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America, as the book is issued in paperback.

And Jane Smiley reviews the book at The Guardian.

"The Biracial Appeal Was Strong"

"Kennedy's unusual coalition may have been related to his willingness to fight for the underdog, but also to avoid political correctness. He was a champion of civil rights but also an opponent of racial preferences. He was deeply concerned about the racial and economic injustices that sparked riots, but also was a sharp critic of lawlessness. 'Though a man of growing compassion,' Matthews writes, 'he believed in law and order and didn’t hesitate to employ the phrase.' Liberals appreciated his opposition to the Vietnam War, but hard hats knew that he didn't want to let wealthy college students off the hook with draft deferments. What made Robert Kennedy unique, wrote Jack Newfield, in words Matthews quotes, 'was that he felt the same empathy for white workingmen and women that he felt for blacks, Latinos and Native Americans.'"

Richard D. Kahlenberg at the New Republic reviews Chris Matthews's Bobby Kennedy: A Raging Spirit.

"It Might Express the Idea That All History Is Revisionist"

"And politics makes memory. So does the formal study and writing of history, of course, but the relationship between the discipline of history and memory—or broadly shared cultural assumptions—is complicated. Conventional wisdom shapes historians, who often reinforce it with their work; on the other hand, many challenge it by marshaling evidence and arguments that, on occasion, change the public mind and seep back into politics. I don't mean, then, that we need a historiography museum, but one that traces the intertwining of the popular imagination and the professional study of history. It would go beyond the question, 'What happened?' to ask 'How did we come to believe that this is what happened?' The answer to the latter can be just as important as to the first."

T. J. Stiles at History News Network calls for a "Museum of the History of American History."

"The Candidate Himself Was Less Important Than What His Candidacy Signified"

"The growing literature on the plight of Appalachia deflects attention from the struggles of dwindling ethnic Catholic communities. For so many ethnic hamlets in Michigan or Pennsylvania, a middle-class existence either evaporated or never arrived. Their cash strapped local governments fail to provide adequate services. Rapid demographic change overwhelms their school districts and neighborhoods. Manufacturers announce layoffs and retail malls close. 
"The collective effect erodes any semblance of social cohesion. In these communities, individuals live in the same neighborhoods where their immigrant Catholic families arrived a century before. But the jobs are gone and their parish is consolidated or closed. These Democratic strongholds supported the labor movement, disproportionately served in the First and Second World Wars, and rallied around Kennedy in the hope of cultural vindication. This coalition remembers when Kennedy famously asked what Americans could do for their country. After reading this masterful study, one cannot help but ask what the current Democratic party has done for working-class Catholics."

Charles F. McElwee III at The American Conservative reviews Thomas Oliphant and Curtis Wilkie's The Road to Camelot.

"Capitalist, as Distinguished from Socialist"

"And so the term neoliberal frames the political debate in a way that perfectly suits the messaging needs of left-wing critics of liberalism. The uselessness of 'neoliberalism' as an analytic tool is the very thing that makes it useful as a factional messaging device for the left. The 'neoliberalism' rubric implicates the Democratic Party in the rightward drift of American politics that has in reality been caused by the Republican Party's growing radicalism. It yokes the two parties together into a capitalist Establishment, against which socialism offers the only clear alternative. Obscuring the large gulf between Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton, Paul Ryan and Barack Obama, is a feature of the term."

Jonathan Chait at New York criticizes the use of the term "neoliberalism."

"The Truly Paranoid Style in American Politics"

"Conspiracists are by nature anti-heroic—they believe that faceless networks must be far more powerful than ordinary individuals. A marginal figure like Ross could never have built his cocaine empire alone; Oswald could not have killed a president; a few dozen men in Afghan caves could not have brought down the Twin Towers. The romance of the conspiracy hunt lies in the way it transfers vitality from the assassin to the buff, at home alone, searching for the plot’s true source. In this, it matches perfectly the romance of the Internet, which perhaps explains why conspiracy has found such a resolute home there. If Ross, Oswald, and Hani Hanjour are merely pawns, then the story needs a hero, and the ­puzzle-solver himself raises his hand."

In a 2013 New York article, Benjamin Wallace-Wells looks at "50 years of conspiracy theory."

"The Last Surviving Astronaut of the Original Mercury Seven"

"When Glenn took his pioneering turn in space, astronaut Carpenter spoke for all Americans when he radioed from launch control just before liftoff, 'Godspeed, John Glenn.' Carpenter later said he had tried to keep the mood light by telling Glenn: 'Remember, John, this was built by the low bidder.'
"NASA cut the flight short—Glenn was supposed to orbit Earth seven times—when mechanical failure created concern that Friendship 7's heat shield might fall off during reentry and cause the capsule to burn up.
"Although he remained calm, Glenn later told Life magazine that he had been prepared to die. The heat shield held. After Glenn's safe return, he became a national hero. Bathed in the spotlight, Glenn was typically low-key.
"'It's been a long day,' he said after being fished out of the Atlantic Ocean by helicopter, 'but it has been very interesting.'"

Geraldine Baum and Valerie J. Nelson in the Los Angeles Times writes an obituary for John Glenn.