Roundup 
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SOURCE: The Atlantic
1/16/2021
QAnon Is Destroying the GOP From Within
by Ben Sasse
The Republican Senator from Nebraska, who holds a doctorate in American history, warns that his party cannot continue to "preach the Constitution while winking at QAnon," and suggests ways to repair the frayed social fabric in which conspiracy theories thrive.
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1/15/2021
The Roundup Top Twenty for January 15, 2021
This week was extraordinary. Historians have been working overtime to put current events in perspective. It was impossible to pick the ten best, so we're featuring a double dose of the top opinion writing by historians and about history from around the web.
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SOURCE: The New Republic
1/14/2021
The Capitol Riot Revealed the Darkest Nightmares of White Evangelical America
by Matthew Avery Sutton
Many observers have speculated that American evangelicals have had a transactional relationship with Donald Trump. But his messages of "American carnage" and warnings of dire consequences if he is defeated mesh perfectly with their end-times outlook and have helped tie evangelicals to the far right coalition.
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SOURCE: Perspectives on History
1/12/2021
Vikings, Crusaders, Confederates
by Matthew Gabriele
The far-right has combined a selective and outdated version of medieval history from popular culture to express values of racial superiority, aggressive masculinity and violence in defense of threatened values.
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SOURCE: Hechinger Report
1/13/2020
A U.S. History Teacher Scrambles to Explain Unprecedented Attacks and Desecration of Democracy
by Jim Cullen
"Our job as educators is to make and model good, conscious choices about what we believe, and to make that necessarily fallible belief system as transparent as we can for students without insisting that they share it."
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SOURCE: Washington Post
1/14/2021
Five Myths about the Lost Cause
by Karen L. Cox
At this time, it's worth examining the particular tenets of the Confederate Lost Cause mythology because of how pervasive they remain and because they may be a template for narratives of resentment and betrayal that are developing now.
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SOURCE: New Statesman
1/13/2021
Why Trump Isn't a Fascist
by Richard J. Evans
Richard J. Evans argues that "fascism" arose in the specific context of states defeated in World War I and thus embraced military expansionism and a concurrent militarization of domestic life in addition to racial domination. While Trump is dangerous, labeling him a fascist doesn't explain his political movement.
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SOURCE: The Conversation
1/12/2021
How Can America Heal from the Trump Era? Lessons from Germany’s Transformation into a Prosperous Democracy after Nazi Rule
by Sylvia Taschka
The Federal Republic of Germany disappointed many who sought a complete reckoning with Nazi crimes. But it successfully balanced the exclusion of top Nazi leaders with winning the allegiance of party supporters to democratic government through a commitment to supporting lives of dignity and sufficiency for all Germans.
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SOURCE: Phi Delta Kappan
1/7/2021
The Silence of the Ellipses: Why History Can’t be about Telling Our Children Lies
by Sam Wineburg
The fairly recent elevation of Crispus Attucks as a hero of the American Revolution obscures the complexity of his role in the Boston Massacre and illustrates the pressure for textbooks to conform to a triumphal American narrative rather than engaging with the complexity of the past.
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SOURCE: New York Times
1/13/2021
Trump Is the Republican Party’s Past and Its Future
by Lisa McGirr
It's not a question of whether Trump voters are driven by racism, nativism or conspiracy theories, or by "economic anxiety." Republican economic policies have created inequality and instability that the party can only paper over by encouraging resentment, suspicion and hostility. It won't end with Trump's departure.
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SOURCE: New York Times
1/14/2021
Why Trump Can Be Convicted Even as an Ex-President
by Steven I. Vladeck
The historical record of impeachment trials suggests that they treat removal from office and disqualification from future office as separate questions, meaning that the Senate may still vote to disqualify Trump from office even after his term has ended.
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SOURCE: The Conversation
1/14/2020
The Great Polio Vaccine Mess and the Lessons it Holds about Federal Coordination for Today’s COVID-19 Vaccination Effort
by Bert Spector
The introduction of the Salk polio vaccination offers lessons for governments trying to roll out a coronavirus vaccine in a climate of mistrust and poor distribution infrastructure.
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SOURCE: The Conversation
1/14/2021
The Confederate Battle Flag, Which Rioters Flew Inside the US Capitol, Has Long Been a Symbol of White Insurrection
by Jordan Brasher
The Confederate battle flag has always been a symbol of white insurrection and reaction against perceived Black political power. Its presence among the banners flying during the Capitol rioting is no surprise.
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SOURCE: Tropics of Meta
1/13/2021
Josh Hawley Is Not the First Missouri Senator with Blood on His Hands
by Steven Lubet
Senator Josh Hawley arguably helped incite a mob to invade the Capitol to thwart the certification of Biden's victory. Missouri's antebellum senator David Rice Atchison helped incite a civil war in Kansas in 1854.
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SOURCE: Scholarly Kitchen
1/14/2021
Historians in Historic Times
by Karin Wulf
A lineup of historians share their thoughts on how they saw the Capitol rioting and attack on Congress through the lens of their work. Featuring Vanessa M. Holden, Claudio Saunt, Serena Zabin, Marcus Nevius, Michael Hattem, Ana Lucia Araujo, William G. Thomas III, Daniel Mandell, Sophie White and Daryle Williams.
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SOURCE: Reason
1/13/2021
Reviving Sedition Prosecutions Would Be a Tragic Mistake
by David Beito
A libertarian historian argues that the use of sedition law to charge participants in the Capitol riots would revive a dangerous pattern of prosecuting ideology instead of action, one which those on the left should also treat with suspicion.
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SOURCE: The Conversation
1/8/2021
A Scholar of American Anti-Semitism Explains the Hate Symbols Present During the US Capitol Riot
by Jonathan D. Sarna
The presence of conspiracy theorists and overt and coded anti-Semitic messages at the Capitol riot shows that far right ideology continues to target Jews in a conspiratorial, eliminationist worldview.
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SOURCE: Washington Post
11/12/2021
Impeachment May Not Work. Here’s the Next Best Way to Dump Trump
by Eric Foner
The 14th Amendment empowers Congress to bar persons involved in insurrection against the United States from holding office. This can't remove Trump, but it can stop him (and anyone found to have plotted the Capitol rioting) from returning to office.
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SOURCE: Slate
1/11/2021
The Only Way to Save American Democracy Now
by Richard R. Hasen
"We need bold changes to deal with the threat to democracy from an authoritarian wing of the Republican Party that appeared ready to abet Trump’s stealing of the election, as well as the separate problem that the Republican Party can continue to consistently win elections with minority support thanks to backward American election rules we have in place."
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SOURCE: Informed Comment
1/12/2021
The Armed Accelerationists are Coming: Neo-Nazis and Boogaloo Bois Plan Another Insurrection Jan. 20
by Juan Cole
Far-right groups involved in the Capitol riots plan further actions as part of a strategy of "accelerationism" to create spectacular episodes of violence to polarize society.
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