JD Vance

Truths self-evident no more.

Justin B. Wymer knows a snake when he sees one.

MAGA has been a largely white movement of non-urban people who seem to think that people unlike them are scary and that there is only safety in homogeneity.

Far from a novel form of populism, J. D. Vance’s appeals are indistinguishable from the economic vision of the 1970s John Birch Society.

"Hillbilly Elegy" has been used to explain the 2016 election, but its logic is rooted in a dangerous myth about race in Appalachia.

When Donald Trump and his followers go in search of historical forerunners to justify their regime, they turn with striking regularity to the presidency.

According to conventional wisdom, the last quarter century of elections has proved that most of the country leans conservative. It all started with a map.

Trump's second term echoes 19th-century policies: tariffs and immigration limits protect workers, while deregulation risks widening inequality.

The former president’s grotesque demagoguery is just the latest in a long line of vicious attacks on residents and immigrants from the island nation.

Dismantling it requires getting the story right.

Revisiting the Agrarian-Distributists and their fabrication of an American past.

Capturing the 1968 DNC.

J.D. Vance's "Hillbilly Elegy" and Steven Stoll's "Ramp Hollow" both remind us that the history of poor and migratory people in Appalachia is a difficult story to tell.

A region that outsiders love to imagine but can’t seem to understand.

A spate of new books explores the composition and motivations of the demographic that has been credited with electing Trump.

How the silent majority became a loud and angry minority.

A new movie relies on 19th century myths to portray the very British George Washington as a moralistic proto-American ready to pursue independence. 

Unable to agree on how to interpret the American story, the country’s schools, universities, and political institutions have stopped trying to tell it at all.

How did the GOP become a haven for slogans and ideas straight out of the Third Reich?

Conservatism faces a populist shift, but traditional Ronald Reagan-era ideas of growth, limited government, and originalism remain the preferred path.