In 1913, Woodrow Wilson took office pledging to curtail the gunboat diplomacy of his Republican predecessors, Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft. Yet he inherited conflicts in Cuba and Nicaragua, experienced tensions with revolutionary Mexico and chaos in Haiti. To … Continue reading How We Got Here: How America Made Haiti Safe for Empire

Few moments in the Civil Rights Movement – not even the Birmingham Bus Boycott or the March on Washington – encapsulate the stark moral drama embodied by Martin Luther King and his allies than “Bloody Sunday.” On March 7th, 1965, … Continue reading How We Got Here: Martin Luther King and the “Right Way to Protest”

Part Five in a series; see Parts One, Two, Three and Four.  The Nativist movement’s violence exploded exponentially at the same time it became most respectable. In the mid-1850s, decades of anti-Catholic nationalism, confined to the baying of mobs, the … Continue reading How We Got Here: The Brief, Unhappy Reign of Citizen Know-Nothing

Welcome to a special edition of How We Got Here! This is a significantly expanded version of an article originally posted on my blog in November 2016.  On April 4th, 1974, Indiana Congressman Earl Landgrebe delivered a defiant speech to … Continue reading How We Got Here: Richard Nixon’s Deplorables

Part four in a series on Nativism and the Know-Nothings; see part one, part two and part three.  In the short term, the Nativist riots in Philadelphia and New York inspired outrage rather than copycats. Besides the general disgust over … Continue reading How We Got Here: The Cardinal’s Progress

Part three in a series; see Part I and Part II Nineteenth Century Nativism didn’t always take on the forms of Catholic hatred. Antebellum America’s bloodiest riot wasn’t caused by cloistered convents, school Bibles or papal nuncios. While inflamed and exploited … Continue reading How We Got Here: New York’s Fanboy Riots

Part two in a series on 19th Century Nativism; part one here Rebecca Reed’s scandalous revelations (and the violence they inspired) triggered a slew of imitators. Perhaps the most absurd was Rosalind, a pseudo-memoir detailing Cuban priests conscripting white women into … Continue reading How We Got Here: Philadelphia’s Bible Battles

Welcome to another series in my How We Got Here column. Having dissected Watergate, we’ll move backwards to explore the history of the Know-Nothings and anti-Catholicism in 19th Century America. I originally posted these articles on my own blog last … Continue reading How We Got Here: The Charlestown Convent and the Birth of an American Hate

At the height of the Watergate hearings, nearly 85 percent of Americans watched them on television. As we’ve seen, initial indifference turned into excitement as the Committee interrogated witnesses and uncovered truths. It cratered Nixon’s approval ratings, destroyed public trust … Continue reading How We Got Here: Aftershocks from the Season of Inquiry

Part four in a series: see parts one, two and three.  Fred LaRue was perhaps the shadiest of Richard Nixon’s men, which was no small accomplishment. The Mississippi oil heir first gained notoriety in 1957 by killing his father in … Continue reading How We Got Here: The Berlin Wall

Part Three in a series; see parts one and two. Once upon a time, John Mitchell had been Washington’s second-most powerful man. As Attorney General, his jowly, pipe-smoking visage embodied Richard Nixon’s version of “law and order,” a ruthless crackdown … Continue reading How We Got Here: The White House Horrors

Part one here. June 16th, 1973: nearly a month into the Senate Watergate hearings and America is hooked. Initially, network executives expressed serious reservations. One CBS producer worried about hearing from “200,000 nice little old ladies whose favorite soap opera … Continue reading How We Got Here: John Dean Tells All

Welcome to How We Got Here, what I hope to be a regular Avocado feature chronicling how historical events shaped our current political and cultural climates. I hope you enjoy and please leave any feedback you’d care to share. – … Continue reading How We Got Here: The Ervin Hearings, Watergate and the 24 Hour News Cycle