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Protesters gather at the Wisconsin State Capitol, holding signs.

Trump's Water Policies Put America's Drinking Water at Risk

America at 250: A Country in Distress

America at 250: A Country in Distress

a house made of brown cardboard in a person's hands.

Homelessness Just Declined in the U.S.–Trump’s Plans Will Take Us Backwards.

I Alone Can (Fix) Destroy It

I Alone Can (Fix) Destroy It

Podcast: Past, present, future

Podcast: Past, present, future
The Fulcrum
By The FulcrumJun 30, 2022
The Fulcrum
The Fulcrum staff.
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Coming to you live this week from the American Political History conference at Purdue University, it’s the season finale. Will and Siva speak with three historians — Liette Gidlow, Derek Musgrove and Thomas Zimmer — about the past, present and future of government by the people. "Democracy in Danger" guests ponder the Jan. 6 hearings, D.C. statehood, social mobilization and the structural problems of the Constitution itself. Did America’s founders sign democracy’s death warrant at its birth?

S4 E16. Past, Present, Future

S4 E16. Past, Present, Future

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Governance & Legislation

Putting the Guardrails Back on Delegations of Power

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Governance & Legislation

What Immigration Debates Reveal About National Confidence

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President's Trump National Address On Iran Is Watched By New Yorkers In Manhattan

People watch as US President Donald Trump makes a national address on television at Brooklyn Diner Times Square on April 1, 2026 in New York City. US President Donald Trump's address to the nation is expected to lay out the framework for ending the conflict in Iran.

Adam Gray / Getty Images

When Duty Isn’t a Priority: A Megalomaniac President Abuses the Nation

What does it mean when the presidential oath becomes a performance instead of a promise? It means the nation is left vulnerable to a leader whose actions suggest that personal power may matter more than the Constitution he swore to defend.

He raised his right hand and swore to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution.” Yet millions of Americans have watched a president whose conduct repeatedly raises doubts about his commitment to that oath. His attacks on constitutional limits, his hostility toward oversight, and his tendency to treat institutional constraints as obstacles to personal objectives have led many to conclude that constitutional duty is no longer his governing priority. When the oath becomes symbolic rather than binding, the consequences are carried by the public.

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Why Democrats Are Running Against the ‘Epstein Class’

Graham Platner, the Democratic Senate nominee, is running a populist campaign with a focus on corruption and influence.

CJ Gunther/Getty Images

Why Democrats Are Running Against the ‘Epstein Class’

After Graham Platner secured the Democratic nomination for Senate in Maine, his first ad of the general election didn’t mention his opponent, Sen. Susan Collins, or the Republican Party. It focused on the late disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and who he called the “Epstein class” of elites in both parties.

“Some of the most powerful Democrats and Republicans in the country were on Epstein island,” Platner said in the ad, referring to Epstein’s former residence in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Platner, whose economic-populist campaign combined with controversial online statements and a since-removed tattoo of a Nazi symbol have drawn national attention, framed himself in opposition to this elite class.

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Trump’s second term is a murky, embarrassing and costly spectacle

U.S. President Donald Trump displays a graph entitled "Our Pool is Bigger than Skyscrapers" as he speaks on his renovations to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool during an event in the Oval Office of the White House on June 3, 2026, in Washington, D.C.

(Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images/TNS)

Trump’s second term is a murky, embarrassing and costly spectacle

Every time I get asked by a TV anchor what I think about the drama of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, my favorite “historical” headline from the Onion comes to mind: “World’s Largest Metaphor Hits Ice-Berg.”

And every time I do, I hear from defenders of the Trump administration complaining about the disproportionate media coverage of what should be a very minor story in the grand sweep of things. They have a point. President Trump has done some good work rehabbing Washington, D.C., where I live. But the Reflecting Pool has bedeviled him. Algae keep returning to the pool, despite the administration’s best efforts, and attempts to remedy the problem have yielded further problems.

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A stage on the national mall with a crowd of people before it.

Attendees arrive during the Great American State Fair Kickoff Celebration on the National Mall on June 24, 2026 in Washington, DC. The Great American State Fair runs through July 10 celebrating the 250th anniversary of the United States of America.

Al Drago / Getty Images

America’s Birthday Is Not a Trump Rally

Growing up in Ithaca, a college town in New York’s Finger Lakes region, I had a very different idea of the Fourth of July.

Independence Day was a community ritual. Families gathered before the parade, children buzzed with anticipation, veterans and local officials passed by, fire trucks and marching bands rolled through downtown, neighbors greeted one another by name, and best of all, fireworks lit up the night sky. The celebration was modest, local, and imperfect in the way all genuine civic life is imperfect. It fostered a sense of belonging.

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