The Presidency Analyzed

1877 proved to be the culmination of one of the most depressing and melancholic processes in all of American history: The dissolution of Reconstruction. No longer would northern and Union forces exist to monitor the south and prevent it from abusing black Americans. Institutions chartered a decade prior and which had served as the torch-bearer for the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights - two documents black Americans had been fighting to obtain the benefits of ever since the end of the 18th century - were now defunct. In lieu of these great enforcers of human rights, tyranny and segregation plugged the power vacuum. The segregation virus first struck railroads and trains, then spread to the rest of southern society. States like Texas, Florida, Arkansas, South Carolina, and Mississippi were plunged into 9 decades of darkness, where every liberty was obscured by a massive sheet of spiteful despotism. Like practically everything else in history, though, this massive shift was

The other day, I spent a lot of time traveling through one of the greatest cities in the entire world: Philadelphia. A source of brilliance and revolution comparable only to Athens, Cairo, Timbuktu, Mecca, Karakorum, and Beijing, Philadelphia is the progressive and world-shattering father of Washington DC. While Washington DC became the gloomy realm of imperialists and aristocrats not too distinct from King George III himself, Philadelphia remained and continues to be a hub of working-class people originating from every race - descendants of abused slaves, white members of the lower- and middle-classes, children and grandchildren of Chinese and Vietnamese immigrants - who know the struggles of existing in the lower echelons of the American hierarchy. It was once the city where Thomas Jefferson forged the Declaration of Independence, where Alexander Hamilton and James Madison guided the creation of the Constitution, and where the Second Continental Congress preserved American independ

The 2008 Financial Crisis, a period of economic despair considered second-only to the decade of melancholy and gloom endured amidst the Great Depression, functioned as a massive sword, puncturing the flesh of the global market and causing it to leak out the corpse of the old world. It was a golden sword, forged in the wicked imaginations and greedy appetites of America's richest citizens, that murdered the human realm existing prior to 2007 and 2008. The economic pain contributed to the election of Barack Obama , thus reviving the progressive nature of the Democratic Party, which had laid dormant since the presidency of Bill Clinton . Internationally, it threatened collapse in Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, and Spain - countries with economies already burdened by enormous national debts - forcing the rest of the European Union to spend the 2010s investing money in these nations as a means of preventing dissolution. Frustrated with all these responsibilities, Britain, already ang

The first Monday in September is a day that is familiar and cherished by nearly all Americans. It is Labor Day, a symbol of over 150 years of struggle and activism by the American working class. The 8-hour workday, the minimum wage, broad benefits packages, workplace safety regulations, workplace injury compensation, equal pay between men and women, a ban on child labor, and paid vacation time are all concessions made by wealthy businessmen that have dramatically improved the lives of all lower and middle-class people working within the United States. But they were not earned without a mighty clash or tiring fight. These rights are red with the blood and tears of industrial, agrarian, and service workers. Comfort, wages, safety, and even lives were given in exchange for these improved conditions and Labor Day is a great way to commemorate those sacrifices. However, Labor Day as we know it is an accepted part of Western culture. A separate incarnation of Labor Day exists, popular in the

By the end of the 1850s and the beginning of the 1860s, the United States was on the brink of collapse. The borders between the various states were stuffed with expansive, boiling tensions, pushing the regions that once bonded to fight for liberty from Britain apart from one another. Slavery, a gross violation of every word in the Declaration of Independence and each foundational value serving as the basis of the American Revolution, was tearing the Union apart. Northerners were puzzled by how a nation that inscribed beautiful values of personal freedom and democracy in the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights could tolerate the extreme hideousness of slavery. Ever since Eli Whitney made cash crop production much more efficient with the cotton gin, Southerners had become financially bound to the evils of slavery. Thus, they clung to the practice with an unhinged grip. Beginning with the debate over Missouri being a free or slave state from 1818 to 1820, Americans argued about

Ever since the civil war and the years immediately preceding it, the American political realm has been split between two camps. Right-leaning Americans, who advocate increased geopolitical influence, social conservatism, and economic deregulation, tend to side with the Republican Party, established by abolitionists back in 1854 to retaliate against the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Meanwhile, left-leaning Americans, who advocate international cooperation, social progressivism, and pro-worker economic regulation alongside a broader welfare state, tend to side with the Democratic Party, founded by Andrew Jackson in 1828 to help boost the political strength of working-class Americans. It wasn't always like this. Famously, the Democratic Party and Republican Party used to occupy opposite ends of the political spectrum. Between the presidencies of James K. Polk and Grover Cleveland , the Democratic Party abandoned its leftist origins under Jackson, becoming a conservative political organizatio

When we look at the world today, a few countries are illuminated as significant powers, with their gripping arms and stomping legs extending across all faces of the globe, clutching colonies and spheres of influence to keep for themselves. Britain and France, nations that still control literal colonies in Oceania, the Caribbean, and South America are undoubtedly members of this clique. Russia, having spent the past 3 centuries hosting the rulers of imperial bodies like the Russian Empire, Soviet Union, and Russian Federation, is another example of a major world power. It is currently spilling blood - both the blood of its own soldiers and of the supposed "enemy" country - in Ukraine, hoping to use that blood to scribble "RUSSIA" across that whole nation, from Crimea to Kyiv. China, too, has been working ever since Mao Zedong's death to restore the days of the Silk Road, when all of Asia feared Beijing and its mighty fist. Right now, however, the most powerful of