The Gist

The OG GOP

Trump’s disdain for democracy may be unprecedented in a U.S. president, but the Republican Party’s tricks have 19th-century roots.

A Gilded Age cartoon depicting monopolists watching over the activities of the U.S. Congress.

Wikimedia Commons

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And in the interview… unprecedented! Preposterous! Unimaginable! Trump’s presidency and the GOP’s machinations actually do have antecedents, says historian Heather Cox Richardson. They’re in the 1890s, when robber barons partnered with the Republican Party to pack the courts. Richardson is the author of To Make Men Free: A History of the Republican Party.

In the Spiel, what do we make of the Catholic Church?

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Podcast production by Pierre Bienaimé and Daniel Schroeder.