David Greenberg

Politicians can brag all they want. But that won’t win them many political battles.

Perceived illegitimacy is now an American tradition.

Presidents are, by definition, “presidential.” But Trump has scrambled what that word means.

He used public opinion, the press, leaks to Congress, and Upton Sinclair to reform unconscionable industries, like the meatpackers.

Early U.S. presidential polls have tended to be wildly off-target. There’s no reason to think this time is different.

The list of politicos laid low by sexual scandal grows ever longer. It hasn’t always been this way. Fifty years ago, the press famously considered politicians’ sex lives off-limits, however colorful. Go back to the Gilded Age, though, and salacious gossip was front-page news. Taken as a whole, history offers a few lessons on when the press should opt for exposure—and when it should leave well enough alone.

One year in, Obama’s approval ratings have slipped, and they’re likely to get worse. He’ll probably muddle through seven more years of partisan acrimony, small-bore achievements, and bitter disappointment. But this is okay. In fact, it’s the definition of success for a modern president.

Fifty years ago, amid trying personal circumstances, an audacious young historian wrote a book of lasting merit about American Presidents and their politics