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@hcrhq.bsky.social

Your source for all things Heather Cox Richardson. Managed by Team HCR.

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HCR HQ @hcrhq.bsky.social · 5h ago

American Conversations with @robsandia.bsky.social & @hcrichardson.bsky.social — streaming live tomorrow at 9am PT / 12pm ET. Save this link: https://youtube.com/live/13vzH4LJcn4?feature=share

HCR HQ @hcrhq.bsky.social · 6h ago

The Loss of America's Prestige and Power Around the Globe | Explainer from yesterday’s Politics Chat with @hcrichardson.bsky.social Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOCHnymzmmk

The Loss of America's Prestige and Power Around the Globe | Explainer

00:49 correction *Clinton Administration. In which I try to answer your questions about modern politics....From Politics Chat, August 25, 2026The live stream...

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HCR HQ @hcrhq.bsky.social · 8h ago

We Honor Humanitarian Dolly Parton | From yesterday's Politics Chat with @hcrichardson.bsky.social Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TdLezlrhX8

HCR HQ @hcrhq.bsky.social · 12h ago

Letters from an American August 25, 2026 Full letter available here: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/august-25-2026 @hcrichardson.bsky.social

Trump started yesterday morning on social media saying: “The United States is giving serious consideration to changing the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America in that we don’t expect to [be] doing much business with Ontario any longer.” On X, the account of the Republicans pushed the idea of renaming the lake. In contrast to MAGA’s performative nonsense, Canadian officials announced yesterday that on September 8 they will begin to impose tariffs of up to 50% on about 700 products worth about $20 billion in retaliation for Trump’s tariffs on Canada.

Those products include U.S. steel, aluminum, chain saws, appliances, processed cheese, and clams. Paul Vieira of the Wall Street Journal noted that the tariffs appear targeted toward plants in Republican-held congressional districts. Canada will also invest about 7.5 billion in Canadian dollars ($5.4 billion U.S.) in Canadian firms and workers hit by the trade war. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s threat of yesterday that the U.S. intends to strangle Iran’s economy isn’t faring much better than Trump’s attempt to rename Lake Ontario.

The policy of Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to bring a “warrior” ethos to the Pentagon by putting it “on offense, not just on defense” using “maximum lethality, not tepid legality,” and having “violent effect, not politically correct,” has given the U.S. a tremendous loss in Iran. And a report yesterday from Megan Rose and Hannah Allam of ProPublica suggests that officers in U.S. Central Command recognized the dangers of Hegseth’s approach to warfare. Rose and Allam report that when Hegseth polled top commanders about cutting the Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response program instituted after civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan hardened opposition to the U.S., they universally objected.

HCR HQ @hcrhq.bsky.social · yesterday

August 25, 2026 Trump started the morning on social media saying: “The United States is giving serious consideration to changing the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America in that we don’t expect to [be] doing much business with Ontario any longer.”

August 25, 2026

Trump started the morning on social media saying: “The United States is giving serious consideration to changing the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America in that we don’t expect to [be] doing much bus...

heathercoxrichardson.substack.com

HCR HQ @hcrhq.bsky.social · yesterday

Today's Politics Chat with @hcrichardson.bsky.social youtube.com/live/5TdLezl...

Politics Chat, August 25, 2026

YouTube video by Heather Cox Richardson

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HCR HQ @hcrhq.bsky.social · yesterday

Going live in one hour—Politics Chat streaming today at 3pm PT / 6pm ET. @hcrichardson.bsky.social Join here: https://youtube.com/live/5TdLezlrhX8?feature=share

HCR HQ @hcrhq.bsky.social · yesterday

Media Horse Race | From “What the Heck Just Happened?” with @hcrichardson.bsky.social & Dr. Joanne Freeman. @jbf1755.bsky.social Watch the full conversation on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzJbV3StQnY

HCR HQ @hcrhq.bsky.social · 2d ago

Letters from an American August 24, 2026 Full letter available here: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/august-24-2026 @hcrichardson.bsky.social

On Friday night, Prime Minister Mark Carney instructed Canadian negotiators to walk away from talks with officials from the Trump administration over new tariffs of 50% Trump had imposed on $28 billion of Canadian products. Carney explained in a statement that “last-minute changes in the U.S. proposed terms were unfair, uneconomic, and called into question the reliability of any deal.” He has a point.

From July 1, 2020, until Trump’s second term, the U.S., Canada, and Mexico traded under the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA). Negotiated under the first Trump administration, USMCA replaced the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and was similar to it, creating one of the world’s largest free trade zones. The trade zone reinforced the close alliance between Canada and the U.S., enabling people in both countries to enjoy the longest demilitarized border in the world stretching more than 5,000 miles (more than 8,000 kilometers) across the entire North American continent.

Canada and the U.S. have shared military and defense capabilities, with the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) operating since 1957 to detect aircraft or missiles, especially those coming over the North Pole, that could prove a threat to the United States (NORAD’s Santa Tracker originally was a way to make Americans aware of what NORAD did). But as soon as he won reelection in 2024, Trump began to emphasize that he intended to use “economic force,” specifically tariffs, to pressure Canada into joining the U.S. as its 51st state. He began to exercise that threat the day he took office for the second time, saying he would put 25% tariffs on Canada.

This violation of his own trade agreement reflected the administration’s abandonment of the principles of free trade and defensive alliances put in place after World War II, replacing that system with one favored by autocrats like Russia’s president Vladimir Putin, in which strong countries imposed spheres of influence in their regions of the world. The recent threat against Canada came after Trump’s previous tariffs either were struck down or expired. On July 20, Trump said he would use Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930, more commonly known as the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, to impose a 50% tariff on certain Canadian products.

HCR HQ @hcrhq.bsky.social · 2d ago

August 24, 2026 On Friday night, Prime Minister Mark Carney instructed Canadian negotiators to walk away from talks with officials from the Trump administration over new tariffs of 50% Trump had imposed on $28 billion of Canadian products.…

August 24, 2026

On Friday night, Prime Minister Mark Carney instructed Canadian negotiators to walk away from talks with officials from the Trump administration over new tariffs of 50% Trump had imposed on $28 billio...

heathercoxrichardson.substack.com

HCR HQ @hcrhq.bsky.social · 2d ago

Letters from an American August 22, 2026 Full letter available here: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/august-22-2026 @hcrichardson.bsky.social

On Tuesday, August 18, during a debate for a runoff to win the South Carolina Republican senatorial primary, Senator Darline Graham (R-SC) answered a question about Taiwan and the importance of the South China Sea by saying: “I’m not that informed on national security.” She paused, and added: “But I do support the military.” The audience reacted with boos and gasps. Senators are supposed to manage national security.

Trying to clean up her mistake, Graham went to an interview with the friendly Sean Hannity at the Fox News Channel, where she tried to make a virtue of her error by saying it reflects that she is not a politician. Then she added that people in South Carolina are worried less about foreign affairs than they are about affordability, “boys in girls’ sports,” the Second Amendment, “illegal immigration,” and the SAVE America Act. Journalist Parker Molloy noted that trans girls have been banned from competing in K–12 girls sports since 2022 and are banned from competing in the NCAA and the Olympics. “This is literally an issue that doesn’t affect SC at all anymore,” Molloy noted. “They got what they wanted. How is this still a priority?”

But it appears voters don’t like living in the world Trump is creating. As Cleve R. Wootson Jr. noted Friday in the Washington Post, Trump went to South Carolina Friday night to help Graham’s campaign. He told those attending the rally that the election was really about him. Wootson notes that Trump is hoping for a Graham win to restore some of the power that is slipping away as his popularity continues to slide to new lows. Primary candidates he backed for governor in Iowa, Georgia, Wyoming, and Minnesota all lost, as did those he backed in congressional primaries in Michigan and Tennessee.

HCR HQ @hcrhq.bsky.social · 3d ago

I’ve heard rumors that we all need a break. So here, from a recent kayak trip, is a photo of a world that is not dominated by the news. And now, let’s all get a good night’s sleep. I’ll be back at it tomorrow.

Water, rocks and trees taken from a kayak.

HCR HQ @hcrhq.bsky.social · 4d ago

August 22, 2026 On Tuesday, August 18, during a debate for a runoff to win the South Carolina Republican senatorial primary, Senator Darline Graham answered a question about Taiwan and the importance of the South China Sea by saying: “I’m not that informed on national security.”

August 22, 2026

On Tuesday, August 18, during a debate for a runoff to win the South Carolina Republican senatorial primary, Senator Darline Graham (R-SC) answered a question about Taiwan and the importance of the So...

heathercoxrichardson.substack.com

HCR HQ @hcrhq.bsky.social · 4d ago

10,000 Cases of Reported Foodborne Illness | From Thursday's Politics Chat with @hcrichardson.bsky.social Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xi_O1EXPOc

HCR HQ @hcrhq.bsky.social · 5d ago

August 21, 2026 On August 21, 1831, Nat Turner, an enslaved American, led about 70 of his enslaved and free Black neighbors in a rebellion to awaken his white neighbors to the inherent brutality of slaveholding and the dangers it presented to their own safety….

August 21, 2026

On August 21, 1831, Nat Turner, an enslaved American, led about 70 of his enslaved and free Black neighbors in a rebellion to awaken his white neighbors to the inherent brutality of slaveholding and t...

heathercoxrichardson.substack.com

HCR HQ @hcrhq.bsky.social · 5d ago

How Shifting the Overton Window Affects U.S. Politics | Explainer from yesterday’s Politics Chat with @hcrichardson.bsky.social Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDUa3C6nM8U

How Shifting the Overton Window Affects U.S. Politics | Explainer

In which I try to answer your questions about modern politics....From Politics Chat, August 20, 2026The live streamed version is available here: https://www....

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HCR HQ @hcrhq.bsky.social · 5d ago

Some States Handling Foreign Affairs | From yesterday's Politics Chat with @hcrichardson.bsky.social Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xi_O1EXPOc

HCR HQ @hcrhq.bsky.social · 6d ago

Letters from an American August 20, 2026 Full letter available here: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/august-20-2026 @hcrichardson.bsky.social

On Saturday, August 15, the New York Times editorial board published an op-ed noting that the Republicans are trying to hide the cuts they have made to health care in the U.S. The editorial board called the expansion of affordable health care to millions of Americans one of the great achievements of the federal government in this century.

Before the Democrats passed the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2010 without a single Republican vote, about 18% of Americans under 65 had no health insurance. With the passage and later expansion of the ACA, also known as Obamacare, the number of uninsured had fallen below 10%. But now, the journalists note, Trump and the Republicans are working to uproot that achievement. While they extended Trump’s 2017 tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations in their July 2025 budget reconciliation bill...they refused to extend subsidies that enabled people to afford healthcare insurance in the ACA marketplaces.

The Democrats shut down the government last fall to try to force Republicans to restore those cuts, foreseeing that higher prices for premiums would drive healthier people out of the markets and out of healthcare insurance, while the loss of those healthier people from risk pools would drive up premiums for those remaining. They were unsuccessful, and as they warned, without the subsidies, people dropped their health insurance. A report from the Department of Health and Human Services in late June 2026 showed that at least 5 million people lost health insurance in the first six months of the year, a drop of about 13%.

For those remaining, premiums have spiked.... Deductibles also jumped this year by about $1,000 a person as people chose cheaper policies that offered less coverage. Democrats shut down the government also because they wanted to restore the cuts of about $1 trillion over the next ten years Republicans had made in funding for Medicaid. In their budget reconciliation bill, Republicans placed what they called a “work requirement” on enrollees, requiring them to prove they have a job or a valid exemption.

HCR HQ @hcrhq.bsky.social · 6d ago

August 20, 2026 On Saturday, August 15, the New York Times editorial board published an op-ed noting that the Republicans are trying to hide the cuts they have made to health care in the U.S…. heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/august-20-...

August 20, 2026

On Saturday, August 15, the New York Times editorial board published an op-ed noting that the Republicans are trying to hide the cuts they have made to health care in the U.S.

heathercoxrichardson.substack.com

HCR HQ @hcrhq.bsky.social · 6d ago

Today's Politics Chat with @hcrichardson.bsky.social www.youtube.com/live/_xi_O1E...

Politics Chat, August 20, 2026

YouTube video by Heather Cox Richardson

youtube.com

HCR HQ @hcrhq.bsky.social · 6d ago

Failed Attempts at Voter Intimidation | From Tuesday's Politics Chat with @hcrichardson.bsky.social Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vo18MtjJ4LU

HCR HQ @hcrhq.bsky.social · 7d ago

Letters from an American August 19, 2026 Full letter available here: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/august-19-2026 @hcrichardson.bsky.social

The political world has been consumed over the past few days with a Republican meltdown about Trump’s aide Natalie Harp. The story began when Democratic Georgia senator Jon Ossoff said at an event for his reelection campaign on Sunday that Trump does not appear to want to do the job of the presidency. Ossoff added: “He golfs and trades stocks. See, he doesn’t want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar.” That was it. That was all he said.

On Monday, CNN reporter Kristen Holmes asked Trump to respond to Ossoff’s comment. Trump first referred to Ossoff as Pee-wee Herman, a child-man film character created by late actor Paul Reubens, then defended the ballroom and attacked the reporter. Later, as Scott Nover of the Washington Post reported, the White House rapid response team took to social media to call Holmes a “disgraceful, humiliating embarrassment to her alleged profession.” Then, in an unusual escalation, the account targeted Holmes’s children....

You could almost feel the palpable relief that the White House might be able to gin up a controversy that could rally the base, one that, for the first time in a long time, didn’t automatically show the president or the administration in a bad light. Certainly the call went out to right-wing media figures to pile on to the idea that Ossoff was making a sexist attack on Harp. Matt Royer of the Democratic National Committee Youth Council noted: “The word “affair” was never uttered, and yet apparently every single conservative talking head in the world heard it anyway, so what does that tell you?”

Commandeering the news cycle with manufactured outrage distracted attention from other issues Ossoff did call attention to in the same sentence. Ossoff called out Trump’s apparent stock manipulation, an issue Trump highlighted recently when he sold early access to his Truth Social posts for as much as $100,000 a month. It has been widely reported that investors appear to be making a killing by anticipating Trump’s posts as they make markets go up or down. An investigation by Casey Tolan and Isabelle Chapman of CNN published on July 16 found that Trump himself “made at least 44 stock purchases of 21 different companies within a week before he posted a complimentary Truth Social message about the firms, their executives or their products.”

HCR HQ @hcrhq.bsky.social · 7d ago

August 19, 2026 The political world has been consumed over the past few days with a Republican meltdown about Trump’s aide Natalie Harp. The story began when Democratic Georgia senator Jon Ossoff said at an event for his reelection campaign on Sunday….

August 19, 2026

The political world has been consumed over the past few days with a Republican meltdown about Trump’s aide Natalie Harp.

heathercoxrichardson.substack.com

HCR HQ @hcrhq.bsky.social · last wk.

Fighting Against a Disastrous Fascist Regime | Explainer from yesterday’s Politics Chat with @hcrichardson.bsky.social Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdWuoNX9BnA

Fighting Against a Disastrous Fascist Regime | Explainer

In which I try to answer your questions about modern politics....From Politics Chat, August 18, 2026The live streamed version is available here: https://www....

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HCR HQ @hcrhq.bsky.social · last wk.

Trump’s Sphere of Influence in Foreign Affairs | Explainer from yesterday’s Politics Chat with @hcrichardson.bsky.social Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZF85ZmsxW-M

Trump’s Sphere of Influence in Foreign Affairs | Explainer

In which I try to answer your questions about modern politics....From Politics Chat, August 18, 2026The live streamed version is available here: https://www....

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HCR HQ @hcrhq.bsky.social · last wk.

Letters from an American August 18, 2026 Full letter available here: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/august-18-2026 @hcrichardson.bsky.social

On August 18, 1920, the Tennessee legislature ratified the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution by a vote of 50 to 49. The deciding vote came from Harry T. Burn, who supported suffrage but was under pressure to vote no. His mother had urged him to vote yes despite the pressure. The new amendment was patterned on the Fifteenth Amendment, which protected the right of Black men to vote, and it read: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”

Like the momentum for the Fifteenth Amendment, the push for rights for women had taken root during the Civil War as women backed the United States armies with their money, buying bonds and paying taxes; with their loved ones, sending sons and husbands and fathers to the war front; with their labor...and even with their lives, spying and fighting for the Union. In the aftermath of the war, as the divided nation was rebuilt, many of them expected they would have a say in how it was reconstructed. But to their dismay, the Fourteenth Amendment explicitly tied the right to vote to “male” citizens, inserting the word “male” into the Constitution for the first time.

The next year, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony formed the National Woman Suffrage Association, and six months later, Lucy Stone and Julia Ward Howe founded the American Woman Suffrage Association. The National Woman Suffrage Association wanted a general reworking of gender roles in American society, drawing from the Seneca Falls Convention that Stanton had organized in 1848. That convention’s Declaration of Sentiments, patterned explicitly on the Declaration of Independence, asserted that “all men and women are created equal.”

It listed the many ways in which men had “fraudulently deprived [women] of their most sacred rights” and insisted that women receive “immediate admission to all the rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of these United States.” While the National Woman Suffrage Association excluded men from its membership, the American Woman Suffrage Association made a point of including men equally, as well as Black woman suffragists, to indicate that they were interested in the universal right to vote and only in that right, believing the rest of the rights their rivals demanded would come through voting.

HCR HQ @hcrhq.bsky.social · last wk.

Happy National Aviation Day!

250 to 250@250to250.bsky.social · last wk.

North Carolina Governor Josh Stein is a lifelong public servant, previously served in the state Senate, as Senior Deputy AG for consumer protection, and as AG. Governor Stein celebrates the Wright brothers, whose 12-second flight at Kitty Hawk in 1903 launched the age of aviation. #WeAreAmerica250

HCR HQ @hcrhq.bsky.social · last wk.

August 18, 2026 On August 18, 1920, the Tennessee legislature ratified the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution by a vote of 50 to 49. The deciding vote came from Harry T. Burn, who supported suffrage but was under pressure to vote no. His mother had urged him to vote yes despite the pressure….

August 18, 2026

On August 18, 1920, the Tennessee legislature ratified the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S.

heathercoxrichardson.substack.com

HCR HQ @hcrhq.bsky.social · last wk.

Today's Politics Chat with @hcrichardson.bsky.social www.youtube.com/live/Vo18Mtj...

Politics Chat, August 18, 2026

YouTube video by Heather Cox Richardson

youtube.com

HCR HQ @hcrhq.bsky.social · last wk.

Plausible Deniability | From “What the Heck Just Happened?” with @hcrichardson.bsky.social & Dr. Joanne Freeman. @jbf1755.bsky.social Watch the full conversation on YouTube: https://youtube.com/live/r0XHLEhaOto