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Just over a week into the Biden administration, and our attentions here on the politics desk are divided: Yes, we’re tracking what’s changing under the new president, but we’re still monitoring fallout from the political violence of Trump’s final days.
If that sounds like a lot to cover, it is – and today’s hefty newsletter reflects our dual agenda. We have newsy stories on once-conservative Georgia joining the “new South,” Biden’s flurry of executive orders and U.S. foreign policy in a post-Trump world. We also have reflections on the secretive online planning and dangerous aftermath of the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection. In a country where death threats target congressional representatives voting to impeach Trump, will domestic terror become a chronic problem?
Also today:
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Can Joe Biden restore U.S. world leadership?
Agela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images
Muqtedar Khan, University of Delaware; Garret Martin, American University School of International Service; Jennifer M. Piscopo, Occidental College; Joyce Mao, Middlebury; Julius A. Amin, University of Dayton
Biden wants to restore US global leadership after four years of Trump's isolationism and antagonism. These are some of the challenges and opportunities he'll face, from China to Latin America.
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Georgia’s recent election of three Democrats for national office – one Jewish, one Black and one Catholic – upended over a century of politics openly hostile to minorities.
Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images
Sharon Austin, University of Florida
Georgia once had 'the South's most racist governor,' a man endorsed by the KKK. Now its senators are a Black pastor and a Jewish son of immigrants. A scholar of minority voters explains what happened.
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Some 25,000 National Guard troops protected Joe Biden’s presidential inauguration due to fears of a far-right extremist attack.
Stephanie Keith/Getty Images
Luis De la Calle, Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas
Far-right extremists in the US have the potential to mount a coordinated, low-intensity campaign of political violence. It wouldn't be the country's first experience with domestic terror.
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Barry M. Mitnick, University of Pittsburgh
For decades, presidents beginning with Andrew Jackson routinely replaced large swaths of the government workforce, often requiring them to pay fees to political parties in exchange for their jobs.
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Jakana Thomas, Michigan State University
To distill the violent insurrection at the US Capitol into a tale of angry male rage is to overlook the threat that women in the mob posed.
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Sharece Thrower, Vanderbilt University
Executive orders aren't as unilateral as they seem. Here's how government keeps them in check.
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