Letters from an American

On September 5, 1882, workers in New York City celebrated the first Labor Day holiday with a parade. The parade almost didn’t happen: there was no band, and no one wanted to start marching without music. Once the Jewelers Union of Newark Two showed up with musicians, the rest of the marchers, eventually numbering between 10,000 and 20,000 men and women, fell in behind them to parade through lower Manhattan.

Letters from an American Heather Cox Richardson's narrated newsletter about the history behind today's politics. Heather Cox Richardson's narrated newsletter about the history behind today's politics.

Election analyst Charlie Cook told Republicans today to “brace themselves” for the midterms. “The three most plausible outcomes are that it will be bad, really bad, or truly horrible.” To stop voters from turning Republicans out of office and handing Democrats control of the House of Representatives, the Senate, or both, the Trump administration is trying to implement a new rule for the United States Postal Service that would enable it to act as a gatekeeper for who can vote by mail.

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Letters from an American Heather Cox Richardson's narrated newsletter about the history behind today's politics. Heather Cox Richardson's narrated newsletter about the history behind today's politics.

A number of pundits, especially Republican pundits, interpreted Trump’s win in 2024 as a permanent political realignment proving that post–World War II liberalism was dead. That conviction appeared to help feed Trump’s insistence that he had won a “landslide” and had a “mandate” to enact draconian policies.

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Letters from an American Heather Cox Richardson's narrated newsletter about the history behind today's politics. Heather Cox Richardson's narrated newsletter about the history behind today's politics.

Yesterday, by a vote of 5–4, the United States Supreme Court allowed Trump to continue to build his ballroom. The five right-wing justices concluded that the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which had sued to stop the construction of the ballroom, did not have legal standing to sue and that national security considerations came down on the side of construction. The majority said it was not resolving the issue of whether the project is legal.