Ideas

Donald Trump, Joseph McCarthy, Rümeysa Öztürk
Illustration by Blake Cale*

The Third Red Scare

The Trump administration is cracking down on Americans’ freedom of speech, but the First Amendment won’t go down without a fight.

collage of images from the American Revolution
Illustration by The Atlantic. Sources: Library of Congress; Pierce Archive LLC / Buyenlarge / Getty; The Print Collector / Print Collector / Getty.

What Actually Changed in 1776

The most consequential shift that year was not one of battle lines but of ideology.