Gregory P. Downs
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Gregory P. Downs is a professor of history at the University of California, Davis.

If Democrats sweep the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives this fall, they will have an opportunity to repair the nation’s broken systems, not just make new policies.

We forget that periodically throughout history, the U.S. has embraced dramatic reforms to how power works when it became clear the system wasn't working.

We should view the Civil War as a second American revolution — with that perspective, we'll be able to realize the reforms necessary to preserve our rights.

Rebels in the post-Civil War South perfected the art of excluding voters, but it was yankees in the North who developed the script.