Category: The Conversation – USA

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Diane Winston, Professor and Knight Center Chair in Media & Religion, USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism

President Donald Trump has never met Todd Chrisley, the reality TV star that he pardoned on May 27, 2025, along with Chrisley’s wife, Julie.

But the pair have much in common.

Both are admired by their fans for their brash personas and salty ripostes. Both enjoy lavish lifestyles: Trump is known for his real estate deals and rococo White House redecoration, and Chrisley for his entrepreneurial skill and acquisitions of sprawling properties.

Quick-tempered tycoons, they live large and keep score – especially when people cross them.

And maybe most importantly, both have run into legal trouble with Georgia prosecutors. In 2019, The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia indicted the Chrisleys for fraud and tax evasion, and the Fulton County district attorney filed charges against Trump in 2023.

In 2022, Todd and Julie Chrisley were tried in Fulton County, found guilty and sentenced to 12- and seven-year sentences, respectively. A year later, a Fulton County grand jury indicted Trump as part of an alleged conspiracy to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia, a case that’s currently in limbo.

After the Chrisleys went to prison, their daughter Savannah began campaigning for their release. Her efforts to win over prominent conservatives – including her outspoken support for Trump – led to a prime-time appearance at the 2024 Republican National Convention.

“My family has been persecuted by rogue prosecutors due to our public profile and conservative beliefs,” she told the delegates and a television audience of 15 million viewers.

Turning an insult into an accolade, she claimed prosecutors had called them the “Trumps of the South.”

Her framing of her parents’ imprisonment aligns with Trump’s broader campaign narrative of victimization, redemption and retribution, which critics say he has continued to promote and carry out during his second term.

Preaching perfection

Like Trump, who starred on “The Apprentice” for 11 years, the Chrisleys had their own reality television show.

“Chrisley Knows Best” aired on USA Network from 2014 to 2023. I’m familiar with the Chrisleys because I wrote about Todd in a 2018 book I co-edited on religion and reality television. The show was particularly popular among viewers in their 30s, who were fascinated by the Chrisleys’ extravagant lifestyle and Todd’s over-the-top personality.

The self-proclaimed “patriarch of perfection,” Todd flew twice a month to Los Angeles from Atlanta, and later Nashville, to have his hair cut and highlighted. He spoke freely about using Botox and invited viewers into his room-size closet where his clothes were organized by color. No matter the time of day, Todd was camera-ready: buffed, manicured and dressed in designer clothes.

The family enjoyed all the trappings of success: fancy cars, a palatial home and expensive vacations. Yet, in almost every episode, Todd made clear that his life, and theirs by extension, centered on family, religion and responsibility. In fact, many episodes revolved around Todd’s efforts to promote these values through his parenting lessons.

On the one hand, Todd tried to teach responsibility and the value of hard work to his five children. On the other hand, he bribed and cajoled them into doing what he wanted. Todd seemed to have it both ways: His strictness and traditional values appealed to Christian viewers, but his sass and cussing won over secular audiences.

Yet sometimes his words rang hollow. Todd talked a lot about work, but viewers rarely saw him at a job. He frequently quoted the Bible, but audiences seldom saw him in church. He extolled family, but a few years into the series, his two older children, Lindsie and Kyle, disappeared from the show.

In 2023, the series disappeared, too. By then, the Chrisleys were in prison.

Trump knows best

On the day of his inauguration, when Trump pardoned or commuted the sentences of the roughly 1,500 people involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, he vowed to “take appropriate action to correct past misconduct by the Federal Government related to the weaponization of law enforcement.”

According to the president, the imprisonment of Todd and Julie Chrisley and his pardoning of them is just that.

“Your parents are going to be free and clean and I hope that we can do it by tomorrow,” Trump told Savannah Chrisley in a recorded phone conversation. “They’ve been given a pretty harsh treatment based on what I’m hearing.”

Trump’s pardons, which have freed a number of conservatives convicted of fraud, may stem from his belief that he and many others have been falsely accused and persecuted by the elite, liberal establishment.

But the pardons also strike home for his right-wing religious supporters, many of whom think that Democrats will do anything to quash their faith, including using the justice system to specifically target Christians.

“We live in a nation founded on freedom, liberty and justice for all. Justice is supposed to be blind. But today, we have a two-faced justice system,” Savannah Chrisley said during her RNC speech. “Look at what they are doing to countless Christians and conservatives that the government has labeled them extremists or even worse.”

While those claims have been disputed, eradicating anti-Christian bias, at home and abroad, has nevertheless become a centerpiece of Trump’s policies during his second term.

The lawyers who prosecuted the Chrisleys had a different perspective. They called Todd and Julie “career swindlers who have made a living by jumping from one fraud scheme to another, lying to banks, stiffing vendors and evading taxes at every corner,” and whose reputations were “based on the lie that their wealth came from dedication and hard work.”

The couple were ultimately found guilty of defrauding Atlanta-area banks of US$36 million by using falsified papers to apply for mortgages, obtaining false loans to repay older loans, and not repaying those loans. They also were convicted of hiding their true income from the IRS and owing $500,000 in back taxes.

At his sentencing, Todd said that he intended to pay it all back. At a press conference after his pardon, he said he was convicted for something he did not do.

In the days since their release, the Chrisleys announced they were filming a new reality show, which will air on Lifetime. The series will focus on the couple’s legal struggles, imprisonment, pardon and reunification.

Thanks to the constitutional protections of the presidency, Trump’s reelection has shielded him from ongoing federal criminal prosecution. And now, thanks to the stroke of Trump’s pen, the “Trumps of the South” are back in business, too.

Diane Winston does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. In pardoning reality TV stars Todd and Julie Chrisley, Trump taps into a sense of persecution felt by his conservative Christian base – https://theconversation.com/in-pardoning-reality-tv-stars-todd-and-julie-chrisley-trump-taps-into-a-sense-of-persecution-felt-by-his-conservative-christian-base-257932

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Xianda Huang, PhD student in Asian Languages and Cultures, University of California, Los Angeles

Several years ago, an employee at Universal Music came across a cassette tape in a Tokyo warehouse while sorting through archival materials. On it was a recording by the late Taiwanese pop star Teresa Teng that had never been released; the pop ballad, likely recorded in the mid-1980s while Teng was living and performing in Japan, was a collaboration between composer Takashi Miki and lyricist Toyohisa Araki.

Now, to the delight of her millions of fans, the track titled “Love Songs Are Best in the Foggy Night” will appear on an album set to be released on June 25, 2025.

Teng died 30 years ago. Most Americans know little about her life and her body of work. Yet the ballads of Teng, who could sing in Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese and Indonesian, continue to echo through karaoke rooms, on Spotify playlists, at tribute concerts and at family gatherings across Asia and beyond.

I study how pop music has served as a tool of soft power, and I’ve spent the past several years researching Teng’s music and its legacy. I’ve found that Teng’s influence endures not just because of her voice, but also because her music transcends Asia’s political fault lines.

From local star to Asian icon

Born in 1953 in Yunlin, Taiwan, Teresa Teng grew up in one of the many villages that were built to house soldiers and their families who had fled mainland China in 1949 after the communists claimed victory in the Chinese civil war. Her early exposure to traditional Chinese music and opera laid the foundation for her singing career. By age 6, she was taking voice lessons. She soon began winning local singing competitions.

“It wasn’t adults who wanted me to sing,” Teng wrote in her memoir. “I wanted to sing. As long as I could sing, I was happy.”

At 14, Teng dropped out of high school to focus entirely on music, signing with the local label Yeu Jow Records. Soon thereafter, she released her first album, “Fengyang Flower Drum.” In the 1970s, she toured and recorded across Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan and Southeast Asia, becoming one of Asia’s first truly transnational pop stars.

Teng’s career flourished in the late 1970s and 1980s. She released some of her most iconic tracks, such as her covers of Chinese singer Zhou Xuan’s 1937 hit “When Will You Return?” and Taiwanese singer Chen Fen-lan’s “The Moon Represents My Heart,” and toured widely across Asia, sparking what came to be known as “Teresa Teng Fever.”

In the early 1990s, Teng was forced to stop performing for health reasons. She died suddenly of an asthma attack on May 8, 1995, while on vacation in Chiang Mai, Thailand, at the age of 42.

China catches Teng Fever

Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of Teng’s story is that Teng Fever peaked in China.

Teng was ethnically Chinese, with ancestral roots in China’s Shandong province. But the political divide between China and Taiwan following the Chinese civil war had led to decades of hostility, with each side refusing to recognize the legitimacy of the other.

During the late 1970s and 1980s, however, China began to relax its political control under Deng Xiaoping’s Reform and Opening Up policy. This sweeping initiative shifted China toward a market-oriented economy, encouraged foreign trade and investment, and cautiously reintroduced global cultural influences after decades of isolation.

Pop music from other parts of the world began trickling in, including Teng’s tender ballads. Her songs could be heard in coastal provinces such as Guangdong and Shanghai, inland cities such as Beijing and Tianjin, and even remote regions such as Tibet. Shanghai’s propaganda department wrote an internal memo in 1980 noting that her music had spread to the city’s public parks, restaurants, nursing homes and wedding halls.

Teng’s immense popularity in China was no accident; it reflected a time in the country’s history when its people were particularly eager for emotionally resonant art after decades of cultural propaganda and censorship.

For a society that had been awash in rote, revolutionary songs like “The East is Red” and “Union is Strength,” Teng’s music offered something entirely different. It was personal, tender and deeply human. Her gentle, approachable style – often described as “angelic” or like that of “a girl next door” – provided solace and a sense of intimacy that had long been absent from public life.

Teng’s music was also admired for her ability to bridge eras. Her 1983 album “Light Exquisite Feeling” fused classical Chinese poetry with contemporary Western pop melodies, showcasing her gift for blending the traditional and the modern. It cemented her reputation not just as a pop star but as a cultural innovator.

It’s no secret why audiences across China and Asia were so deeply drawn to her and her music. She was fluent in multiple languages; she was elegant but humble, polite and relatable; she was involved in various charities; and she spoke out in support of democratic values.

A sound of home in distant lands

Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, the Chinese immigrant population in the United States grew to over 1.1 million. Teng’s music has also deeply embedded itself within Chinese diasporic communities across the country. In cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York, Chinese immigrants played her music at family gatherings, during holidays and at community events. Walk through any Chinatown during Lunar New Year and you’re bound to hear her voice wafting through the streets.

For younger Chinese Americans and even non-Chinese audiences, Teng’s music has become a window into Chinese culture.

When I was studying in the U.S., I often met Asian American students who belted out her songs at karaoke nights or during cultural festivals. Many had grown up hearing her music through their parents’ playlists or local community celebrations.

The release of her recently discovered song is a reminder that some voices do not fade – they evolve, migrate and live on in the hearts of people scattered across the world.

In an age when global politics drive different cultures apart, Teng’s enduring appeal reminds us of something quieter yet more lasting: the power of voice to transmit emotion across time and space, the way a melody can build a bridge between continents and generations.

I recently rewatched the YouTube video for Teng’s iconic 1977 ballad “The Moon Represents My Heart.” As I read the comments section, one perfectly encapsulated what I had discovered about Teresa Teng in my own research: “Teng’s music opened a window to a culture I never knew I needed.”

Xianda Huang does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. ‘The Eternal Queen of Asian Pop’ sings one last encore from beyond the grave – https://theconversation.com/the-eternal-queen-of-asian-pop-sings-one-last-encore-from-beyond-the-grave-255560

Source: The Conversation – USA (2) – By Stefan Szymanski, Professor of Sport Management, University of Michigan

The FIFA World Club Cup, which kicks off in the U.S. on June 14, 2025, may seem like a new competition.

Certainly, soccer’s governing body, FIFA, is promoting it as is it were, marketing the monthlong competition between 32 of the world’s biggest soccer teams as the “pinnacle of club football,” with up to US$125 million in prize money for the winning team and $250 million set aside for promoting “football solidarity.”

In reality, the competition is the latest chapter in FIFA’s long-running quest – going all the way back to 1960 – to create a global championship that would determine which club really is the best in the world.

The organizing body has trumpeted a $1 billion prize pot for the World Club Cup. But FIFA has been less vocal about the broadcasting deal underpinning the event, which is being financed by Saudi Arabia reportedly to tune of $1 billion. That deal was announced just days before Saudi Arabia was confirmed as the host of the men’s 2034 World Cup – a lucrative prize for the Gulf kingdom.

This sounds more like the FIFA we all know, with the whiff of corruption and dodgy dealing that has dogged the organizing body for decades.

FIFA’s critics argue that the competition is nothing more than an attempt to line the governing body’s coffers. FIFA’s line is that it will not keep “one dollar” from the event, and instead plans to distribute revenue to the clubs.

Not helping FIFA’s case is the fact that clubs and players are similarly unimpressed, protesting that the event is an unnecessary addition to an already-overburdened soccer calendar.

As always, the litmus test for success will come from the fans. So far, things are not going well on that front. Falling prices on Ticketmaster bode ill for the competition. Just days before the games were due to begin, FIFA slashed prices for the opening match: MLS club Inter Miami against Egypt’s Al-Ahly. Reports suggest that less than a third of tickets at the 65,000-seat venue for the opener, Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, had sold – despite the likely presence of soccer superstar Lionel Messi.

Of course, the declining number of tourists coming to the U.S. since the second inauguration of Donald Trump – and the president’s recently announced travel ban affecting 19 countries – hasn’t helped encourage fans of the global game to the U.S., even if none of the competing clubs come from one of those countries.

FIFA vs. UEFA

So, given all the problems and controversies, why is FIFA so invested?

As someone who has long researched the nexus of soccer, money and power, I see the World Club Cup as part of a struggle between UEFA, the European governing body that runs the Champions League – currently seen as the pinnacle of soccer club competition – and FIFA, which wants to supplant the Champions League with its own competition.

UEFA’s power stems from hosting the world’s biggest clubs. Only one club from outside Europe appears in soccer data website Transfermarkt’s list of the 50 most valuable squads – with Palmeiras from Brazil squeaking in at 50.

Top players in their prime rarely quit Europe to play on another continent – the high-profile names that opt to play in the U.S. or Saudi leagues tend to be veterans cashing in on their name.

Meanwhile, the world’s soccer talent flocks to European clubs. It’s not just that big clubs like Real Madrid, Liverpool or Bayern Munich that can pay top dollar for the star players – less storied clubs like Brentford, Real Sociedad or VfB Stuttgart have the wherewithal to fish in the global player market.

The wealth and status of these clubs form the muscle behind UEFA. And the jewel in the UEFA crown is the Champions League, an annual competition that brings together the best clubs in Europe.

A game of two halves

While UEFA also has its own national competition, the Euros, its pull is nowhere near as great as FIFA’s World Cup.

This division – with FIFA dominating the international team competition and UEFA the club competition – dates back to the 1960s and the early years of mass television.

When the 1966 World Cup was hosted by England, it was one of the very first global sports events, watched by an estimated audience of 400 million people worldwide.

The 1970 World Cup, a legendary event in the eyes of boomer soccer fans, established the four-year ritual that surpasses even the Olympics as a global sporting event.

At this time, UEFA’s Euros were barely a competition at all. The 1968, 1972 and 1976 editions – played in Italy, Belgium and Yugoslavia, respectively – each had only four teams and only four or five games.

UEFA had by then established its role in club competition. The European Cup, as the Champions League was then called, started in 1955.

But the game remembered today for establishing the dominance of European club competition is the 1960 final between Real Madrid and Eintract Frankfurt – a 10-goal thriller that Los Blancos won 7-3.

Witnessed by a crowd of 128,000 at Hampden Park in Glasgow, Scotland, the more important statistic was the estimated 70 million television audience in Europe.

The 1968 final at London’s Wembley Stadium, when Manchester United overcame Benfica in honor of the “Busby Babes” – Manchester players who died in a 1958 Munich air disaster while traveling home from a European Cup game – saw a TV audience of 270 million.

A history of failure

The ambition to create a club world cup to rival the European Cup goes back to the 1950s. Soccer powerhouses Brazil and Argentina in particular promoted the idea that the top clubs in Europe should face off against the top South American teams.

The resulting Intercontinental Cup ran from 1960 to 2004, with the top teams from UEFA and CONMEBOL, the South American soccer federation, taking part.

But played in midseason, it barely made an impression on the fans.

In 2000, FIFA created the Club World Championship, with eight teams drawn from the five international federations.

It also attracted little love, and the 2001-to-2004 editions had to be canceled for lack of financial backing.

In the early years, it seemed like an excuse to emulate the Intercontinental Cup, and the first three winners were South American. However, since 2006, all the winners bar one – Brazil’s Corinthians in 2012 – have been European.

Europe is ‘on the beach’

Then, in 2017, Gianni Infantino, the FIFA president, announced plans to expand the competition and move it to the summer. With 32 teams, the competition will look more like the World Cup and will receive a lot of TV coverage.

The fact that it will be free to watch will help. So too will the presence of Messi.

Yet the overwhelming feeling going into the competition is that, like its predecessors, the revamped FIFA club competition is destined for failure.

With the European domestic leagues all completed and the Champions League final – the unofficial marker of the end of the soccer season – having taken place on May 31, players and fans appear to be “on the beach,” to use a favorite phrase of soccer commentators.

Ultimately, FIFA’s revamped World Club Cup faces the same issues that beset its forerunners: European teams are overwhelmingly tipped to win.

Rather than the global soccer “solidarity” that FIFA hopes, the competition sets to reinforce the dominance of European clubs – and of Europe’s governing body when it comes to club competition.

Stefan Szymanski does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Dismal ticket sales, grumblings from fans and clubs – is FIFA’s latest attempt to establish a global club game doomed before it starts? – https://theconversation.com/dismal-ticket-sales-grumblings-from-fans-and-clubs-is-fifas-latest-attempt-to-establish-a-global-club-game-doomed-before-it-starts-258378

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Sean G. Massey, Associate Professor of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Binghamton University, State University of New York

The story of the AIDS movement is one of regular people: students, bartenders, stay-at-home mothers, teachers, retired lawyers, immigrants, Catholic nuns, newly out gay men who had just arrived in New York, and many others. Some had lost friends or lovers. Some felt a moral calling. Some were just trying to balance their sexual karma. Many were angry. Most had no medical background or professional credentials – just a sense of urgency, tenacity and an unwillingness to look away.

When Gay Men’s Health Crisis, the world’s first AIDS service organization, was founded in 1982, it was regular people trying to meet the needs of all people living with AIDS. Its workforce of volunteers provided HIV prevention education as well as physical, emotional and legal support.

At the start of the epidemic, AIDS was considered a “gay plague,” and to be openly queer was to risk abandonment, eviction, assault or worse. Families disowned their children. Hospitals turned patients away. Funeral homes refused bodies. And many people with AIDS found themselves alone and in need.

Public officials didn’t just fail to act – they refused to acknowledge that anything was happening at all. Elected leaders such as President Ronald Reagan and Sen. Jesse Helms stoked the moral panic guiding public policy by declaring people with AIDS “perverted human being(s).”

In 2025, with the Trump administration cutting federal funding for HIV research and support services and restricting protections and services for LGBTQ+ people, studying how everyday people approached the early AIDS crisis provides a model for surviving through innovation, commitment and community.

Stories informing the present

“I think 26,000 people died before (Reagan) even bothered to utter the word ‘AIDS,’” said Tim Sweeney, former executive director of Gay Men’s Health Crisis.

This quote is featured in the GMHC Stories Oral History Project, a collection of over 100 interviews with former volunteers, staff and donors from the first 15 years of the organization. Along with our colleague Julia Haager, we and our team at Binghamton University’s Human Sexualities Lab compiled these interviews. Acquired by the Manuscripts and Archives Division of The New York Public Library, the collection is scheduled to open in fall 2025, showcasing how everyday people responded to the AIDS crisis.

These stories document how a community presented with a set of circumstances threatening their very existence built a self-sustaining organization to advocate for and provide care to each other outside institutional support. They did this while enduring grief, standing up to external threats and navigating internal tensions.

Improvisation for survival

The work was an ongoing challenge. Organizations dedicated to aiding people affected by AIDS such as Gay Men’s Health Crisis were left to fund their own survival – and defend their right to do the work. When North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms moved in 1988 to eliminate federal support for AIDS service programs that mentioned homosexuality, it severely limited AIDS prevention efforts nation wide. However, GMHC had the foresight to fund its more explicit education materials with private donations.

At the beginning of the epidemic, queer New Yorkers and their allies had to improvise new systems of care in the absence of state and federal support. “People often (ask) me, what was the model you worked off of?” said Sweeney. “And I said, there was no model, there was just a muddle. We just made it up the whole time.”

What they created almost overnight was staggering. “There were over 1,000 volunteers in the agency,” recalled staff member Tom Weber, who started at GMHC as an office volunteer in 1988. “We would have orientations every single week, and they would flood in.”

One of the most well-known expressions of that volunteer labor was the buddy program, where lay caregivers provided emotional and practical support to people living with AIDS. “A lot of people were not alone in their death because of the work that we did,” said Barbara Danish, who led the buddy program from 1996 to 2002.

Education and prevention were also grounded in queer culture and community. Unlike early depictions of AIDS in the media that reduced patients to “vectors” of transmission, it was defiantly sex-positive. “We came up with shit that no one in the world had ever done,” Sweeney said. “Because finally it was gay men saying … we’re going to talk to each other about how to stay safe, healthy and sexy.”

When that sense of mission extended to emotional survival, humor and unapologetically queer culture were critical to bearing the weight of the work. “Sometimes you just break down and cry for an hour. But that’s how you survive it – by staying authentic to your emotions,” said Tommy Thomson, former director of client programs. She recalled how staff member “Carolotta,” or Carl, would sometimes put condoms and chocolate in a basket and go from office to office, frequently in drag. He would offer either or both to make people feel better. “He’d make you remember that you weren’t alone, and that we all know how hard it is. That’s part of what held you together.”

Internal tensions

Although Gay Men’s Health Crisis remained mission-driven, its internal politics were never simple. As it grew in size and national stature, it confronted the limits of its founding identity.

Founded by, and initially serving, primarily white gay men, GMHC sometimes struggled to adapt to the emerging realities of the epidemic. While AIDS also affected people of color, women and intravenous drug users from the outset, much of the agency’s early prevention and outreach work was designed with gay men in mind.

By the late 1980s, the increase in AIDS cases among white gay men had begun to plateau, while rates among Black and Latino people, women and IV drug users continued to rise sharply into the next decade. Women and people of color who were deeply embedded in GMHC’s operations nonetheless had to navigate assumptions about whose needs were prioritized – assumptions that often manifested in how resources were allocated and services were designed. As GMHC expanded its outreach to Black and Latino populations, it struggled to be culturally responsive and build trust in communities that had long been underserved and stigmatized.

As GMHC grew, it became more and more successful in fundraising and visibility, while smaller organizations sometimes struggled to access resources. This led to growing tensions, particularly in communities of color, where local groups feared that GMHC’s expansion would limit funding and undercut their efforts at community-specific approaches to care and prevention. In addition, efforts to address racism, sexism and cultural insensitivity encountered both support and indifference.

Yet, staff and volunteers continued to push – reshaping messaging, fighting for inclusive programming, and holding conversations about race, gender, power and public health. For staff and volunteers, the agency was a complicated institution that could both empower and marginalize. Its strength, and its struggle, was learning how to expand without losing sight of the legacy and history it was built on.

A guide for today

Forty years later, LGBTQ+ people face a new set of crises in a landscape riddled with dangers.

Trans health care is being banned in multiple states. Book bans and surveillance laws are targeting queer youth. Anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric is fueling violence and censorship. Funding for HIV prevention and research is disappearing even as new infections persist. Black and brown communities still face disproportionate barriers to health care and housing. Decades of scientific progress and medical discoveries are coming to a halt with funding cuts under the Trump administration.

And yet many of the same questions and challenges remain: Who gets left behind when public health systems collapse under political pressure or moral panic? Who will do the work when institutions fail? What does it mean to care for one another in the midst of the wreckage? How do people come together across differences?

The history of GMHC is more than memory – it is a lesson in the possibility of care, creativity and community, especially in the face of fear and uncertainty today. It shows how people can come together – not just to demand policy change, but to directly meet one another’s needs with whatever resources they have. It is a reminder that mutual aid is powerful; that grief can coexist with joy; and that queer resilience has always included laughter, desire and shared vulnerability. In a time of renewed political backlash and public health failures, GMHC’s story is more than history – it’s a guide. Today, the staff and volunteers at GMHC continue their work to confront the epidemic and uplift the lives of all people affected by AIDS.

“We’d say to them, ‘You’re just ordinary citizens doing extraordinary things,’” Sweeney said. “And we really meant that.”

Sean G. Massey was a volunteer and staff member at Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC), the organization that is being discussed in this article, from 1988-1998.

Casey W. Adrian and Eden Lowinger do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Gay Men’s Health Crisis showed how everyday people stepped up when institutions failed during the height of the AIDS epidemic – providing a model for today – https://theconversation.com/gay-mens-health-crisis-showed-how-everyday-people-stepped-up-when-institutions-failed-during-the-height-of-the-aids-epidemic-providing-a-model-for-today-258139

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Lucy Xiaolu Wang, Assistant Professor, Department of Resource Economics, UMass Amherst

Procuring lifesaving drugs is a daunting challenge in many low- and middle-income countries. Essential treatments are often neither available nor affordable in these nations, even decades after the drugs entered the market.

Prospective buyers from these countries face a patent thicket, where a single drug may be covered by hundreds of patents. This makes it costly and legally difficult to secure licensing rights for manufacturing.

These buyers also face a complex and often fragile supply chain. Many major pharmaceutical firms have little incentive to sell their products in unprofitable markets. Quality assurance adds another layer of complexity, with substandard and counterfeit drugs widespread in many of these countries.

Organizations such as the United Nations-backed Medicines Patent Pool have effectively increased the supply of generic versions of patented drugs. But the problems go beyond patents or manufacturing – how medicines are bought are also crucially important. Buyers for low- and middle-income countries are often health ministries and community organizations on tight budgets that have to negotiate with sellers that may have substantial market power and far more experience.

We are economists who study how to increase access to drugs across the globe. Our research found that while pooling orders for essential medicines can help drive down costs and ensure a steady supply to low- and middle-income countries, there are trade-offs that require flexibility and early planning to address.

Understanding these trade-offs can help countries better prepare for future health emergencies and treat chronic conditions.

Pooled procurement reduces drug costs

One strategy low-income countries are increasingly adopting to improve treatment access is “pooled procurement.” That’s when multiple buyers coordinate purchases to strengthen their collective bargaining power and reduce prices for essential medicines. For example, pooling can help buyers meet the minimum batch size requirements some suppliers impose that countries purchasing individually may not satisfy.

Countries typically rely on four models for pooled drug procurement:

• One method, called decentralized procurement, involves buyers purchasing directly from manufacturers.

• Another method, called international pooled procurement, involves going through international institutions such as the Global Fund’s Pooled Procurement Mechanism or the United Nations.

• Countries may also purchase prescription drugs through their own central medical stores, which are government-run or semi-autonomous agencies that procure, store and distribute medicines on behalf of national health systems. This method is called centralized domestic procurement.

• Finally, countries can also go through independent nonprofits, foundations, nongovernmental organizations and private wholesalers.

We wanted to understand how different procurement methods affect the cost of and time it takes to deliver drugs for HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, because those three infectious diseases account for a large share of deaths and cases worldwide. So we analyzed over 39,000 drug procurement transactions across 106 countries between 2007 and 2017 that were funded by the Global Fund, the largest multilateral funder of HIV/AIDS programs worldwide.

We found that pooled procurement through international institutions reduced prices by 13% to 20% compared with directly buying from drug manufacturers. Smaller buyers and those purchasing drugs produced by only a small number of manufacturers saw the greatest savings. In comparison, purchasing through domestic pooling offered less consistent savings, with larger buyers seeing greater price advantages.

The Global Fund and the United Nations were especially effective at lowering the prices of older, off-patent drugs.

Trade-offs with pooled procurements

Cost savings from pooled drug procurement may come with trade-offs.

While the Global Fund reduced unexpected delivery delays by 28%, it required buyers to place orders much earlier. This results in longer anticipated procurement lead time between ordering and delivery – an average of 114 days more than that of direct purchases. In contrast, domestic pooled procurement shortened lead times by over a month.

Our results suggest a core tension: Pooled procurement improves prices and reliability but can reduce flexibility. Organizations that facilitate pooled procurement tend to prioritize medicines that can be bought at high volume, limiting the availability of other types of drugs. Additionally, the longer lead times may not be suitable for emergency situations.

With the spread of COVID-19, several large armed conflicts and tariff wars, governments have become increasingly aware of the fragility of the global supply chain. Some countries, such as Kenya, have sought to reduce their dependence on international pooling since 2005 by investing in domestic procurement.

But a shift toward domestic self-sufficiency is a slow and difficult process due to challenges with quality assurance and large-scale manufacturing. It may also weaken international pooled systems, which rely on broad participation to negotiate better terms with suppliers.

Interestingly, we found little evidence that international pooled procurement influences pricing for the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, a major purchaser of HIV treatments for developing countries. PEPFAR-eligible products do not appear to benefit more from international pooled procurement than noneligible ones.

However, domestic procurement institutions were able to secure lower prices for PEPFAR-eligible products. This suggests that the presence of a large donor such as PEPFAR can cut costs, particularly when countries manage procurement internally.

USAID cuts and global drug access

While international organizations such as the Medicines Patent Pool and the Global Fund can address upstream barriers such as patents and procurement in the global drug supply chain, other institutions are essential for ensuring that medicines actually reach patients.

The U.S. Agency for International Development had played a significant role in delivering HIV treatment abroad through PEPFAR. The Trump administration’s decision in February 2025 to cut over 90% of USAID’s foreign aid contracts amounted to a US$60 billion reduction in overall U.S. assistance globally. An estimated hundreds of thousands of deaths are already happening, and millions more will likely die.

The World Health Organization warned that eight countries, including Haiti, Kenya, Nigeria and Ukraine, could soon run out of HIV treatments due to these aid cuts. In South Africa, HIV services have already been scaled back, with reports of mass layoffs of health workers and HIV clinic closures. These downstream cracks can undercut the gains from efforts to make procuring drugs more accessible if the drugs can’t reach patients.

Because HIV, tuberculosis and malaria often share the same treatment infrastructure – including drug procurement and distribution networks, laboratory systems, data collection, health workers and community-based services – disruption in the management of one disease can ripple across the others. Researchers have warned of a broader unraveling of progress across these infectious diseases, describing the fallout as a potential “bloodbath” in the global HIV response.

Research shows that supporting access to treatments around the world doesn’t just save lives abroad. It also helps prevent the next global health crisis from reaching America’s doorstep.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. When developing countries band together, lifesaving drugs become cheaper and easier to buy − with trade-offs – https://theconversation.com/when-developing-countries-band-together-lifesaving-drugs-become-cheaper-and-easier-to-buy-with-trade-offs-255383

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Chelsea Reid, Associate Professor of Psychology, College of Charleston

Walking around my neighborhood in the evening, I am hit by the smells of summer: fresh-cut grass, hamburgers grilling and a hint of swimming pool chlorine. These are also the smells of summers from my adolescence, and they remind me of Friday evenings at the community pool with my friends and our families gathered around picnic tables between swims. The memories always brings a smile to my face.

As a social psychologist, I shouldn’t feel surprised to experience this warm glow. My research focuses on nostalgia – a sentimental longing for treasured moments in our personal pasts – and how nostalgia is linked to our well-being and feelings of connection with others.

Triggered by sensory stimuli such as music, scents and foods, nostalgia has the power to mentally transport us back in time. This might be to important occasions, to moments of triumph and – importantly – moments revolving around close family and friends and other important people in our lives.

As it turns out, this experience is good for us.

How the concept of nostalgia evolved

For centuries, nostalgia was considered unhealthy.

In the 1600s, a Swiss medical student named Johannes Hofer studied mercenaries in the Italian and French lowlands who longed desperately for their mountain homelands. Witnessing their weeping and despondency, he coined the term nostalgia and attributed it to a brain disease. Other thinkers of the time echoed this view, which persisted through the 18th and 19th centuries.

However, early thinkers made an error: They assumed that nostalgia was causing unpleasant symptoms. It may have been the reverse. Unpleasant experiences, such as loneliness and grief, can arouse nostalgia, which can then help people cope more effectively with these hardships.

Today, researchers view nostalgia as a predominantly positive, albeit bittersweet, emotional experience that serves as a source of psychological well-being. Importantly, this view has been supported by scientific research.

How nostalgia inspires connection and belonging

Nostalgia provides many benefits. It enhances feelings of optimism and inspiration and makes people view themselves more positively. When people feel nostalgic, they feel a greater sense that their lives are meaningful.

The social benefits of nostalgia are particularly well supported. Nostalgia increases empathy and the willingness of people to give to those around them, such as volunteering for community events and donating to charities.

Nostalgia also makes people feel more socially connected to their loved ones by enhancing feelings that they are loved by, connected to, protected by and trusting of others. Nostalgia helps people feel more secure in their close relationships and enhances relationship satisfaction.

While nostalgia is a universal experience, it is also deeply personal. The moments for which we are each nostalgic and the stimuli that might trigger our nostalgic memories can vary from one person to the next depending on the experiences that each of us have. But people within the same culture may find similar stimuli to be nostalgic for them. In a 2013 study, for instance, my team found that American participants rated pumpkin pie spice as the most nostalgia-evoking scent out of a variety of options.

The nostalgic power of scents and foods

In 1922, the French novelist Marcel Proust wrote about the strength of scents and foods to elicit nostalgia. He vividly described how the experience of smelling and eating a tea-soaked cake mentally transported him back to childhood experiences with his aunt in her home and village. This sort of experience is now often referred to as the Proust effect.

Science has confirmed what Proust described. Our olfactory system, the sensory system responsible for our sense of smell, is closely linked to brain structures associated with emotions and autobiographical memory. Smells combine with tastes to create our perception of flavor.

Foods also tend to be central to social gatherings, making them easily associated with these memories. For instance, a summer barbecue might feel incomplete to some without slices of juicy watermelon. And homemade pumpkin pie may be an essential dessert at many Thanksgiving tables. The watermelon or pie may then serve as what are known in social psychology as social surrogates, foods that serve as stand-ins for valued relationships due to their inclusion at past occasions with loved ones.

My research team and I wanted to know how people benefited from feeling nostalgic when they encountered the scents and foods of their pasts. We began in 2011 by exposing study participants to 33 scents and chose 12 of them for our study. Participants rated some scents, such as pumpkin pie spice and baby powder, as highly evocative of nostalgia, while rating others – such as money and cappuccino –as less evocative.

Those who experienced more nostalgia when smelling the scents experienced greater positive emotions, greater self-esteem, greater feelings of connection to their past selves, greater optimism, greater feelings of social connectedness and a greater sense that life is meaningful.

We came to similar conclusions when we studied nostalgia for foods. Foods seemed to be more strongly linked to nostalgia than either scents or music when comparing the amount of nostalgia our participants experienced for foods to what previous research participants experienced for scents and songs. More recently, we found that nostalgic foods are comforting and that people find nostalgic foods comforting because those nostalgic foods remind them of important or meaningful moments with their loved ones.

Balancing benefits and trade-offs

Although nostalgia can be associated with foods that should be eaten only in moderation – such as burgers and cookies – there are other ways to channel our nostalgia through foods.

We can have nostalgia with healthy foods. For instance, orange slices remind me of halftime at childhood soccer matches. And many people, including our research participants, feel intense nostalgia around watermelon. Other researchers have found that tofu is a nostalgic food for Chinese participants.

But when nostalgia does involve consumption of unhealthy foods, there are still other ways to experience it without the health trade-offs. We found that participants experienced the benefits of food-evoked nostalgia just from imagining and writing about the foods – no consumption necessary. Other researchers have found that drawing comforting foods can enhance well-being. Even consuming less healthy foods more mindfully helps people enjoy their food while reducing their caloric consumption.

Once seen as detrimental to our health, nostalgia provides us with an opportunity to reap numerous rewards. With nostalgic foods, we might be able to nourish both our bodies and our psychological health.

Chelsea Reid does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Nostalgic foods and scents like fresh-cut grass and hamburgers grilling bring comfort, connection and well-being – https://theconversation.com/nostalgic-foods-and-scents-like-fresh-cut-grass-and-hamburgers-grilling-bring-comfort-connection-and-well-being-256192

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Jane Tavares, Senior Research Fellow and Lecturer of Gerontology, UMass Boston

When you lose your health insurance or switch to a plan that skimps on preventive care, something critical breaks.

The connection to your primary care provider, usually a doctor, gets severed. You stop getting routine checkups. Warning signs get missed. Medical problems that could have been caught early become emergencies. And because emergencies are both dangerous and expensive, your health gets worse while your medical bills climb.

As gerontology researchers who study health and financial well-being in later life, we’ve analyzed how someone’s ties to the health care system strengthen or unravel depending on whether they have insurance coverage. What we’ve found is simple: Staying connected to a trusted doctor keeps you healthier and saves the system money. Breaking that link does just the opposite.

And that’s exactly what has us worried right now. Members of Congress are debating whether to make major cuts to Medicaid and other social safety net programs. If the Senate passes its own version of the tax-and-spending package that the House approved in May 2025, millions of Americans will soon face exactly this kind of disruption – with big consequences for their health and well-being.

How people end up uninsured

Someone can lose their health insurance for a number of reasons. For many Americans, coverage is tied to employment. Being fired, retiring before you turn 65 and become eligible to enroll in the Medicare program, or even getting a new job can mean losing insurance. Others wind up uninsured due to a different array of changes: moving to a different state, getting divorced or aging out of a parent’s plan after their 26th birthday.

And those who buy their own coverage may find that they can no longer afford the premiums. In 2024, average premiums on the individual market exceeded more than US$600 per month for many adults, even with subsidies.

Government-sponsored insurance programs can also leave you vulnerable to this predicament. The Senate is currently considering its own version of a tax-and-spending bill the House of Representatives passed in May that would make cuts and changes to Medicaid. If the provisions in the House bill are enacted, millions of Americans who get health insurance through Medicaid – a health insurance program jointly run by the federal government and the states that is mainly for people who have low incomes or disabilities – would lose their coverage, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Consequences of becoming uninsured

Health insurance is more than a way to pay medical bills; it’s a doorway into the health care system itself. It connects people to health care providers who come to know their medical history, their medications and their personal circumstances.

When that door closes, the effects are immediate. Uninsured people are much less likely to have a usual source of care – typically a doctor or another primary care provider or clinic you know and trust. That relationship acts as a foundation for managing chronic conditions, staying current with preventive screenings and getting guidance when new symptoms arise.

Researchers have found that adults who go uninsured for even six months become significantly more likely to postpone care or forgo it altogether to save money. In practical terms, this means they’re less likely to be examined by someone who knows their medical history and can spot red flags early.

The Affordable Care Act, the landmark health care law enacted during the Obama administration, made the number of Americans without insurance plummet. The share of people without insurance fell from 16% in 2010 to 7.7% in 2023.

The people who got insurance coverage, particularly those who were middle age, saw big improvements in their health.

Researching the results

In research that looked at data collected from 2014 to 2020, we followed what happened to 12,000 adults who were 50 or older and lived across the nation.

Our research team analyzed how their experiences changed when they lost, and sometimes later regained, a regular source of care during those six years.

Many of the participants in this study had multiple chronic conditions like diabetes, hypertension and heart disease.

The results were striking.

Those who didn’t see the same provider on a regular basis were far less likely to feel heard or respected by health care professionals. They had fewer medical appointments, filled fewer prescriptions and were less likely to follow through with recommended treatments.

Their health also deteriorated considerably over the six years. Their blood pressure and blood sugar levels rose, and they had more elevated indicators of kidney impairment compared with their counterparts who had regular care providers.

The longer they went without consistent health care, the worse these clinical markers became.

Warning signs

Preventive care is one of the best tools that both patients and their health care providers have to head off major health problems. This care includes screenings like cholesterol and blood pressure checks, mammograms, PAP smears and prostate exams, as well as routine vaccinations. But most people only get preventive care when they stay engaged with the health care system.

And that’s far more likely when you have stable and comprehensive health insurance coverage.

Our research team also examined what happened to preventive care based on whether the participants had a regular doctor. We found that those who kept seeing the same providers were almost three times more likely to get basic preventive services than those who did not.

Over time, these missed preventive care opportunities can add up to a big problem. They can turn what could have been a manageable issue into an emergency room visit or a long, expensive hospital stay.

For example, imagine a man in his 50s who no longer gets cholesterol screenings after losing insurance coverage. Over several years, his undiagnosed high cholesterol leads to a heart attack that could have been prevented with early medication. Or a woman who skips mammograms because of out-of-pocket costs, only to face a late-stage cancer diagnosis that might have been caught years earlier.

Shifting the costs

Patients whose conditions take too long to be diagnosed aren’t the only ones who pay the price.

We also studied how stable care relationships affect health care spending. To do this, we linked Medicare claims cost data to our original study and tracked the medical costs of the same adults age 50 and older from 2014 to 2020. One of our key findings is that people with regular care providers were 38% less likely to incur above-average health care costs.

These savings aren’t just for patients – they ripple through the entire health care system. Primary care stability lowers costs for both public and private health insurers and, ultimately, for taxpayers.

But when people lose their health care coverage, those savings disappear.

Emergency rooms see more uninsured patients seeking care that could have been handled earlier and more cheaply in a clinic or doctor’s office. While hospitals are legally required to provide emergency care regardless of a patient’s ability to pay, much of the resulting cost goes unreimbursed.

Hospitals foot the bill for about two-thirds of those losses. They pass the other third along to private insurance companies through higher hospital fees. Those insurers, in turn, raise their customers’ premiums. Larger taxpayer subsidies can then be required to keep hospitals open.

Seeing Medicaid as a lifeline

For the nearly 80 million Americans enrolled in Medicaid, the program provides more than coverage.

It contributes to the health care stability our research shows is critical for good health. Medicaid makes it possible for many Americans with serious medical conditions to have a regular doctor, get routine preventive services and have someone to turn to when symptoms arise – even when they have low incomes. It helps prevent health care from becoming purely crisis-driven.

As Congress considers cutting Medicaid funding by hundreds of billions of dollars, we believe that lawmakers should realize that scaling back coverage would break the fragile links between millions of patients and the providers who know them best.

Jane Tavares receives funding from the SCAN Foundation, the RRF Foundation for Aging, and Milbank Memorial Fund .

Marc Cohen receives funding from the SCAN Foundation, the RRF Foundation for Aging and Milbank Memorial Fund .

– ref. When you lose your health insurance, you may also lose your primary doctor – and that hurts your health – https://theconversation.com/when-you-lose-your-health-insurance-you-may-also-lose-your-primary-doctor-and-that-hurts-your-health-258380

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Joanna Fong-Isariyawongse, Associate Professor of Neurology, University of Pittsburgh

You stayed up too late scrolling through your phone, answering emails or watching just one more episode. The next morning, you feel groggy and irritable. That sugary pastry or greasy breakfast sandwich suddenly looks more appealing than your usual yogurt and berries. By the afternoon, chips or candy from the break room call your name. This isn’t just about willpower. Your brain, short on rest, is nudging you toward quick, high-calorie fixes.

There is a reason why this cycle repeats itself so predictably. Research shows that insufficient sleep disrupts hunger signals, weakens self-control, impairs glucose metabolism and increases your risk of weight gain. These changes can occur rapidly, even after a single night of poor sleep, and can become more harmful over time if left unaddressed.

I am a neurologist specializing in sleep science and its impact on health.

Sleep deprivation affects millions. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than one-third of U.S. adults regularly get less than seven hours of sleep per night. Nearly three-quarters of adolescents fall short of the recommended 8-10 hours sleep during the school week.

While anyone can suffer from sleep loss, essential workers and first responders, including nurses, firefighters and emergency personnel, are especially vulnerable due to night shifts and rotating schedules. These patterns disrupt the body’s internal clock and are linked to increased cravings, poor eating habits and elevated risks for obesity and metabolic disease. Fortunately, even a few nights of consistent, high-quality sleep can help rebalance key systems and start to reverse some of these effects.

How sleep deficits disrupt hunger hormones

Your body regulates hunger through a hormonal feedback loop involving two key hormones.

Ghrelin, produced primarily in the stomach, signals that you are hungry, while leptin, which is produced in the fat cells, tells your brain that you are full. Even one night of restricted sleep increases the release of ghrelin and decreases leptin, which leads to greater hunger and reduced satisfaction after eating. This shift is driven by changes in how the body regulates hunger and stress. Your brain becomes less responsive to fullness signals, while at the same time ramping up stress hormones that can increase cravings and appetite.

These changes are not subtle. In controlled lab studies, healthy adults reported increased hunger and stronger cravings for calorie-dense foods after sleeping only four to five hours. The effect worsens with ongoing sleep deficits, which can lead to a chronically elevated appetite.

Why the brain shifts into reward mode

Sleep loss changes how your brain evaluates food.

Imaging studies show that after just one night of sleep deprivation, the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for decision-making and impulse control, has reduced activity. At the same time, reward-related areas such as the amygdala and the nucleus accumbens, a part of the brain that drives motivation and reward-seeking, become more reactive to tempting food cues.

In simple terms, your brain becomes more tempted by junk food and less capable of resisting it. Participants in sleep deprivation studies not only rated high-calorie foods as more desirable but were also more likely to choose them, regardless of how hungry they actually felt.

Your metabolism slows, leading to increased fat storage

Sleep is also critical for blood sugar control.

When you’re well rested, your body efficiently uses insulin to move sugar out of your bloodstream and into your cells for energy. But even one night of partial sleep can reduce insulin sensitivity by up to 25%, leaving more sugar circulating in your blood.

If your body can’t process sugar effectively, it’s more likely to convert it into fat. This contributes to weight gain, especially around the abdomen. Over time, poor sleep is associated with higher risk for Type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome, a group of health issues such as high blood pressure, belly fat and high blood sugar that raise the risk for heart disease and diabetes.

On top of this, sleep loss raises cortisol, your body’s main stress hormone. Elevated cortisol encourages fat storage, especially in the abdominal region, and can further disrupt appetite regulation.

Sleep is your metabolic reset button

In a culture that glorifies hustle and late nights, sleep is often treated as optional. But your body doesn’t see it that way. Sleep is not downtime. It is active, essential repair. It is when your brain recalibrates hunger and reward signals, your hormones reset and your metabolism stabilizes.

Just one or two nights of quality sleep can begin to undo the damage from prior sleep loss and restore your body’s natural balance.

So the next time you find yourself reaching for junk food after a short night, recognize that your biology is not failing you. It is reacting to stress and fatigue. The most effective way to restore balance isn’t a crash diet or caffeine. It’s sleep.

Sleep is not a luxury. It is your most powerful tool for appetite control, energy regulation and long-term health.

Joanna Fong-Isariyawongse does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Sleep loss rewires the brain for cravings and weight gain – a neurologist explains the science behind the cycle – https://theconversation.com/sleep-loss-rewires-the-brain-for-cravings-and-weight-gain-a-neurologist-explains-the-science-behind-the-cycle-255726

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Matthew Smith, Visiting Assistant Professor of History, Miami University

America is nearing the 250th anniversary of its revolutionary birth, the Declaration of Independence. July 4, 2026, will mark a milestone – and a time for reflection.

Yet as fascination with America’s founding endures, controversy colors how the revolution is taught across the United States. From contested efforts by The New York Times “1619 Project” to put slavery at the center of America’s story, to attempts to limit teaching about race and racism, partisanship surrounds the teaching of American history. Anniversaries can inspire public passion, but they can also open old wounds.

As an American historian and a naturalized citizen of the United States, I regard the American Revolution with both personal and professional interest. The fact that I grew up in the United Kingdom amuses my students to no end whenever we discuss the Revolutionary War. Sometimes, in my British-accented English, I remind them I did not personally grow up with King George. Teaching history is encouraging students to think critically about the past without dictating what emotions they should feel – patriotic or otherwise.

Sadly, in the U.S., the sort of objective historical knowledge once taken for granted now appears to be waning. According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, just 13% of eighth graders in 2023 ranked “proficient” in American history. A 2010 survey found that 26% of adults could not identify from whom America declared its independence, with China, Mexico and France among the responses.

America divorcing France would have been news to Gilbert du Motier, better known as the Marquis de Lafayette. His commitment to the new country not only helped secure its independence, but it also helped solidify American identity decades later.

Key alliance

A privileged aristocrat who served in both the American and French revolutions, Lafayette went to war at age 19. Commissioning and equipping his own expedition across the Atlantic in 1777, he fought in many battles against the British, including decisive action at Yorktown. Earning George Washington’s confidence, Lafayette attained the rank of major general in the Continental Army.

Lafayette’s enrollment in the U.S. military predated the 1778 alliance between his home country and the United States. Eventually, France’s alliance turned the tide against Great Britain on land and at sea. By the war’s end, the French had supplied some 12,000 soldiers, 22,000 sailors and dozens of warships to the American cause, plus huge financial resources. When Lafayette volunteered, however, he was one of just a few foreign volunteers – and the most acclaimed.

“Nowadays,” as historian Sarah Vowell conceded, Americans think of Lafayette as “a place, not a person.” But an abundance of cities, counties and thoroughfares named after the revolutionary hero attest to his former celebrity. During World War I, U.S. troops sailed to France under the slogan “Lafayette here we come,” promising to repay America’s debt of gratitude to France.

A growing country

Older Americans may recall the U.S. bicentennial of 1976, marked with much pageantry and even a state visit by Queen Elizabeth II. America’s semicentennial, however – the 50th anniversary of independence – played a far greater role shaping the idea of America in the minds of its citizens.

Lafayette starred in the buildup to this 1826 commemoration, the first of its kind at the national level. President James Monroe, a fellow veteran of the War of Independence, invited Lafayette to be “the guest of America,” honored as the last living major general of the Continental Army. Beginning in July 1824, at the age of 66, Lafayette embarked on a triumphal tour of all 24 states then comprising the union – nearly double the original 13.

As Lafayette headed west, borne by horse-drawn carriage, steamboat and canal barge, he journeyed across a changing America. Nowhere was America’s economic and demographic growth more evident than Cincinnati, where a crowd of 50,000 welcomed Lafayette in May 1825. Once a small frontier town, Cincinnati was growing faster than any comparably sized city in the nation: Its population increased from around 15,000 to roughly 115,000 in the quarter century following Lafayette’s visit.

He addressed his audience with emotion: “The highest reward that can be bestowed on a revolutionary veteran is to welcome him with a sight of the blessings which have issued from our struggle for independence, freedom and equal rights.”

Lafayette gave human face to America’s national commemoration. He granted citizens of frontier states like Ohio – hitherto excluded from the revolutionary narrative – license to celebrate themselves. High turnouts in western stops such as Cincinnati reflected enthusiasm for grand spectacles. They also reflected the growth of America’s print media, which had advertised his visit, and improved transportation in formerly remote regions of the country.

Lafayette’s tour culminated with a September 1825 state banquet in Washington, D.C., hosted by the new president, John Quincy Adams. Adams – the son of America’s second president, John Adams – praised “that tie of love, stronger than death,” connecting Lafayette “for the endless ages of time, with the name of Washington.”

Rose-colored glasses

The enthusiasm that welcomed Lafayette 200 years ago was authentic. But like all good history lessons, Lafayette’s legacy is open to interpretation.

His grand tour cemented the myth of “the Era of Good Feelings”: a golden age of American political harmony. In reality, the seeds of America’s civil war were already evident. Missouri’s 1820 admission to the union threatened the country’s precarious balance between states that opposed slavery and states that allowed it – a crisis Thomas Jefferson warned was “a fire bell in the night.”

Likewise, Lafayette’s lionization in the western United States coincided with the ongoing forced removal of Indigenous people. Ohio, for example, forcibly removed its last Native American tribe in 1843.

Despite the uses and abuses of historical memory and the aversion of modern historians toward hero-worship, Lafayette remains a charismatic figure – a “citizen of two worlds” who championed both abolitionism and women’s rights. I believe his fading public memory indicates a troubling amnesia. America’s anniversary offers the opportunity to reconsider his legacy, alongside revolutionary stories of Americans from all walks of life.

As Lafayette wrote home following the British army’s surrender in 1781: “Humanity has won its battle. Liberty now has a country.”

Matthew Smith does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Lafayette helped Americans turn the tide in their fight for independence – and 50 years later, he helped forge the growing nation’s sense of identity – https://theconversation.com/lafayette-helped-americans-turn-the-tide-in-their-fight-for-independence-and-50-years-later-he-helped-forge-the-growing-nations-sense-of-identity-249455

Source: The Conversation – USA (3) – By Christina Littlefield, Associate Professor of Communication and Religion, Pepperdine University

President Donald Trump has praised the Gilded Age, which he believes was a time of immense national prosperity thanks to tariffs, no income tax, and few regulations on business.

Similar to today, the late 19th century was a time where a small group of men enjoyed immense wealth, privilege and power to shape the nation. It was a time of immense inequality, as factory and housing conditions crushed the lives of the poor.

And it was a time of white Christian nationalism.

In Northern cities, reformers saw the wealth gap, the plight of workers and the squalid conditions in tenements as undermining their vision of a Christian America. Fueled by faith, the Social Gospel movement worked to expand labor rights and improve living conditions at the turn of the 20th century.

At the same time, many of these white Protestant activists believed their own culture and race to be superior, and this prejudice hindered their efforts. They often spouted anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant rhetoric, and mostly ignored Black workers’ plight.

Ever since the Puritans landed, white Christian nationalism has informed how many Protestants try to shape their country – a history I trace with church historian Richard T. Hughes in the book “Christian America and the Kingdom of God.” But Christian nationalism has taken dramatically different forms over time. The progressive Social Gospellers of a century ago are a particularly striking contrast to the conservative Christian right that has shaped U.S. politics for half a century, up to today.

Guardians of a Christian nation

There are many differences between Christian nationalism then and now. Like many conservative Christians today, however, the Social Gospellers believed that the United States was uniquely chosen and blessed by God, and called to be a Christian nation. They saw themselves as the rightful guardians of that mission. And though the country was still overwhelmingly Protestant, they feared they were losing influence.

New research explored the history of the Bible – research that many Christians feared would undermine people’s trust in Scripture as the word of God, by emphasizing its human composition. New scientific ideas about the Earth’s creation and human evolution challenged their visions of an all-powerful, all-knowing God. Meanwhile, rapid industrialization and urbanization had created new social challenges, such as workers’ safety and living conditions, leading some to reject faith as irrelevant to their needs.

Social Gospellers wanted to vindicate Christianity and show it was still relevant to modern life. But white leaders’ vision of what a Christian America should look like conflated their Protestant faith with their race and culture.

Josiah Strong, for example, was a Congregationalist minister known for promoting factory safety. But he stoked fear of Catholic immigrants and endorsed the expansion of the U.S. as a benevolent empire. The Anglo-Saxon race “is destined to dispossess many weaker races, assimilate others, and mold the remainder,” Strong argued in his 1885 book, “Our Country.”

Another Social Gospel reformer, Northern Baptist theologian Walter Rauschenbusch, railed against unrestrained greed, political corruption, militarism and contempt between elites and the working class. But he shared the white supremacy of his age. God was favoring Germanic and Anglo-Saxon people, he claimed, to enact God’s purposes.

“Other races are as dear to God as we and he may be holding them in reserve to carry His banner when we drop it,” he wrote in an undated article. But it was part of God’s plan, he believed, for Northern Europeans to “hold the larger part of the world’s wealth and power in the hollow of their hands and the larger share of the world’s intellectual and spiritual possessions in the hollow of their heads.”

The ‘right’ kind of Christian

Though many white Protestants felt threatened by the challenges of immigration, they were still a clear majority, and they presumed that most Americans would endorse applying Christian ethics to public policy and social reform.

What’s more, women gaining the right to vote in 1920 meant Social Gospel leaders expanded Protestants’ power at the ballot box. Many Social Gospel leaders embraced women’s suffrage because women were already leading supporters for their causes: For example, Frances Willard, who promoted temperance and workers’ rights; and Jane Addams, who ran a Christian “settlement house,” or community center, for the poor.

But in another sense, demographics were not on their side. The U.S. might have been a very white and Christian country, but in some Social Gospellers’ minds, the era’s waves of immigrants were not the “right” kind of Christian: Northern European and Protestant. Immigration was shifting from Great Britain, Ireland and Germany to Russia, Poland, Hungary and Italy. While Protestants far outnumbered Catholics nationally, Strong wrote that they were double the Protestant population in major cities like New York, Chicago and Philadelphia.

Strong argued that Catholic immigrants were lazy, prone to alcoholism and criminal activity, and willing to sell their vote to corrupt city politicians. He claimed they would corrupt the morals of Anglo-Saxon Americans, and that if the Catholic population grew, it would undermine Protestants’ religious liberty.

Nativist views like these led to the National Origins Act of 1924, which restricted the number of immigrants. Quotas for each country were based on the profile of the American population in 1890 – an attempt to maintain Protestant dominance against Catholic and Jewish immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe. That distrust also kept Social Gospellers from partnering with Roman Catholic leaders on shared concern for workers.

Flourishing for all, or some?

Still, when it came to workers’ basic needs, reformers cared deeply about improving circumstances for the “least of these.” The movement was strongly influenced by the biblical parable of the sheep and the goats: verses in the Book of Matthew where Jesus promotes feeding the hungry, caring for the sick, clothing the naked and visiting those in prison.

Social Gospellers aimed to prove that Christianity could answer the social challenges caused by industrialization, urbanization and immigration. For the most part, they sought to use their privilege in ways that promoted the flourishing of all Americans, such as expanding labor rights and providing services to the poor through settlement houses.

In 1908, for example, the Federal Council of Churches adopted a 14-point statement called the “Social Creed,” affirming that churches should support reforms “to lift the crushing burdens of the poor, and to reduce the hardships and uphold the dignity of labor.” While some of the reforms they called for are taken for granted today — like one day off per week — other calls, like a living wage for all, are yet to be realized.

Over the past half-century, the modern Christian right, too, has feared that its vision for the nation is eroding. Conservative churches have seen their influence drop as more Americans move away from organized religion and reject their rejection of LGBTQ+ people.

I — along with other scholars — argue that these fears have helped fuel resurgent Christian nationalism today. Since merging with the tea party movement during the Obama administration, the Christian right has increasingly embraced an anti-immigration and anti-minority stance, fearing the loss of its own standing.

Like the Social Gospellers of a century ago, the Christian nationalists of recent decades are wary of religious and racial change in their country. Yet the movement’s priorities – often focused around its vision of families, sex and gender – are starkly more limited than the broader quality-of-life issues that Social Gospellers addressed.

Both groups desired an America rooted in biblical values. But each interpreted Scripture through its own lens, seeking to remake America in its own, white Protestant image.

Christina Littlefield does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. 100 years ago, the Social Gospel movement pushed to improve workers’ lives – but also to promote its vision of Christian America – https://theconversation.com/100-years-ago-the-social-gospel-movement-pushed-to-improve-workers-lives-but-also-to-promote-its-vision-of-christian-america-255216