Matthew Smith is Visiting Assistant Professor of History and Regional Director of Public Programming at Miami University of Ohio. This interview is based on his new book, The Spires Still Point to Heaven: Cincinnati’s Religious Landscape, 1788–1873 (Temple University Press,...
Ohio
Ohio Senate candidate Tim Ryan: “I have the privilege to concede this election to J.D. Vance”
He lost to Vance, but in the process he showed how democracy works. Thanks Tim Ryan. It’s a shame that we live in a country where Ryan had to say this. Watch:...
Ohio governor Mike DeWine wants guns in classrooms
DeWine will probably sign a bill that will allow teachers to carry weapons in their classrooms after 24 hours of training. Here is NPR on Ohio House Bill 99: Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine is poised to sign a bill on...
The power of a Trump endorsement in Ohio
If you read one thing to get up to speed on the J.D. Vance’s win in the Ohio GOP primary for U.S. Senate, I recommend Alex Shephard’s short piece at The New Republic. A taste: In a seven-person race full...
Ted Cruz endorses Josh Mandel in Ohio Senate race
Ah Christian Right politicians! You’ve got to love the way they have each other’s backs. Josh Mandel is running for Senate in Ohio in the pro-Trump lane. He does not believe in the separation of church and state, thinks the...
Putin and Ohio Republicans are rewriting history
Here is Bowling Green State University historian Andrew Shocket at Ohio Capital Journal: Americans are united in denouncing Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, including how he has justified it with a warped view of Ukrainian history and has crushed Russian...
Who is Ohio Senate candidate Josh Mandel?
We haven’t spent too much time covering Josh Mandel, the 44-year-old GOP candidate for U.S. Senate from Ohio. The only sustained treatment has been a recent post on his rejection of the separation of church and state. According to New...
Ohio Senate candidate Josh Mandel does not believe in the separation of church and state
In a recent debate between Ohio U.S. Senate candidates Morgan Harper (D) and Josh Mandel (R), the question of the separation of church and state came up. Watch: Here is Mandel’s answer in writing: I do not believe in the...
The political philosophy of candidate J.D. Vance
As many of you know, the author of Hillbilly Elegy is running for a United States Senate seat from Ohio as a national (Trump) conservative. Over at The Washington Post, Simon van Zuylen-Wood offers one of the best profiles of...
Who is J.D. Vance? Apparently a lot of Ohio GOP voters haven’t read Hillbilly Elegy
In his book Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, J.D. Vance interpreted Appalachia for a largely educated, non-populist reading public. He was able to do this because he left Appalachia for Yale Law School. He...
“What do we call a man who turns on everything he once claimed to believe?”
J.D. Vance Here is Tom Nichols at The Atlantic: What do we call a man who turns on everything he once claimed to believe? For a practitioner of petty and self-serving duplicity, we use “sellout” or “backstabber.” (Sometimes we impugn...
PayPal co-founder gives $10 million to J.D. Vance super PAC
Here is Cincinnati.com: PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel donated $10 million to a super PAC supporting Hillbilly Elegy author J.D. Vance, a show of support for the possible Ohio Senate contender. Thiel, a German-American billionaire and early investor in Facebook, gave $10...