The Twenty-First Century, 2001–present

This is Unit Seventeen, part three, on the most recent history the course carries, and its two closing questions. Part two closed with the election of two thousand sixteen, and pointed to the popular vote. Carry one discipline through this part. These events are recent and contested, and the anchor's narrative ends in two thousand seventeen. From there the course carries the Yawp's account to January two thousand twenty-five, and every characterisation is attributed to its source. The unit then closes on why the United States invaded Iraq, and what caused the Great Recession. By the end you will be able to explain why two thousand sixteen was not unprecedented, and what was new. To describe where the anchor ends and how the course continues. To describe the events of two thousand twenty and January sixth. To explain why the United States invaded Iraq, keeping the sources' framing. And to explain the causes of the Great Recession.

Three entries: a result with precedent, a ban at the airports, and politics without intermediaries.

The popular vote.

USH2 2448 The Fifth Time

The anchor calls two thousand sixteen the fifth time a candidate won the presidency while losing the popular vote. The course has met two of the earlier cases: Benjamin Harrison in eighteen eighty-eight, recalled by Digital History's count of one hundred twelve years in unit sixteen, and George W. Bush in two thousand, after Bush v. Gore. The misreading treats two thousand sixteen as unprecedented. The anchor's count and the course's own entries say otherwise: the Electoral College has produced this result before. What was new was the size of the gap. Gore's popular margin in two thousand was about five hundred forty thousand votes; Clinton's was about two point nine million.

The travel ban.

USH2 2449 The Travel Ban

Little more than a week after taking office, Trump signed an executive order barring travellers from many Muslim-majority countries from entering the country, the anchor records, and protests and chaos at airports and other points of entry followed, then lawsuits. The anchor adds that Trump froze most federal hiring, leaving many posts unfilled for an extended period.

Politics on social media.

USH2 2450 Politics on Twitter

By two thousand sixteen Trump's Twitter account had nearly twelve million followers and Clinton's more than nine million, the anchor records, candidates speaking to voters directly, without newspapers or networks between them. The Yawp says social media seemingly broke apart whatever remained of a basic shared reality among Americans.

Two entries on two thousand seventeen: a rally in Charlottesville, and a movement rekindled.

Charlottesville.

USH2 2451 Charlottesville

In August two thousand seventeen white supremacist groups held the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, which began as a protest against removing Confederate monuments, and one supremacist drove his car into counter-protesters, murdering Heather Heyer and injuring at least nineteen people. The Yawp notes that Democratic-leaning southern towns and cities later pulled down their Confederate iconography.

MeToo.

USH2 2452 MeToo

The MeToo movement, founded by Tarana Burke in two thousand six, was rekindled in two thousand seventeen when an actress asked victims of sexual assault or harassment to post the phrase on Twitter, and over four and a half million people used it within days, the anchor records. The Yawp links it to new political energies among American women.

Four entries beyond the anchor's last page: where it ends, Trump's first term, the pandemic, and George Floyd.

Where the anchor ends.

USH2 2453 Where the Anchor Ends

The anchor's narrative ends in two thousand seventeen; the next entries come from the Yawp, which runs to January two thousand twenty-five. This course was built in two thousand twenty-six, and later events are outside it. These events are recent and contested, and each characterisation is attributed to its source.

Trump's first term.

USH2 2454 Trump's First Term

Trump's narrowly passed tax cut of two thousand seventeen, the Yawp says, continued the redistribution of wealth toward corporations and the wealthy and grew the deficit, and immigration officials separated parents seeking refugee status from their children at the border, as the Yawp records. The Yawp says his border policies heartened his base and aggravated his opponents.

The pandemic.

USH2 2455 The Pandemic

A new coronavirus, Covid-19, emerged in Wuhan, China, over the winter of two thousand nineteen, and the United States confirmed its first case in January, the Yawp records; by April, as New York City's hospitals overflowed, thousands were dying daily. By May two thousand twenty-two, the Yawp says, the official American death toll crossed one million.

George Floyd.

USH2 2456 George Floyd

On May twenty-fifth, two thousand twenty, a teenager filmed Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, who said he could not breathe, and Chauvin kept his knee there for nine minutes as Floyd went limp, the Yawp records. It calls the protests that followed the largest in American history.

Four entries on the years from two thousand twenty to two thousand twenty-five: an election, the Capitol, a ruling, and a return.

The election of two thousand twenty.

USH2 2457 The Election of 2020

In November two thousand twenty Joseph R. Biden, with Kamala Harris as his running mate, defeated Trump by four percent of the popular vote and seventy-four electoral votes, the Yawp records, and Harris, a California senator, became the nation's first female vice president. Trump refused to concede and claimed the election was stolen; the Yawp calls the claims easily debunked.

January sixth.

USH2 2458 January Sixth

On January sixth, two thousand twenty-one, thousands of Trump's supporters marched on the Capitol to stop the certification of the election, the Yawp records. They attacked the police officers barricading the building, breached the barriers and occupied the rotunda, the Senate chamber and legislative offices, among them Speaker Nancy Pelosi's. The National Guard cleared them that evening, and Congress stayed into the night to certify the result. The Yawp says nothing like it had ever happened in American history. Even so, eleven Republican senators and one hundred fifty of the House's two hundred twelve Republicans objected to certification, and a little over a month later the Senate did not convict Trump at his second impeachment trial, for incitement of insurrection.

Dobbs v. Jackson.

USH2 2459 Dobbs v. Jackson

On June twenty-fourth, two thousand twenty-two, the Supreme Court decided Dobbs v. Jackson, overturning Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which had established a constitutional right to abortion, the Yawp records, with a conservative majority built by Trump's three appointments to the Court. Unit fifteen taught Roe; this reversed it after forty-nine years.

The election of two thousand twenty-four.

USH2 2460 The Election of 2024

Trump won the presidency again in two thousand twenty-four, running, the Yawp says, on law and order after a post-two-thousand-twenty rise in violent crime, and on January twentieth, two thousand twenty-five, his first day back in office, he pardoned the more than fifteen hundred January sixth rioters, as the Yawp records. The Yawp's chapter ends here, and so does this course's account.

Two entries to close the unit: why the United States invaded Iraq, and what caused the Great Recession.

Why the United States invaded Iraq.

USH2 2461 Why the United States Invaded Iraq

The sources frame this carefully. The administration's stated reason, in the anchor's account, was the claim that Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction and might turn them on the United States; the anchor calls the fear of stockpiled weapons the immediate impetus. Congress authorised force, Powell presented allegations to the United Nations, and the Bush Doctrine claimed a right to pre-emptive war. The Yawp supplies the evidence that complicates the stated reason: Iraq had suspended its weapons programme while Saddam Hussein fostered ambiguity to deter attack; Iraq began cooperating with inspectors, but the administration pressed on; and no evidence of weapons of mass destruction was ever found. Two misreadings sit on either side. One says the invasion answered September eleventh; the attackers were sheltered in Afghanistan, and the anchor's case for war rests on weapons. The other says the sources prove officials knew there were no weapons; the sources record a claim that proved false and inspections cut short, and do not establish what officials privately believed. The course keeps the anchor's framing, a claim, states what was found, and lets you judge.

What caused the Great Recession.

USH2 2462 What Caused the Great Recession

The sources point to several causes. The anchor leads with the mortgages: banks made high-risk subprime loans to buyers who could not repay, and changes in finance and banking laws in the nineteen nineties and early two thousands let lenders securitise those loans and sell them as bonds, separating the lender's interest from the borrower's ability to pay. The anchor also blames deregulation of the bond market and questionable new kinds of mortgage. The Yawp begins with a speculative bubble in real estate after the dot-com bubble burst, and makes deregulation bipartisan: in the nineteen nineties Clinton signed laws repealing Glass-Steagall's separation of commercial and investment banking and exempting credit-default swaps from regulation. Unit eleven taught Glass-Steagall's making; this is its unmaking. Two misreadings sit on either side. One blames borrowers alone, when securitisation placed the incentive with lenders who no longer bore the risk. The other blames a single law or party, which the bipartisan record contradicts. The course names every cause the sources give and does not reduce them to one.

Look at what you can now do. You can explain why two thousand sixteen was not unprecedented: the fifth time the popular vote's loser won, with the widest gap yet. You can say where the anchor ends, in two thousand seventeen, and how the course continues to two thousand twenty-five from the Yawp, with every characterisation attributed. You can describe two thousand twenty and after: a pandemic that killed a million Americans, the largest protests in the nation's history, Biden's victory, January sixth, Dobbs, and Trump's return. You can explain why the United States invaded Iraq in the sources' terms: a claim of weapons, and none found. And you can name the causes of the Great Recession: subprime lending, securitisation, a bubble, and bipartisan deregulation.