Conor Kelly

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Police Officer Who Shot Sonya Massey Found Guilty of Second-Degree Murder While the conviction is a step in the right direction, America still has a long way to go in addressing mental health emergencies and holding officers accountable.

Sean Grayson, the officer who murdered Sonya Massey, has been convicted of second-degree murder.

While the conviction is a step in the right direction, America still has a long way to go in addressing mental health emergencies and police accountability.

www.progressiveamerican.net/p/police-off...

Without Online Trolls, There Would Be No Donald Trump On July 8, something happened to Donald Trump that I’ve not seen...

Without Online Trolls, There Would Be No Donald Trump  talkingpointsmemo.com/tpm-25/witho...

Once again, the main day of Tea Party protests had about 300,000 nationwide, but saw endless coverage.

The No Kings protests had about 7,000,000 nationwide, and many media outlets reacted with a yawn.

No Kings was nearly 25x as big as the Tea Party but the Tea Party got 25x the attention.

the actual story here, which the media never talks about, is that police in this country have become a discrete right-wing political operation. the story isn't about cops leaving (they're lying about that), it's about the police trying to exert influence over elections.

Homan investigation dropped by Trump DOJ

Trump demands Bondi prosecute his foes

For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law

America Divided: What the Election of 1860 Can Teach Us Polarization isn’t new. The lessons of 1860 remind us why division matters, and why our present moment is unique.

www.democracyarchive.org/p/america-di...

The Democracy Archive | Conor J. Kelly | Substack Blending historical insight with accessible storytelling to uncover how democracy is built, challenged, and remembered. Click to read The Democracy Archive, by Conor J. Kelly, a Substack publication. Launched 3 hours ago.

🔗 Read the full essay on The Democracy Archive:
👉 www.democracyarchive.org/?r=bjjxr&ut...

16/ The lesson of 1860 isn’t that history repeats, but that unchecked division and existential issues can break democracy. America then chose war. What we choose now is still up to us.

15/ Our challenges are real: political identity, human rights, and dangerous media ecosystems, but they are not the same as slavery and secession. Each era has its own context.

4/ Concluding Thoughts
Today, comparisons to the 1850s abound. But historian Kevin Levin reminds us: America is not divided along sectional lines (Levin 2025).

13/ By November 10, 1860, South Carolina began the secession process. Within months, states across the Deep South followed. Ballots had led to bullets.

12/ The result was a fractured ticket. Lincoln won with under 40% of the popular vote but a commanding Electoral College victory. His election confirmed the South’s worst fears (Donald 1995).

11/ Democrats split: Northern Democrats backed Stephen Douglas; Southern Democrats bolted to nominate John C. Breckinridge. A third group, Constitutional Unionists, chose John Bell.

10/ Lincoln argued slavery could exist where it was, but not expand. He framed it as a threat to free labor and the American dream (Donald 1995; Danoff 2015). His restraint paid off.

9/ William Seward seemed the frontrunner — former governor, senator, fierce anti-slavery voice. But his fiery rhetoric hurt him. Lincoln, more moderate, gained ground (Donald 1995).

8/ The Battle of Ballots
By 1860, the Whigs had collapsed. Republicans, formed in 1854, became the party of anti-slavery thought.

7/ Violence erupted. In 1859, John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry terrified Southerners, who saw it as proof that slavery must be defended at all costs (Noyalas 2020).

6/ For many Southerners, slavery didn’t just need protection — it had to expand. Laws like the Fugitive Slave Act (1850) and the Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854) pushed the conflict further into the North.

5/ Others, like Thomas R. R. Cobb, argued that abolition was harmful because Black Americans were “intellectually inferior.” Slavery and white supremacy were deeply intertwined (Cobb 1858).

4/ Leaders like John C. Calhoun warned Congress had “no right to touch” slavery, calling abolitionist petitions “insulting” (Calhoun 1837). To him, slavery was beyond government’s reach.

3/ The Haunting Specter of Slavery
By 1850, 3.2 million people were enslaved in the South (Roland 2002). Most Northern states had abolished slavery, though not all. Southerners pressed for its expansion and federal protection.

2/ In this environment, many look to the past for precedent. Few elections reveal more about division and democracy under strain than 1860, when Lincoln rose to power and secession began.

1/ Much of our dialogue today is dictated by the idea of political division. Americans are more polarized than they have been in years, with most saying the two parties cannot even agree on basic facts (Shearer 2025).

Recently, there has been a lot of talk about partisanship and division with comparisons to the 1850s and 60s. My most recent piece goes into that history through the lens of the election of 1860. 🧵

Subscribe to The Democracy Archive Blending historical insight with accessible storytelling to uncover how democracy is built, challenged, and remembered. Click to read The Democracy Archive, by Conor J. Kelly, a Substack publication. Launched a day ago.

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The first essay will revisit the Election of 1860, when polarization shattered American politics and a divided republic collapsed into war.

History is not just an academic exercise — it’s a civic one. To defend democracy today, we must understand the lessons, struggles, and memories of the past.

Each issue dives into the archives of struggle and memory, including, but not limited to:
• Ella Baker & SNCC’s grassroots organizing tradition
• Communities shaped by trauma, resilience, & identity
• Battles over monuments & memory
• Elections and political conflict