How the 2022 Midterms fit into U.S. history

Plus: Steven Spielberg on the cover of TIME |

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By Olivia B. Waxman Staff Writer It’s been a busy week in politics following Election Day, and even busier for Republicans as they figure out who the new face of the party will be in the 2024 presidential election. After a "red wave" that did not manifest—though Republicans still took control of the U.S. House of Representatives—former President Donald Trump made waves of his own by announcing he’s making a bid for the White House. And as I explain here , he would not be the first President to serve nonconsecutive terms; Grover Cleveland holds that distinction. I also talked to experts about where the 2022 cycle fits into history. Political scientists likened it to the 1978 and 1982 cycles during periods of high inflation and the 1998 cycle during President Clinton’s impeachment. Then, for those wondering what the 2022 results mean for 2024, presidential historian Jeffrey Engel went even further back in history to the 1912 election, where Teddy Roosevelt had to create his own third party when he lost the Republican nomination. “History is revving up for a repetition of that fateful election,” Engel argues. Here’s why. Here’s more history to know:

HISTORY ON TIME.COM Georgia's Runoff Elections Have a Racist History By Anisha Kohli Georgia's history shows how an electoral system that demands the majority's support can be manipulated to exclude the minority vote Read More » Here Are the Latest Updates on Midterm Election Results By Charlotte Alter and TIME Staff Before Election Day, some were speculating Republicans would quickly pick up those five seats, and end the night having gained dozens. Instead, it dragged out for more than a week. Read More » Why Do Midterm Elections Even Exist? By Olivia B. Waxman Here's how the U.S. Constitution's framers came up with six-year Senate terms and two-year House terms Read More » Steven Spielberg Waited 60 Years to Tell This Story By Stephanie Zacharek / Los Angeles The director's new film is a meditation on memory and the movies Read More » 6 Black Films That Changed the Course of Cinema By Laura Zornosa and Elvis Mitchell The director Elvis Mitchell highlights his top picks Read More »

FROM THE TIME VAULT This week in 1952: Actor Claire Bloom “Like most Londoners, she queues up to take the bus to her job, eats in a small cafe across the street from the Old Vic, and is rarely seen in the Caprice or other flossy restaurants. In her free time she goes to the theater or the ballet, and is reading her way through Dostoevsky, George Moore, the Brontes and Jane Austen. She likes to forage among the stalls of the Caledonian Market for inexpensive antiques, which she gives away for Christmas presents. She also likes to shop for clothes. ‘I don't buy any. I just look at them. I'm the shopgirl's despair.’ Beyond next spring, when the Old Vic season ends, Claire has no plans. She may do another movie—if she likes the part. But her heart and eye are steadfast on her first and only love: the theater. Says she: ‘I couldn't bear to be just a film star. I'm much too ambitious for that.’” (Nov. 17, 1952) Read More » This week in 1987: Actors Glenn Close and Michael Douglas Somebody did make Fatal Attraction. And this fall, what if became wow! Striking moviegoers with the startling power of a madwoman in your bathroom, Paramount's lurid romantic thriller is the zeitgeist hit of the decade. It has been box-office champ for each of its first seven weeks in release, and shows little sign of slackening. Last week it reached the $80 million mark, to rank as the year's second highest grossing film. It's the movie with something for almost everybody. Says Michael Douglas, who plays Dan: ‘People leave saying 'I laughed, I got turned on by the sex scenes, and I got scared.' You can't ask for more than that.’” (Nov. 16, 1987) Read More » This week in 1992: President-elect Bill Clinton “At 46, Clinton will be the third youngest President in history, out-youthed only by Kennedy and Theodore Roosevelt…As the nation's first baby-boomer President, Clinton will bring to the Oval Office a fresh mental map of generational impressions. Gone are the Andrews Sisters, Kilroy and the Berlin blockade. In their place come Father Knows Best, Elvis, 1960s folk music (Chelsea Clinton was named after the Joni Mitchell song Chelsea Morning), Vietnam protests, the 1972 George McGovern crusade and Watergate. Despite the politically exaggerated privation of his childhood, Clinton came of age at a moment of exceptional national privilege, when a studious young leader from Hot Springs, Arkansas, could aspire to an elite educational odyssey that carried him from Georgetown to Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship to Yale Law School. America of the 1960s worked for Clinton in ways that many children of today's hard-pressed middle class can scarcely imagine.” (Nov. 16, 1992) Read More »

HIGHLIGHTS FROM AROUND THE WEB Museum world: The New York Times’ Christine Chung reports on Harvard’s Peabody Museum apologizing for retaining Native American hair samples for decades. Tech: At Slate, Charlton McIlwain explains some of the early uses of computing in police surveillance following 1960s uprisings like the Watts Rebellion in Los Angeles. Education: In a USA Today investigation, Alia Wong and Neena Hagen tracked schools that removed racist namesakes since the 2020 murder of George Floyd. Politics: The Washington Post’s Gillian Brockell looks back at the history of political parties holding a slim majority in the U.S. House of Representatives to see how much they got done. World: For AJ English, Micah Reddy looks at how researchers are working to preserve evidence of Russian abuses in war-torn Ukraine for future historians.

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