United States | Newsletter

Checks and Balance newsletter: What 1970s television reveals about America

American actor Jean Stapleton (right) points a toy gun with a flag that reads, 'Bang,' at American actor Carroll O'Connor, in a still from the television series 'All in the Family'.
Photograph: Getty Images

This is the introduction to Checks and Balance, a weekly, subscriber-only newsletter bringing exclusive insight from our correspondents in America.

Explore more

Reuse this content

More from United States

Police officers at the scene of a crime in Brooklyn, New York

An alternative theory to explain America’s murder spike in 2020

What if it wasn’t about policing?

Cartoon of Donald Trump, wearing a feathered headdress, a cowboy hat, and a police hat, holding a globe with pins and a needle

Donald Trump’s defining decade

Will America’s president overcome the 1970s, or just refight its battles?

Members of U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command.

Donald Trump revives ideas of a Star Wars-like missile shield 

He wants a swarm of missile-toting satellites to take out incoming threats

America’s foreign aid pause puts lives at risk

Donald Trump sought disruption. He hurt America first.

Donald Trump goes to war with his employees

The president wants to shrink and remake the civil service

Kash Patel is a crackpot

Is he also a menace?