When it comes to American politicians who say little and do less, the gold standard remains former President Calvin Coolidge. As most people know, Coolidge was quiet, deeply reserved, and generally unsmiling. His nickname, after all, was "Silent Cal." In one popular story, a woman at a party
Before diving in, I should apologize for light posting over the past month or so. I'm in the home stretch for the book I'm writing on John Doar and the Civil Rights Division. The draft is due to my press next month, but all I have
As the seemingly endless NYC mayoral campaign enters its final weeks, the howls of the Democratic establishment in the city are only getting louder. They've really convinced themselves that the election of a (gasp) Democratic Socialist will mean the absolute destruction of the city. Cops will quit! Billionaires
As the nation reckons with the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, there has been a notable trend from mainstream pundits and press outlets. They have tended to downplay or outright ignore the ugly things that he said and instead to stress the polite ways he said them. It'
The steady decline of American media continued this week with word that David Ellison, the new owner of Paramount, plans to purchase The Free Press and give its founder Bari Weiss a top position at CBS News. Now, I should acknowledge at the outset that I am not the son
Work in Progress is a recurring feature on CAMPAIGN TRAILS, in which I share some of the more interesting materials I’ve uncovered in my book-in-progress on the work of John Doar and the Civil Rights Division in the 1960s. In my last post, I noted in passing that more
Work in Progress is a recurring feature on CAMPAIGN TRAILS, in which I share some of the more interesting materials I’ve uncovered in my book-in-progress on the work of John Doar and the Civil Rights Division in the 1960s. As I noted in my last post on the Voting
Work in Progress is a recurring feature on CAMPAIGN TRAILS, in which I share some of the more interesting materials I’ve uncovered in my book-in-progress on the work of John Doar and the Civil Rights Division in the 1960s. This week marks the sixtieth anniversary of the Voting Rights
Once upon a time, it was expected that the President of the United States would work for all the people of the United States, not just the ones who voted for him. The Biden administration, for instance, repeatedly worked to make life better for Americans in rural, red states. Take
Elon Musk, who has famously always delivered on his promises – like getting a million robot-taxis on the streets by 2020, sending a manned mission to Mars by 2021, or creating a 29-minute "hyper loop" on the East Coast – has now vowed to create his most stunning achievement to
The success of Zohran Mamdani in the mayoral primary in New York City has predictably set off the worst possible takes from the worst possible people. And while I'm generally loathe to drag out any posts from the dilapidated Nazi bar that was once known as Twitter, this
During these early months of Trump II: The Revenge, we've all been subjected to an overwhelming flood of outrages – unconstitutional power grabs, international emergencies, economic chaos, an assault on higher education, a wave of white nationalist race-baiting, bigoted culture warrior nonsense and so, so much more. The effort
Yesterday, as the world's richest narcissist and the world's most powerful narcissist engaged in a campaign of mutually-assured destruction, social media platforms witnessed record new levels of schadenfreude. Musk insisted that Trump was an ungrateful client who owed him his presidency and, by the way, a
Work in Progress is a recurring feature on CAMPAIGN TRAILS, in which I share some of the more interesting materials I’ve uncovered in my book-in-progress on the work of John Doar and the Civil Rights Division in the 1960s. (This is normally a feature reserved just for paid subscribers,
This past week, the corporate media apparently met in a secret conclave and emerged with a new decree for the American electorate – Joe Biden was old. Politico announced that "the first litmus test of the 2028 campaign" would be whether or not Democratic candidates would be able to
Even more so than his exhausting first term, the second term of President Donald J. Trump has been a seemingly endless onslaught of outrages. There's so much incompetence, so much stupidity, so much criminality going on at any one moment that it's hard to think straight.
As Donald Trump lumbers towards the first major milestone of a new presidency this week, hitting the marker of the First Hundred Days, it's worth taking a moment to marvel at just how badly he's doing. The latest polls show Trump's approval rating has
Whether it's been an intentional strategy of "shock and awe" or just the inevitable result of a bunch of ignorant assholes being empowered at the same time, the opening months of Trump's second administration have been a complete clusterfuck of utter chaos. Between Trump&
As a historian, I prefer my subjects to be long dead before I start poking them with a stick. It's just safer that way, to be honest. I'm well aware of how often people make predictions about politics that turn out to be wildly wrong, and
The Trump administration has tried to subdue us with a "shock and awe" approach that has been deliberately designed to overwhelm our senses with an endless stream of outrages and divide our reaction to its intentional cruelties, but every now and then an outrage manages to poke its
As I noted on Bluesky, many Americans – including me – have tended to treat Donald Trump's comments about annexing Canada as a joke. That attitude is a mistake on our part, but let me explain why we've made it. We've treated the idea of a
In one of this morning's Daily Presidential Rants, Donald Trump insisted – as he has many times before – that the European Union was "formed for the primary purpose of 'screwing' the United States of America." Leaving aside for the moment the fact that the president
Work in Progress is a recurring feature on CAMPAIGN TRAILS, in which I share some of the more interesting materials I’ve uncovered in my book-in-progress on the work of John Doar and the Civil Rights Division in the 1960s. (This is normally a feature reserved just for paid subscribers,
As part of its ongoing crusade to roll back the clock and return America to some mythical golden age, the Trump-Musk administration has just launched a new wave of tariffs against China, Canada and Mexico. These actions from the US, of course, immediately inspired a reciprocal wave of tariffs and