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
I'm delighted to announce that, at long last, I've finally managed to move CAMPAIGN TRAILS away from Substack over to its new home at Ghost. This move has been a long time coming. More than a year ago, I signed on to this letter expressing the
I realize we’re all overwhelmed by the firehose of insanities that President Musk and Vice President Trump are blasting us with these days, but it really is worth pausing to note that one of the forty scandals that dropped yesterday — the mass resignations over the Eric Adams prosecution — is
While everyone expected Trump II: Trump’s Revenge to get off to a quick start, it’s still been a bit breathtaking to see just how fast and how far his enshittification of the federal government has already spread. The assault has burst forth across multiple fronts. This is, as
It’s only been a week, and the Trump administration has already done plenty of damage. The Republican campaign and their allies in Project 2025 made no secret of their plan to sabotage and subvert the agencies of the federal government, but it’s still been a bit breathtaking to
In case you thought the script for 2025 wasn’t heavy handed enough, the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday falls on the same day that Donald Trump will be inaugurated. The two men, of course, could not be any more different from one another. King dedicated his life to combatting
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As the Biden administration winds down to its final week, Many People Are Saying™ that Merrick Garland turned out to be the worst attorney general in all of American history. Well, I’m here to say that’s not true — but only because the competition for that particular dishonor is
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In case you missed it, President-Elect Donald Trump lumbered before the cameras to deliver a rambling, incoherent press conference today. It was a sobering reminder of what the last Trump administration was like, especially during the COVID days, when Trump used the crisis to claim the spotlight each night and
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Even though “the year 2025” sounds like something from the opening titles of an old sci-fi movie, I’m told that it’s actually a real thing. This past year seemed like it was especially brutal for everyone I know. While we all experienced the collective trauma of the return
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As I noted it the earlier installments on this topic, the nominations that President-Elect Donald Trump is making for his second administration have been coming out at a fast and furious rate, and have been flailing a bit as a result. But as I noted in the last piece, only
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As I noted previously, the 2024 Trump transition has been remarkable not just for the breakneck speed of the nominations, but for the reckless choices they’ve made as well. While most incoming administrations would only just now be starting to roll out their first major nominees, Trump has been
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It’s not surprising that the various toadies, lickspittles and henchmen who have attached themselves to the Trump movement are repeatedly insisting that Trump’s re-election win — which is one of the narrowest in presidential history — was actually a staggering landslide that carries with it an enormous mandate. It’s
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Fresh of his election victory, Donald Trump has begun rolling out the Cabinet picks for his next administration. First and foremost, we should note that he’s moving incredibly quickly here. Typically, this process takes a good deal of time, as an incoming administration works through potential names and makes
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As I noted in this piece, I don’t make predictions about elections because that’s not what historians are trained to do and that’s not something I’m comfortable with. But even then I noted that I thought this was leaning Harris’s way and, boy, that was
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This presidential race has been going on for approximately our entire lifetime, but it’s finally the last weekend of the campaign. While I’ve explained that I have my reasons for not making predictions in moments like this, I do think I can offer some encouragement. Not about the
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I know you’re sick of hearing that This Is The Most Important Election of Your Life, but as a scholar who’s devoted his career to studying American political history, I am telling you that No, Seriously, This Is The Most Important Election of Your Life. Despite the incredibly
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As I’ve noted on Bluesky, one of the hazards of being a scholar who works on modern American politics is that when this nation goes through an important presidential campaign, especially one with high stakes, there’s a constant stream of friends, family members and, of course, random people
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Before I dig into my topic today, I wanted to apologize for the relatively light posting the last month. I’d planned on posting more as we hit the homestretch of the presidential campaign, but a recent family tragedy — a swift decline in my mom’s health and then her