His increasingly extreme tweet-storms may signal a mind under great stress, but Donald Trump must still be taking some satisfaction in his ability to dominate news and the wider discourse. Ron Pruessen argues that it’s dangerous to spend too much time going along for the ride. If the excesses of this president are to be resisted and rolled back, […]
With Year Two of the Trump presidency beginning, Ron Pruessen recalls earlier American voices of despair and disappointment. As Mark Twain famously suggested, history may not exactly repeat itself, but it sure does rhyme a lot.
As a historian of the United States, I’ve never found my desire for objectivity standing in the way of being stirred by the language […]
The term “trumped up” has become ironically relevant to the behavior of the 45th US president, as evidence of brazen dishonesty continues to mount. Ron Pruessen considers how Donald Trump has utilized a mold inherited from predecessors – and how he is on the way to spectacularly breaking it.
“Lord, Lord, how the world is given to lying”: so says […]
Almost nine months into the Trump presidency, it may be harder than ever to make sense of what is happening. How do we fully understand what seems to be a hybrid of Lewis Carroll and Stephen King imaginaries – of the Mad Hatter and Pennywise the Clown? Ron Pruessen considers his own frustrations and speculates about what to do […]
And so it begins. No soft launch, no early days honeymoon. The first weeks of the Trump presidency have unfolded – exploded – in a boisterous and provocative fashion that must have satisfied those wanting to “let Trump be Trump.” Ron Pruessen shares some early thoughts about the spectacle.
I’ve been struck lately by the way we have moved from […]
Hillary Clinton supporters can certainly appreciate the adjective that flavors the expression “in the cold light of day.” As voting results mounted after midnight on Election Day earlier this month, dawn brought dismaying and chilling realizations. Ron Pruessen reviews some of his own efforts to come to grips with a nightmare scenario.
“I have lived the last month with a […]
We can hope that the 2016 presidential campaign will be remembered as the most bizarre (and frightening) in history and that the record will not be broken in the future. As Election Day approaches, we all deserve an occasional countervailing force: a reminder that what we are witnessing can be funny as well as terribly disturbing. Fortunately, Ron Pruessen […]
Are rumors (and predictions) of Donald Trump’s political demise greatly exaggerated? Some are hopeful that the Republican nominee’s end is indeed nigh, Ron Pruessen being one of them. But he also cautions against premature celebration. American political history offers plentiful evidence of the uphill and often unsuccessful struggle of presidential nominees seeking to extend their party’s control of the […]
If the US election campaign currently has the air of a circus, Donald Trump can easily be seen as its P.T. Barnum. While the historical analogy is worth consideration, though, Ron Pruessen argues that Trump goes beyond (and beneath) the earlier Big Top impresario – and that the audience he is attracting is more than a gaggle of rubes […]
The 2016 primary season has seen Donald Trump gain traction with Republican voters through nativist rhetoric. While many see Trump’s extremist campaigning as a new low in American political discourse, Ron Pruessen, using the work of Richard Hofstadter, reminds us that such apocalyptic visions from politicians are really nothing new. He argues that crises over the decades such as […]
Local political parties are more likely to use Facebook than websites to connect with voters.
Politics in church may hurt religion, but it helps churches.
Book Review: Critical Affect: The Politics of Method by Ashley Barnwell
Politicians’ ability to persuade citizens about policies depends on people’s values and priorities.
Ayşe Işın Kirenci reviews The New Age of Empire: How Colonialism and Racism Still Rule the World by Kehinde Andrews
Matt Bluemink reviews What Do We Know and What Should We Do About Fake News? by Nick Anstead
Kyle Scott reviews Meddling in the Ballot Box: The Causes and Effects of Partisan Electoral Interventions by Dov H. Levin 
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![(L) Parody of Jenny Lind's first American tour for P.T. Barnum, New York City, October 1850 (R) Donald Trump Credit: By W. Schaus [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons, ed ouimette (Flickr, CC-BY-SA-2.0)](https://blogsmediatest.lse.ac.uk/blogs.dir/58/files/2016/05/Barnum-Trump-featured.jpg)
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