People and institutions of civil society must coordinate against him.
The Predatory Hegemon
Ever since Donald Trump first became U.S. president, in 2017, commentators have searched for an adequate label to describe his approach to U.S. foreign relations. Writing in these pages, the political scientist Barry Posen suggested in 2018 that Trump’s grand strategy was “illiberal hegemony,” and the analyst Oren Cass argued last fall that its defining essence was a demand for “reciprocity.” Trump has been called a realist, a nationalist, an old-fashioned mercantilist, an imperialist, and an isolationist.
What Trump Sells Is Impunity
Trump stands out in the GOP not for his racism, but his vision of emancipatory irresponsibility.
How Trump Made Penn Quake in Its Boots
Fearful of being labeled antisemitic, the University of Pennsylvania has acquiesced to the demands of a punitive Trump administration and vindictive donors—and it’s chilling speech both inside and outside the classroom.
Matthew Sheffield (@mattsheffield@mastodon.social)
🧵 As a former Republican consultant who left in 2015, I'm often asked why Trump and his minions are willingly destroying science, K12 education, universities, international organizations, public broadcasting, and social welfare institutions. There are many reasons, but the main ones are psychological rather than ideological. They struggle with abstract thinking and are afraid of the world...
On Courage: How to Be a Dissident in an Age of Fear
From a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist and a former White House senior advisor, a deeply reported manual for how individuals can resist America's slide away from democracy, based on original interviews with more than 100 dissidents, activists, and theorists across the world. The United States has crossed into a new and unfamiliar realm--one in which daring to challenge the state carries real danger. Ordinary Americans now face a government that feels more like foreign autocracies, with a White House stretching the powers of the presidency beyond recognition. The sitting president wields fear as a weapon, punishes political enemies, intimidates sitting members of Congress, bends private businesses to his will, and disappears student protesters off the streets. Based on their acclaimed The New Yorker essay "So You Want to Be a Dissident: A Practical Guide to Courage in Trump's Age of Fear," Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Julia Angwin and former White House senior advisor Ami Fields-Meyer deliver a guide to courage in America's age of fear. On Courage is a captivating collection of stories and lessons from the front lines of the fight for the future of the free world that invite action and rouse hope. Step into the room where the world's new dissidents--ordinary people, in the U.S. and around the world, who never aspired to be activists--are writing the playbook for courage, risk, and resistance in the age of authoritarianism and unprecedented digital surveillance. On Courage simplifies the calculus of activism by making more accessible than ever the fundamentals of taking political risk. It's a handbook that is equal parts practical and spiritual, a valuable resource and a powerful message for anyone, anywhere, who feels the walls of history closing in on them.
‘Now we’re in a power struggle’: Europe’s resentment grows over Trump’s newest provocations
President Trump has backed off his threats toward Denmark's territorial sovereignty, but he and aides have continued to irritate much of Europe.
Donald Trump: A Critical Theory-Perspective on Authoritarian Capitalism
This paper analyses economic power, state power and ideological power in the age of Donald Trump with the help of critical theory. It applies the critical theory approaches of thinkers such as Franz Neumann, Theodor W. Adorno and Erich Fromm. It analyses changes of US capitalism that have together with political anxiety and demagoguery brought about the rise of Donald Trump. This article draws attention to the importance of state theory for understanding Trump and the changes of politics that his rule may bring about. It is in this context important to see the complexity of the state, including the dynamic relationship between the state and the economy, the state and citizens, intra-state relations, inter-state relations, semiotic representations of and by the state, and ideology. Trumpism and its potential impacts are theorised along these dimensions. The ideology of Trump (Trumpology) has played an important role not just in his business and brand strategies, but also in his political rise. The (pseudo-)critical mainstream media have helped making Trump and Trumpology by providing platforms for populist spectacles that sell as news and attract audiences. By Trump making news in the media, the media make Trump. An empirical analysis of Trump’s rhetoric and the elimination discourses in his NBC show The Apprentice underpins the analysis of Trumpology. The combination of Trump’s actual power and Trump as spectacle, showman and brand makes his government’s concrete policies fairly unpredictable. An important question that arises is what social scientists’ role should be in the conjuncture that the world is experiencing.See also the related blog post "How The Frankfurt School Helps Us To Understand Donald Trump’s Twitter Populism"http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/christian-fuchs1/how-the-frankfurt-school-_b_14156190.html?utm_hp_ref=uk-donald-trumpThe German translation of this shorter piece was published in Der Falter 5/2017: 21-23.
‘A sanitized view of America’: inside Trump’s campaign to erase US history from national parks
Critics say the Trump administration is trying to rewrite and whitewash history by removing and altering scores of signs on public lands
Pluralistic: Preparing for a post-Trump internet (03 Sep 2026) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
I know, it's tempting to think of Trump as a cause, rather than an effect – as an aberration who dragged America into fascism. Trump is exceptional, but the thing that makes him exceptional isn't his corruption, recklessness or cruelty. What makes Trump exceptional is his ability to cajole, intimidate and flatter America's most corrupt, reckless and cruel people into a coalition.
Colorado Was Targeted as Trump Fumed Over Election Denier, Email Shows
The state has accused the government in a lawsuit of retaliating after the conviction of Tina Peters, a Trump supporter. An administration official convened a group to discuss “immediate actions.”
The Emotional Toll of Living With Institutional Betrayal - Dame Magazine
What happens to us when institutions protect power instead of people? From Epstein to ICE, institutional betrayal is inflicting trauma and moral injury.
Bill Ackman on Twitter / X
Almost nothing makes my blood boil more than when a large powerful institution unfairly destroys someone’s reputation, and its principal reason for doing so is to minimize bad publicity in an effort to protect its own ‘reputation.’ Sadly, I have seen this occur in many academic…— Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) January 2, 2026
These Dallas Residents Are on the Front Lines of Trump’s War Against “Antifa”
If convicted, people who showed up to a protest could face “decades of prison time,” the National Lawyers Guild says.
Opinion | Trump Offered Men Something That Democrats Never Could (Published 2024)
A set of easy answers that’s a formula for more alienation and anger.
Tim Cook isn’t the problem, capitalism is · Victor Wynne
Tim Cook’s friendly approach to President Trump isn’t about politics or personal values. It’s about fiduciary duty and the capitalist system that requires CEOs to prioritize profits over principles.
‘Somalis are the scapegoat’: fear rises as Trump targets Minneapolis community
Residents have had to adjust how they’re living – staying home, carrying passports – since Trump launched his attack
