The past is present
"Meeting Across the River" routinely lands last when fans rank their Born to Run favorites. But its noir mood was where the country was heading in the mid-1970s.
In 1995, Democrats held up a Big Bird doll to laud the importance of children’s television and save public broadcast funding. This strategy does not seem likely to work in 2025.
The first 100 days of President Trump's second term marks a departure from established US foreign policy, focusing on dismantling international aid and agreements. His administration’s actions, including cuts to USAID and skepticism toward NATO, jeopardize global partnerships. Trump's approach favors unilateralism and transactional relations over multilateral cooperation, risking America's leadership and security in an increasingly authoritarian world.
Trump has floated the idea of creating a new category of (im)migrant worker to deal with the labor shortages caused by his own deportation program. This type of program has a long history in the United States. What Trump is proposing is a rerun of an old policy that attempts to codify white supremacy by solidifying Anglos at the top of society with a permanent (im)migrant underclass to make the economy hum for the benefit of the wealthy.
Chapter 1 of Kevin Costner’s Horizon: An American Saga was a box office failure, but the cowboy masculinity it portrays helps to explain Trump’s victory.
The United States has almost always been a very politically divided nation. Conservative majorities on the Supreme Court are mistakenly viewed as unique to recent years, but they are really the norm in American history. So too is political polarization the norm.
Disaffected Americans living in today’s era of wealth inequality may turn to someone new as they did in the past if both Biden and Trump are nominated by their respective conventions this summer, as presumed.
Clio and the Contemporary 