History from everywhere

Donald Trump is a product of the 20th century electronic age of television, not the 21st century one of social media. He’s a TV celebrity writ large. People used to theorize about some would be dictator using TV appearances to seize power and now when that age is really over one has appeared. He has…

Civilizational erasure? If any place is doing that it’s the USA. Decay? It may still be the most powerful military and economic power (just) but it’s throwing away its soft power and that is what America’s real strength has always been. It is throwing away its future. But does it have one?

Why do people say immigrants don’t fit in with British ‘culture?’ That’s why they come here. That’s why they choose to risk coming here rather than going somewhere else. It’s our one big advantage – or disadvantage. The English language. Something we just take for granted.

Why do people in America say that political violence is unAmerican? They’ve lost four Presidents, other prominent figures (RFK MJK) and lots of less prominent figures including those in Minnesota quite recently. And they had a Civil War not that long ago. Political violence is as American as apple pie.

If you are going to try to end a war, you have to do it the right way. What are you trying to do, just stop the killing? Or establish genuine peace? A ceasefire isn’t peace. All it does is stop the killing in the short term. It doesn’t establish genuine peace, as a quick…

You can’t bring peace by starting a war. You would have thought even someone as dumb as Donald Trump would have worked that out by now. The first World War was supposed to be the war to end war. It didn’t work then and it won’t work now.

Do you want to study the past, the present or the future? Well you can’t study the future because it is fundamentally unknowable and can never arrive because when it does it’s the present. But you can’t study the present because by the time you’ve studied it it’s already the past. All you can do…

Trump’s tariff war is a declaration of economic war against the rest of the world. Like most wars it is designed to transfer resources to the victor at the expense of the defeated. But can America make itself wealthy at the expense of others? Can it really win? Very unlikely. Its decline can only be…

I don’t like historical analogies because they’re usually misleading but Trump and Vance’s treatment of Zelensky is ominously reminiscent of the way Hitler bullied President Hacha of Czechoslovakia in March 1939. Hacha actually fainted and had to be revived before signing away his country. But Zelensky is made of sterner stuff. What did people see…

Trump is never going to make a real dictator, For a start he’s too old. Dictatorship is a (relatively) young man’s game. Hitler was 43 when he took over, Mussolini 39. Successful right-wing dictatorships (successful for a time) are always in relatively poor countries, or anyway those that feel hard done by or ‘have not.’…