What is the underlying value of a clam? In short, nothing. But the clamshell was the world’s longest-lasting reserve currency, recognised globally for thousands of years as a store of value and a medium of exchange. The clamshell was the …
MAGA must be reborn
“This is a movement like no one’s seen before… the greatest political movement of all time… the most incredible political thing…” Donald Trump didn’t hold back in his victory speech. And though he is known for his rhetorical exaggerations, it …
Donald Trump is a Silicon Valley fantasy
The love affair that has blossomed between MAGA and the digital visionaries of Silicon Valley has left liberal pundits mystified. Why would America’s brainiest tech bros swipe right for Donald Trump? But it seems their love knows no bounds: yesterday, …
America should look like Gus Walz
Whether in Chicago last week or Milwaukee last month, the obscurity of American politics these days makes one turn to illuminations from the past. Trump expatiating lengthily on his injured ear during his speech at the Republican Convention in Milwaukee …
Why the Left hates MAGA Communism
I wanted to love MAGA Communism. When the movement emerged on X in 2022, it ruffled all the right feathers. It sought to meet working-class people where they were, channelling their frustrations while simultaneously dismantling the Left-wing establishment.
Predictably, the …
How Biden channelled his MAGA spirit
When he walks out of the White House in six months’ time, Joe Biden will leave behind a complicated legacy. He will go down in history as the man who beat Donald Trump, the president who authorised America’s shambolic withdrawal …
MAGA Republicans are nothing new
Just in case you haven’t spent the last week gripped by the question of who the Republicans would choose to nominate as their candidate for President of the United States, here’s the news: it was him. But it wasn’t exactly …
Why rural America doesn’t trust Joe Biden
“The Democratic Party doesn’t give a shit about what voters have to say.” Eva Posner, a Virginia-based political consultant, is furious. She believes that the progressive establishment will pay for snubbing rural voters.
Forsaken by the Democrats, rural America has …
The ghost who haunts the MAGA revolt
Over the past half-decade, few intellectuals have undergone a renaissance like Christopher Lasch — and few renaissances have been quite as startlingly heterodox. After the 2016 election, Lasch’s posthumous 1994 book Revolt of the Elites was cited as a key …
A Trump dynasty will swiftly implode
With Oedipal drama never far from America’s political consciousness, it was only a matter of a time before Donald Trump’s youngest son, Barron, was thrust under the spotlight. Would he, the nation’s pundits speculated last week, at the tender age …
The mythical masculinity of Donald Trump
As Donald Trump endures the eternity of the next month or so on a wooden bench in a courtroom in lower Manhattan, legions of his followers will decry the legal proceedings against him. They will insist that the claims and …
After MAGA, a new Trump rises
As America inches ever closer to its next election, the rest of the world is now forced to face the fact that Donald Trump is almost guaranteed to be the Republican nominee, and the favourite to return to the White …
My night out with the Proud Boys
When I first met the leader of the Proud Boys, he was relaxing over a burger and chicken wings in an Irish bar, wearing his trademark mirror shades and a T-shirt emblazoned with the words: “Democrats eat and fuck children.” …
Peter Navarro: the tragic prophet of Trumpism
When Peter Navarro stood in front of a Washington DC courthouse to speak to the press after a trial convicted him of contempt of Congress last week, he was repeatedly heckled by a woman with a sign yelling “Traitor!” He …
The empty words of Ron DeSantis
Ron DeSantis is inching closer to announcing his 2024 presidential bid, and is partaking in a hallowed American political tradition: the release of the campaign book. This subgenre is less about presenting an agenda than about giving voters a general …