Is Donald Trump Really All That Unprecedented?
Photo by Gage Skidmore on Flickr. Creative commons license.
Dan SallyPublished: 10 Mar, 2025
1 min read
Donald Trump's address to Congress last week is the latest in a string of highly partisan moves designed to please his base and needle his opponents. While his divisive approach seems unusual by modern standards, have we been here before? In this episode, Dan and Shawn plumb the depths of American history and find a president not all that dissimilar from our 45th/47th, discuss whether Trump is leading a lasting transformation of the GOP, or one that will fade like past populist movements, and what Democrats (and disaffected Republicans) can learn from history to mount an effective resistance.
In this article
You Might Also Like
Can The Military Remain Apolitical?
Last week, Donald Trump deployed the National Guard and active-duty Marines to Los Angeles over the objections of state leaders, delivered a highly partisan speech to uniformed troops at Fort Bragg, and held a military parade in Washington, D.C. on his birthday....
16 Jun, 2025
-
1 min read
The Politics of Pandering: From Blockades to Bro-Outreach
Last week, Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville, who led a one-man blockade preventing military promotions under the Biden Administration, announced he would not be seeking reelection. On the other side of the aisle, Democrats launched a $20 million campaign to learn how to talk to men....
02 Jun, 2025
-
1 min read
Presidential Health: Who Determines When a President Is Unfit to Serve?
In this episode, Dan and Shawn examine how the system let this happen, how similar failures have played out in American history, and what it says about a two-party structure that forces voters to choose between different flavors of dysfunction, rather than ensuring effective governance....
20 May, 2025
-
1 min read
Why Mathematicians Love Ranked Choice Voting
The Institute for Mathematics and Democracy (IMD) has released what may be the most comprehensive empirical study of ranked choice voting ever conducted. The 66-page report analyzes nearly 4,000 real-world ranked ballot elections, including some 2,000 political elections, and more than 60 million simulated ones to test how different voting methods perform....
11 Dec, 2025
-
4 min read
Quirk Silva’s Exit Sparks a High-Profile Orange County Clash, Where Independent Voters Control the Math
California’s 67th Assembly District stretches across parts of Orange and Los Angeles counties, connecting some of the region’s most dynamic and diverse suburban communities. It includes the entire cities of Cerritos, La Palma, Hawaiian Gardens, Artesia, Buena Park, and Cypress, as well as portions of Fullerton and Anaheim....
18 Dec, 2025
-
6 min read
Trump Signs Order to Reclassify Cannabis to Schedule III
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump announced Thursday that his administration will officially move cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III under the Controlled Substances Act, a decision that marks the most significant change to U.S. drug policy since the early 1970s....
18 Dec, 2025
-
2 min read