• Laura Field On Trump's Intellectuals (Andrew Sullivan, The Weekly Dish, 1-2-26) Her new book is a genuine engagement with the ideas of the new hard right. We dig in. The book: Furious Minds: The Making of the MAGA New Right.
"Laura K. Field's political science survey Furious Minds is about the intellectual underpinnings of authoritarianism in the US.
Describing in detail the different strains of elitist far-right politics that came together in the past decade, this is a meticulous, nuanced study of the patchwork of the US's far right. Rather than focusing on the popular phenomenon of rank-and-file voters swayed toward MAGA authoritarianism or on the conspiracy theorists who built a cult of personality around Donald Trump, the book focuses on the academics, theorists, and other powerful figures whose far-right ideologies coincided with Trump's rise, but whose names are not always tied to it. The John Birch Society, Barry Goldwater's 1964 presidential campaign, and the radicalization of conservative groups including the Claremont Institute and Hillsdale College are all considered."
• They Used to Rule the West. Now They’re Dying.
(Anton Jäger, the author of Hyperpolitics: Extreme Politicization without Political Consequences
"Others, to be sure, have looked at the larger social forces that pushed Mr. Trump to the fore — the backing from key sections of business, the fissuring of American society and the toll of decades of deindustrialization and economic inequality. These must be part of any adequate analytical picture. Critics have often focused their ire on Mr. Trump’s enablers, too, including the G.O.P. grandees who accommodated him.
"Yet there has been less talk about the Grand Old Party itself, now solidly regrouped around its redeemer.
• The Political Gap in Americans’ News Sources (Elisa Shearer, Kirsten Eddy, Michael Lipka, Katerina Eva Matsa, Pew Research Center, 6-10-25)
For years now, Democrats have been much more likely than Republicans to say they trust the information that comes from national news organizations.
Republicans and independents who lean Republican get news from a fairly concentrated group of sources, and one rises to the top: Fox News. Scroll down to page 9 of this article for chart that shows Republicans and Democrats drastically differ in which news sources they trust and distrust.
Behind Fox, where Republicans get most of their news, Republicans are most likely to say they regularly get news from the three major broadcast networks – ABC News (27%), NBC News (24%) and CBS News (22%) – New York Post (15%) and The Joe Rogan Experience podcast (22%). While not among Republicans’ most-consumed news sources, several sources are more likely to be regular sources of news for Republicans than Democrats, including Newsmax (15% vs. 1%), The Daily Wire (12% vs. 2%) and Tucker Carlson Network (9% vs. 1%).
Democrats get news from a far wider range of sources, with these at the top: ABC News (61%), NBC News (60%), PBS (59%), CNN (58%), CBS News (56%), BBC (52%), Associated Press (47%), Wall Street Journal (37% vs. 23%), MSNBC (45%), NPR (47%)
• A sickening moral slum of an administration (George Will, Washington Post, 12-2-25) Regarding Venezuela, Ukraine and much more, Trump and his acolytes are worse than simply incompetent. No operational necessity justified Hegseth’s de facto order to kill two survivors clinging to the wreckage of one of the supposed drug boats obliterated by U.S. forces near Venezuela. A nation incapable of shame is dangerous, not least to itself. As the recent “peace plan” for Ukraine demonstrated.
• A look back at Americans’ reactions to the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol
(John Gramlich, Pew Research Center, 1-4-22)
Americans expressed shock, horror and anguish over the riot at the Capitol, but partisan divides were clear even in the first days after Jan. Republicans were divided in the wake of Jan. 6 over whether then-President Donald Trump bore responsibility for the actions of some of his supporters that day.
March and September 2021, Americans became less likely to say it was important to find and prosecute the Capitol rioters, with all of the decline occurring among Republicans. While some GOP elected officials publicly rebuked Trump in the wake of Jan. 6, Republicans in the U.S. became less open to intraparty criticism of the former president in the months after the riot. As of September 2021, there were wide partisan differences over the severity of the criminal penalties imposed on the Jan. 6 rioters and whether the House’s investigation of the riot would be fair or not.
• Trump, in an Escalation, Calls for Republicans to ‘Nationalize’ Elections ( Reid J. Epstein and Nick Corasaniti, NY Times, 2-2-26) The comments, made on a conservative podcast, follow a string of moves from his administration to try to exert more control over American elections.
• The differences between Republicans and Democrats (blog post on this website)
• Trump’s Obama Derangement Syndrome (Maureen Dowd, NY Times, 2-7-26)
• Politico: News, Analysis, and Opinion from Politico
--- The GOP is losing one of its best issues (Adam Wren, Politico, 1-29-26) Immigration was a solidly winning issue for Republicans. Trump’s deportation campaign is changing that.
---Republicans narrowly fend off bid to limit Trump on Venezuela (1-22-26) GOP lawmakers pulled out all the stops to manage a tie vote and keep a war powers effort at bay a week after Senate Republicans quashed a similar measure.
---GOP lawmakers denounce Trump’s threats to seize Greenland (1-7-26)
“This is a topic that should be dropped," said Senate Armed Services Chair Roger Wicker.
• Why Donald Trump Was Nominated by the Republicans (Alan Ware, Political Quarterly UK, 8-18, 2016)
"Donald Trump’s selection by the Republican Party as its presidential candidate is one of the most controversial nominations in American electoral history. In living memory only the National Convention’s choice of Barry Goldwater in 1964 might conceivably rival it at the presidential level. Trump’s style, involving personal attacks on fellow candidates, not only alienated most of the Republican political elite but also exposed fissures in American society that all candidates are usually keen to ignore or attempt to discuss in banal terms. How could someone like Trump have ever become the nominee of a major party? The answer lies partly in the peculiarities of the Presidential candidate selection process and partly in fundamental developments affecting the Republican Party and the voting public at large....
"All his rivals for the nomination believed for far too long that Trump could never be selected and therefore the last remaining alternative to Trump would inevitably become the nominee. For them the key to being selected was to remain in the race as long as their candidacy remained credible. This misjudgement meant that during the early stages of the primary campaign Trump benefitted from the persistence of a multi-candidate field. He could remain the leading candidate even though his supporters were then still only a minority of Republican voters. The longer that all but one other candidate remained in the race, the easier it was for Trump eventually to convert that minority base into a majority of Convention delegates."