To Understand This Chaotic Transition, Rewind to the Last One
A look at the Obama – Trump transition.
Why McConnell Dumped Trump
An analysis of how the Republican Party’s leader in the Senate has shifted his position as regards Donald Trump, and why.
Interviewing MPs
A Professor of Politics at Queen Mary University draws on his experience interviewing around 1,000 politicians to provide a paper covering “stuff I wish someone had told me at the beginning”. Note — this is a link to a page where you can read the abstract of the paper and download the full PDF or read it in your browser.
What Happened Here?
A collection of 20 stories shared in previous editions that together, go some way to telling the story of the Trump presidency.
It’s telling in its own way that in this administration where personalities were paramount, rather than covering legislative change or other signature issues, many of the pieces are profiles of characters in the Trump soap opera.
The edition comprises five sections:
The Man
The Family
The Team
Domestic Affairs
Foreign Affairs
Note that the story descriptions are contemporaneous to when they were first shared, so in some cases things will have changed. For instance, several of the people described in them have since been fired.
Down the rabbit hole: how QAnon conspiracies thrive on Facebook
A dive into the network of groups on Facebook linked to QAnon promoting a dizzying range of conspiracy theories.
The Curse of Black Gold – Vast Oil Find Puts Guyana on the Verge of Riches – or Failure
A story looking at enormous reserves of oil in Guyana that could transform the country for better, or as some fear, for worse. The story is built around two brothers and their response to the find, one of whom is embracing the commercial opportunity, one of whom is warning of the risks it brings.
The Messengers
A profile of a magazine and its charismatic editor embarked on “a mission of protecting India’s tradition of democracy and religious pluralism”.
The neoliberal era is ending. What comes next?
An opinion piece suggesting that the neoliberal approach to government’s time is coming to an end, and that “a space has opened up for a different, more realistic view of human nature: that humankind has evolved to cooperate.” The author recognises that what will fill that space is far from certain.
Outgrowing growth: why quality of life, not GDP, should be our measure of success
An opinion piece laying out the argument for moving from GDP to quality of life as a better metric against which to measure progress.
William Barr’s State of Emergency
A profile of the United States Attorney General William Barr, in his second stint in the role, after first serving in George H.W. Bush’s administration in the early 1990s. His successor from his first incumbency had this to say on his influence in the Trump administration: “Those who think he’s a tool of Donald Trump are missing the point..If anything, it’s the other way around. Barr is vastly more intelligent than Donald Trump…Bill has longstanding views about how society should be organized, which can now be manifested and acted upon to a degree that they never could have before.”