The so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) claims to be slashing bureaucratic waste and improving government efficiency, however the DOGE team is attempting to gain access to various sensitive digital information systems of the federal government of the United States.
Zeynep Tufekci argues that DOGE is actually re-engineering government information systems to access U.S. citizens’ personal information and use it to advance Elon Musk’s political and business agenda.
“Watching Elon Musk and his band of young acolytes slash their way through the federal government, many observers have struggled to understand how such a small group could do so much damage in so little time,” Tufekci writes.
“The mistake is trying to situate Musk solely in the context of politics. He isn’t approaching this challenge like a budget-minded official. He’s approaching it like an engineer, exploiting vulnerabilities that are built into the nation’s technological systems, operating as what cybersecurity experts call an insider threat. We were warned about these vulnerabilities but no one listened, and the consequences — for the United States and the world — will be vast.”
Tufekci asserts that Elon Musk represents an “insider threat” to U.S. information systems.
“Insider threats have been around for a long time: the C.I.A. mole toiling quietly in the Soviet government office, the Boeing engineer who secretly ferried information about the space shuttle program to the Chinese government. Modern digital systems supercharge that threat by consolidating more and more information from many distinct realms.”
Tufekci points out that “Running integrated digital systems, however, requires endowing a few individuals with sweeping privileges. They’re the sysadmins, the systems administrators who manage the entire network, including its security. They have root privileges, the jargon for highest level of access. They get access to the God View, the name Uber gave its internal tool that allowed an outrageously large number of employees to see anyone’s Uber rides.”
Allowing Elon Musk and his DOGE team access to the “God View” of the U.S. Treasury’s payment system and other integrated digital systems of the federal government is unprecedented and dangerous.
Tufekci emphasizes: “That’s why when Edward Snowden was at the N.S.A. he was able to take so much information, including extensive databases that had little to do with the particular operations he wanted to expose as a whistle-blower. He was a sysadmin, the guy standing watch against users who abuse their access, but who has broad leeway to exercise his own.”
Data Scientists, Cyber Security experts, and AI researchers are closely monitoring these developments. Historians of Digital Humanities, information management, and information revolutions are considering the broader implications of DOGE’s potential use of sensitive information.
Tufekci, Zeynep “Here Are the Digital Clues to What Musk Is Really Up To.” The New York Times (21 February 2025).
Hartog, Frank den and Abu Barkat ullah. “Insider Threat: Cyber Security Experts on Giving Elon Musk and DOGE the Keys to US Government IT Systems.” The Conversation (19 February 2025).
On information revolutions and power, see:
Dooley, Brendan, ed. The Dissemination of News and the Emergence of Contemporaneity in Early Modern Europe. Farnham: Ashgate, 2010.
Dooley, Brendan Maurice and Sabrina A. Baron, eds. The Politics of Information in Early Modern Europe. London: Routledge, 2001.
Lamal, Nina, Jamies Bumby, and Helmer J. Helmers, eds. Print and Power in Early Modern Europe (1500–1800). Leiden: Brill, 2021.
Pettegree, Andrew. The Book in the Renaissance. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010.
Pettegree, Andrew. The Invention of News: How the World Came to Know about Itself. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014.
Wheeler, Tom. “Gutenberg’s Message to the AI Era,” Brookings (16 July 2024).
Brazil and the United States have both experienced recent coups d’état by their presidents, Jair Bolsonaro and Donald J. Trump.
The justice system of Brazil has successfully confronted Bolsonaro by charging him with coup d’état, while the U.S. justice system failed miserably to charge and prosecute Trump for election denial and insurrection.
Quico Toro assesses the similarities and differences in the cases of the coups d’état in Brazil and the United States in an article in The Atlantic.
“For years now, politics in Brazil have been the fun-house-mirror version of those in the United States. The dynamic was never plainer than it became last week, when Brazilian prosecutors formally charged the far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro, along with 33 co-conspirators, with crimes connected to a sprawling plan to overthrow the nation’s democracy and hang on to power after losing an election in October of 2022,” Toro writes.
“That the charges against Bolsonaro sound familiar to Americans is no coincidence. Bolsonaro consulted with figures in Donald Trump’s orbit in pursuit of his election-denial strategy. But the indictment against Bolsonaro suggests that the Brazilian leader went much further than Trump did, allegedly bringing high-ranking military officers into a coup plot and signing off on a plan to have prominent political opponents murdered,” according to Toro.
“Fewer than seven months after the attempted coup, Brazil’s Supreme Electoral Court ruled Bolsonaro ineligible to stand for office again until 2030. Interestingly, that decision wasn’t even handed down as a consequence of the attempted coup itself, but of Bolsonaro’s abuse of official acts to promote himself as a candidate, as well as his insistence on casting doubt, without evidence, on the fairness of the election.”
Toro laments: “I can’t help but wish that U.S. jurists had shown the nerve of their Brazilian counterparts. In their charging documents against Bolsonaro, Brazil’s prosecutors don’t mumble technicalities: They charge him with attempting a coup d’état, which is what he did.”
Toro points out the ineptness of Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court to bar Trump from the ballot. He points out the slow procedural response by Attorney General Merrick Garland and the Department of Justice, who failed to bring prosecutions and instead eventually established a Special Prosecutor. Toro emphasizes the failures of the U.S. Special Counsel Jack Smith in bringing charges decisively.
“Contrast that [the prosecution in Brazil] with the proceduralism at the core of the case against President Trump. After an interminable delay that ultimately rendered the entire exercise moot, Special Counsel Jack Smith charged Trump not for trying to overthrow the government but for ‘conspiring to obstruct the official proceeding’ (that would lead him to lose power) as well as ‘conspiring to defraud the United States’—a crime so abstract that only a constitutional lawyer knows what it actually means.”
The U.S. Department of Justice rightly prosecuted low-level participants in the Storming of the U.S. Capitol on 6 January 2021 for violent assaults and seditious conspiracy. This could have been an effective prosecutorial strategy had these prosecutions been built like anti-mafia prosecutions, leading to “foot soldiers” testifying against the mafia bosses of the conspiracy, but the Department of Justice took much too long to prosecute thousands of low-level participants without ever bringing charges against President Trump and his advisors who participated in the seditious conspiracy and instigated the coup d’état.
Now a newly reinstalled President Trump has pardoned or commuted sentences of all of his supporters who participated in the Storming of the U.S. Capitol, including members of the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and other militas who assaulted police officers and conspired to kill then Vice President Pence and Congressional representatives.
President Trump’s pardons have re-created and expanded a violent and seditious paramilitary force deeply loyal to him and willing to use coercion and intimidation to support his policies. Enrique Tarrio, a prominent leader of the Proud Boys, and the so-called Seditious 5 held a menacing rally with other pardoned insurrectionists in front of the U.S. Capitol on Friday.
“‘Whose house?’ Tarrio asked, turning toward the U.S. Capitol. ‘Our house!’ they bellowed,” according to The Washington Post.
“The event, an opportunity for Tarrio and other far-right leaders to amplify their telling of the attack, reflected a stunning reversal of fortunes for nearly 1,600 Capitol riot defendants and far-right leaders granted clemency. The men once firmly seen as fringe figures felt vindicated — even celebrated — in the city that once jailed and prosecuted them.”
Proud Boys have attended meetings of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) and have also openly harassed U.S. Capitol police officers this weekend.
The Washington Post emphasizes that “As Trump has sought to recast the official public narrative about one of the most divisive chapters of recent U.S. history, some of those involved have benefited from their elevated profiles, converting the embrace of his MAGA base into public appearances and podcast interviews while openly mulling government jobs or running for elected office.”
Tarrio bragged about his newfound power: “‘The Boys are back in town,’ Tarrio, who was convicted of seditious conspiracy, posted to X, alongside a photo of him with three of his co-defendants. ‘The Seditious 5 rides again!'”
The Washington Post reports: “‘It feels defiant,’ Tarrio said, in an interview, about returning to Washington. ‘Those three years that were taken from me unjustly were so f—ing worth it. The size of the bullhorn that was given to me is … huge.”
Tarrio and Trump are both emboldened and dangerous.
Why did the U.S. Department of Justice fail so spectacularly to prosecute President Trump’s coup d’état?
Toro offers this explanation: “the biggest difference is that dictatorship is a much more real menace in Brazil, a country that democratized only in the 1980s, than it is in a country that’s never experienced it. Older Brazilians carry the scars, in many cases literal ones, of their fight against dictatorship. This fight for them is visceral in a way it isn’t—yet—for Americans.”
“Brazil has demonstrated how democracies that value themselves defend themselves. America could have done the same.”
Toro, Quico. “Brazil Stood Up for Its Democracy. Why Didn’t the U.S.?” The Atlantic (23 February 2025.
In a Friday night purge, President Trump has fired the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the top military general in the United States, along with five other generals and military lawyers.
“President Trump fired the country’s senior military officer as part of an extraordinary Friday night purge at the Pentagon that injected politics into the selection of the nation’s top military leaders,” according to The New York Times.
“Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., a four-star fighter pilot known as C.Q. who became only the second African American to hold the chairman’s job, is to be replaced by a little-known retired three-star Air Force general, Dan Caine, who endeared himself to the president when they met in Iraq six years ago.”
General C.Q. Brown, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Photo: AP.
The New York Times reports that “In all, six Pentagon officials were fired, including Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead the Navy; Gen. James Slife, the vice chief of the Air Force; and the top lawyers for the Army, Navy and Air Force.”
“The decision to fire General Brown, which Mr. Trump announced in a message on Truth Social, reflects the president’s insistence that the military’s leadership is too mired in diversity issues, has lost sight of its role as a combat force to defend the country and is out of step with his ‘America First’ movement.”
This firing appears to have been made primarily based on General Brown’s status as an African-American, and thus violates anti-discrimination laws in the United States. I certainly hope that General Brown will file a lawsuit for wrongful termination.
The firing of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff also violates precedents and norms of civil-military relations in the United States.
The New York Times point out that “Joint Chiefs chairmen traditionally remain in place as administrations change, regardless of the president’s political party. But current White House and Pentagon officials said they wanted to appoint their own top leaders.”
The Pentagon purge has been signaled for months. Ronald R. Krebs, Professor of Political Science (University of Minnesota), wrote prior to President Trump’s second inauguration that “During his successful 2024 reelection campaign, incoming U.S. President Donald Trump promised to purge the military of “woke” generals. Soon after his November victory, TheWall Street Journal reported that his transition team had drafted an executive order to establish a so-called warrior board of retired senior military officers tasked with identifying serving generals and admirals who ought to be dismissed. In the meantime, according to other media reports, Trump’s team has been drawing up its own list of generals to remove from their posts and perhaps even court-martial.”
Krebs argues: “That the Trump administration would put the military in its sights should not come as a surprise. … Nobody should be fooled by the Trump team’s claim that it aims, by culling top officers, to strengthen the U.S. military. The purpose would be precisely the opposite; weakening the professional military, in fact, is a move many populist leaders make as they consolidate power. If, like his fellow populists around the globe, Trump uses his second term to undermine the military’s independence and professionalism and transform it into a more politicized force, both American democracy and the U.S. armed forces’ war-fighting capacity will suffer.”
On the Pentagon purge, see the AP report and the following news articles:
Lamothe, Dan and Missy Ryan, “With Pentagon Purge, Trump Thrusts Military into Uncharted Territory.” The Washington Post (22 February 2025).
Krebs, Ronald R. “Trump vs. the Military.” Foreign Affairs (10 January 2025).
Schmitt, Eric, Helene Cooper, and Jonathan Swan, “Trump Fires Joint Chiefs Chairman Amid Flurry of Dismissals at Pentagon.” The New York Times(21 February 2025).
Historians of war and society and military institutions have long studied civil-military relations in the United States. For an introduction to these studies, see:
Bacevich, Andrew. Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2013.
Bruneau, Thomas. “Civil-Military Relations.” Oxford Bibliographies in International Law. doi: 10.1093/obo/9780199796953-0184
Feaver, Peter D. Armed Servants: Agency, Oversight, and Civil-Military Relations. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003.
Feaver, Peter and Richard H. Kohn, eds. Soldiers and Civilians: The Civil-Military Gap and American National Security, BCSIA Studies in International Security. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001.
Huntington, Samuel P. The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1957.
Janowitz, Morris. The Professional Soldier: A Social and Political Portrait, reissue edition. New York: Free Press, 2017.
Kohn, Richard H. “Building Trust: Civil-Military Behaviors for Effective National Security.” American Civil-Military Relations: The Soldier and the State in a New Era, ed. Suzanne Nielsen and Don Snider, 264-289. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009.
Kohn, Richard H. “The Constitution and National Security: The Intent of the Framers.” In The United States Military under the Constitution of the United States 1789–1989, ed. Richard H. Kohn, 61–94. New York, NY: New York University Press, 1991.
Kohn, Richard H. “Out of Control: The Crisis in Civil-Military Relations.” The National Interest 35 (Spring 1994), 3–17.
Note: This post has been updated to include a quote by Professor Krebs and to add references to additional news reports.
The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and its allies have successfully blocked (at least temporarily) two key executive orders issued by President Trump on higher education issues.
The Democracy Forward lawsuit claims that the Trump executive orders are unconstitutional, violating both the First and Fifth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution, which are key provisions of the Bill of Rights.
In issuing an injunction on the Trump executive orders, a federal judge described the unconstitutional basis of Trump’s orders: “That is textbook viewpoint-based discrimination . . . . The government’s threat of enforcement is not just targeted towards enforcement of federal law. Rather, the provision expressly targets, and threatens, the expression of views supportive of equity, diversity and inclusion.”
The AAUP sent this letter out to members regarding the judicial decision of the US District Court for the District of Maryland:
“AAUP members have won a crucial victory. Last night, in a case in which the AAUP was a plaintiff, the US District Court for the District of Maryland granted a preliminary nationwide injunction on key parts of a pair of executive orders issued by President Trump. The orders broadly and in vague terms seek to end diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility mandates, policies, programs, preferences, and activities among federal government grantees and contractors, including virtually all colleges and universities.
“Members like you played an essential role in this win by sharing your stories about how the executive orders affected you. In its decision, the court explicitly cited the evidence provided by courageous AAUP members when it found that there were ‘concrete actual injuries suffered by Plaintiffs and their members’ as a result of the unlawful actions of the administration and that AAUP members and their institutions would ‘be forced to either restrict their legal activities and expression that are arguably related to DEI, or forgo federal funding altogether.’
“The decision was in response to a suit filed by Democracy Forward on behalf of four organizations representing different affected groups: the AAUP (representing faculty members), the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education (representing their diversity officer members), the City of Baltimore (representing a public sector grantee), and Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (representing a private sector grantee). We sought this temporary restraining order to prevent the Trump administration from using federal grants and contracts as leverage to force colleges and universities to end all diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, whether federally funded or not, and from terminating any “equity-related” federal grants or contracts.
“As our brief explained, the orders are unconstitutional, usurping congressional power and violating First and Fifth Amendment rights. Absent preliminary relief, significant and irreparable harm would have been caused to our members, their students, and communities. Most importantly, the government could have used the threat of terminating billions of dollars of grants and contracts, as well as the threat of investigations and enforcement actions, to force faculty and universities to cease virtually all of their legally permissible work relating to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility.
“The AAUP’s membership includes many potentially affected faculty: those whose work focuses on Black studies; Latino studies; Asian studies; gender or sexual orientation identities; diversity, equity, and inclusion specifically; environmental justice; and other subject matter targeted by the president’s anti-DEIA executive orders. We also represent a significant number of members who focus on medical and other scientific research related to whether and how race and ethnicity affect health outcomes. Beyond AAUP members, students and communities would be harmed by the termination of the higher education grants: work on female reproductive health would be curtailed; assistance to help students with disabilities and from underrepresented populations graduate and find careers would be undermined; and efforts to strengthen research capacity at historically Black colleges and universities would be set back.
“The judge noted that our lawsuit is likely to succeed on the claim that enforcement actions against companies and universities would violate constitutionally protected free speech and wrote: ‘That is textbook viewpoint-based discrimination . . . . The government’s threat of enforcement is not just targeted towards enforcement of federal law. Rather, the provision expressly targets, and threatens, the expression of views supportive of equity, diversity and inclusion.’
“This is one battle in a long fight but it’s an important win and a demonstration that when we work together, we can win.”
I am a member of the AAUP support its active defense of academic research, higher education, and academic freedom. For more on the lawsuit and the federal judicial decision, see the AAUP website.
Europeans are in shock after the recent Munich Security Conference, an annual meeting of European diplomats and international security officials in Germany.
Academic colleagues and friends across Europe have been contacting me to ask what exactly the Trump administration is doing and how it will affect the European Union and the rest of the world. European nations have long been committed to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance and the Trans-Atlantic relationship, as Europeans often describe it.
Many of my historian colleagues in the United States and I are trying to explain the rapid changes within the federal government of the United States and the sweeping changes in U.S. foreign policy to worried academic colleagues around the world.
I have lived in France, Italy, Belgium, and Spain while conducting archival research, participating in European research programs, and collaborating with European professors and researchers. So, I often find myself responding to questions about American politics, society, and culture from European colleagues.
Over the past two weeks, entirely new questions are flowing in, since the Trump administration’s actions and statements have radically altered relations between the United States and Europe.
One key question that is being posed is “After Munich, How Will Europe Handle Trump?”
This is the phrasing of Jonathan Martin, a political columnist with Politico, but the question is absolutely central for European policymakers and citizens. Martin explains that “It was the week European fears about Donald Trump’s America began to come true. … At every turn, the Trump administration seemed to confirm the dread Europe has about the new president: chaos, extremism, protectionism and, perhaps most of all, a softness toward Vladimir Putin.”
Professor Stephen M. Walt, Professor of International Relations (Harvard University), offers a telling answer to Europeans’ questions about how they should understand Trump and Trumpism: “Yes, America Is Europe’s Enemy Now.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has questioned the existence of NATO and the basis of the United States’ alliances with member nations in Europe. Hegseth also made comments suggesting that the United States would sell out Ukraine and accept granting part of its territory to Russia.
Vice President J.D. Vance lectured European diplomats at the Munich Security Conference about paying for their own defense. Vance also suggested that European nations support far-right (fascist) political parties such as the Alternative for Deutschland (Alternative for Germany, or AfD) in Germany, which is a self-avowed fascist party whose leaders minimize and sometimes deny the Holocaust. Vice President Vance’s comments were clearly calculated to meddle in the German elections to be held this weekend, in an attempt to alter the outcome and strengthen the AfD.
U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance delivering a speech at the Munich Security Conference in February 2025. Photo: Politico EU.
President Trump, Vice President Vance, advisor Elon Musk, and former advisor Steve Bannon are all on the record voicing loud support for the AfD and for far-right fascist parities in France, Italy, Hungary, and other European nations. The Trump Republican party has clearly asserted a White Christian Nationalist ideology with their own official statements and repeated tweets on X (formerly Twitter).
Trump and his close advisors have long coordinated closely with authoritarian rulers such as Russian President Vladimir Putin, but also with far-right leaders across Europe: Nigel Farage (United Kingdom) Marine Le Pen (France), Victor Orban (Hungary), Giorgia Meloni (Italy), and many others.
Some European politicians and policy analysts would like to think that this is a fundamentally American development. European observers of the United States often present Americans as overly capitalist, excessively religious, aggressive, gun-toting, violent, uneducated, and rather unworldly. Some of these characterizations may not be entirely incorrect.
However, the rise of Trumpism is clearly part of a broader international trend.
Old political parties have been disrupted in many democratic nations around the world in the past two decades, including in Europe. Many member nations of the European Union have seen the collapse of socialist and center-right parties, linked with the rise of far-right extremist parties. In France, for example, Le Parti Socialiste (PS) on the center-left and Les Républicains on the center-right have seen their support erode radically since the rise of the Front National, a far-right neo-fascist party that has rebranded itself as the Rassemblement National (National Rally) under Marine Le Pen’s leadership.
Many American citizens have similarly complained about the so-called two-party system for decades, longing for a third party. Well, we now have seen the rise and takeover of a third party in the United States.
The old Republican Party is dead. A third party, Trumpist, has completely taken over the old Republican Party and utterly transformed it. There are virtually no Reagan Republicans, Bush Republicans, George W. Bush Republicans, or even Tea Party Republicans left in the leadership or Congressional representatives of the Republican Party. The new Republicans are pure Trumpists. The old Republican Party is dead. Conservativism as a political ideology is done. The few remaining proponents of Conservative politics find themselves without a political party.
This represents a complete party realignment that is transforming the United States political system. Some Christian Evangelicals, older Conservatives, and Libertarians seem to think that they can control President Trump and channel Trumpism into directions that will advance their long-held goals, such as instituting a national ban on abortions in the United States.
The leaders of the new Trumpist Party are a mixture of neo-fascists, White Christian Nationalists, and technological futurists. They may have some populist support, but they are not “populists,” as they have often been described.
I will write more about this political party realignment later, but I want to focus now on the emergence of this new Trumpist (Republican) Party and what it means for European politics and international relations.
Trumpists assert a far-right White Supremacist ideology and a tech-based confidence that they can disrupt and transform the entire world.
I used to think that this was a pseudo-fascist movement, but it is increasingly clear that Trumpism is a powerful neo-fascism, a new international form of fascism with deep roots in Mussolini’s Italian fascism and Hitler’s German Nazism. However, Trumpist neo-fascism also has powerful influences from home-grown American political movements: KKK White Supremacist politics, 1930s American fascism, Jim Crow authoritarianism, and anti-Civil Rights Movement politics.
Some European politicians and analysts fail to understand the power of this international far-right extremist movement. European confidence in electoral “firewalls” in stopping the Rassemblement National or the AfD from gaining more power or actually seizing power may be misplaced. Two failed impeachments, several federal prosecutions, and several state prosecutions did not halt Trumpism’s rise to power. Americans used to talk about the “blue wall” in the Midwest, but it and a broader electoral “firewalls” against Trump were breached in the 2024 Elections. In his speech at the Munich Security Conference, J.D. Vance offered support for the AfD in the upcoming German election and warned Europeans that “There is no room for firewalls.”
The impact of this Trumpism on European politics and society will be enormous, since it is not limited to supporting ideological allies in far-right parties within European nations.
President Trump’s diplomatic rapprochement with Putin’s Russia and the total disruption of American—Ukrainian relations is stunning, but not unexpected. President Trump has repeatedly met with Russian officials and had phone calls with Putin. He did this before he was elected President the first time in 2016 and has done so ever since.
Many political analysts refer to President Trump as purely transactional, but his repeated connections with Russian officials and far-right political leaders display a pattern of communication and a fundamental agreement on basic ideological principles and authoritarian aims.
This week, President Trump falsely claimed that the Ukraine started the current Russian-Ukrainian War (2022 to present). Trump also falsely claimed that Ukrainian President Zelenzky was not elected as leader of Ukraine. Trump then insulted President Zelenzky and attempted to extort him into giving 50 percent of Ukraine’s mineral rights to the United States in exchange for U.S. support.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio tried to play damage control around the meeting of the Munich Security Conference, but it is clear that United States foreign policy has changed radically.
The United States of America’s relations with Europe is in tatters, and Europeans are discovering what it is like to live in Trumplandia.
Jonathan Martin’s column on “After Munich, How Will Europe Handle Trump?” is at Politico.
Stephen M. Walt, Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Relations (Harvard University), published “Yes, America Is Europe’s Enemy Now” in Foreign Policy.
The New York Times reports on J.D. Vance’s comments at the Munich Security Conference. Michael Hersh published an article on “The New Meaning of ‘Munich’” in Foreign Policy. An article on “JD Vance Stuns Munich Conference with Blistering Attack on Europe’s Leaders” is available in The Guardian. An article on “Vance Attack on Europe Overshadows Ukraine Talks at Security Conference” is in Reuters.
On European responses to Vance’s speech and U.S. foreign policy shifts, see an article on “Stunned Europeans Make Plans after US Announcements on Ukraine” is in EuroNews. On Europeans’ moves to create its own nuclear deterrent force, see “Europe Targets Homegrown Nuclear Deterrent as Trump Sides with Putin” in Politico EU. A discussion on “What Could Happen if the U.S. Abandons Europe” is in The New Yorker.
On the AfD and the German Elections this weekend, see an article on “German Election: Will the Far-Right AfD Break Through the Firewall and Take Power?” in Politico EU. An article on “From Migration to Economy: The High-Stakes German Elections” is published in DW.
On the radical shifts in U.S. foreign policy toward Ukraine, see “Trump Flips the Script on the Ukraine War, Blaming Zelensky Not Putin” in The New York Times.
There are many analyses of the current political realignment in the United States and Trump’s takeover of the Republican Party, as well as the death of Conservatism. For one perspective, see David Brook’s article on “Confessions of a Republican Exile” in The Atlantic. I plan to write a new post with information and references on Trumpism as a new neo-fascist ideology.
For European analyses of European Union politics and foreign policy, see the research affiliated with the Robert Schuman Centre, an inter-disciplinary research centre of the European University Institute (EUI).
President Trump has declared himself king, opposing himself to the legitimately elected representatives of the State of New York over a congestion pricing law.
The White House issued a post on X stating that “CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD. Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED. LONG LIVE THE KING!” –President Donald J. Trump.
The White House’s post included artwork depicting Trump as a King and calling “Long Live the King!”
This is no mere meme joke.
President Trump has made arrogant comments referring to himself as a king, and his administration and supporters are repeating and magnifying the offensive claims on social media.
This is part of a broader strategy to build monarchical power in the United States. The right-wing dominated U.S. Supreme Court essentially granted the President of the United States unqualified immunity in a highly controversial 2024 ruling.
Trump’s outrageous claim has prompted widespread anger and responses that the United States has no king.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul responded forcefully: “We are a nation of laws, not ruled by a king. We’ll see you in court.”
Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker delivered his Illinois State of the State Speech, commenting that: “As governor of Illinois, my oath is to the constitution of our state and our nation. We don’t have kings in America, and I won’t bend the knee to one.”
Since Trump’s White House is using memes to promote the idea of a King Donald, I’ll respond with my own meme here:
The citizens of the United States rejected monarchy and deposed King George III of Great Britain almost two hundred fifty years ago.
Historians of the United States, comparative revolutions, civil conflicts, and war and society have published numerous serious studies of the American Revolution and the War of Independence. Historians and legal scholars have studied complicated process of creating the Articles of Confederation and then the U.S. Constitution that established the world’s first modern democratic republic.
The founders of the United States utterly rejected monarchy and nobility.
U.S. citizens do not need an arrogant would-be king to claim monarchical authority and disrupt our constitutional system of government.
The University of Wisconsin’s Center for the Study of the American Constitution provides historical documents on monarchical tendencies during the Confederation period as well as debates over the writing of the U.S. Constitution.
For further reading on monarchy, revolution, republicanism, and constitutionalism in the early history of the United States see:
Bartoloni-Tuazon, Kathleen. For Fear of an Elective King: George Washington and the Presidential Title Controversy of 1789. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2014.
Nelson, Eric. The Royalist Revolution: Monarchy and the American Founding. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014.
Rivage, Justin du. Revolution Against Empire: Taxes, Politics, and the Origins of American Independence. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2017.
Wood, Gordon S. The Radicalism of the American Revolution. New York, NY: Vintage, 1991.
The New York Times and The Independent both report on President Trump’s claim to be king. The Guardian reports on responses to Trump’s claims. On the Supreme Court’s controversial 2024 ruling, and its relationship to monarchy, see reporting by The Nation.
President Trump shocked the world this week by falsely blaming Ukraine for starting the current Russian-Ukrainian War.
The New York Times reports: “In comments that stunned America’s allies in Europe and angered Ukraine’s government, President Trump on Tuesday appeared to blame Ukraine’s leaders for Russia’s invasion.”
“He also suggested that they do not deserve a seat at the table for the peace talks that he has initiated with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.”
“‘You should have never started it,’ Mr. Trump said, referring to Ukraine’s leaders. ‘You could have made a deal.’ He followed up on Wednesday in a post on social media, calling Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, a ‘dictator without elections’ and saying he had ‘done a terrible job’ in office.”
President Trump is attempting to rewrite history, outrageously claiming that Ukraine instigated the current Russian-Ukrainian War (2022 to present).
All wars have complex causes and preconditions, but this war was quite clearly instigated by a major Russian military invasion of Ukraine.
“When Russian forces crashed over the borders into Ukraine in 2022 determined to wipe it off the map as an independent state, the United States rushed to aid the beleaguered nation and cast its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, as a hero of resistance,” according to The New York Times.
A damaged church in Mariupol, Ukraine. Photo: The New York Times.
“Three years almost to the day later, President Trump is rewriting the history of Russia’s invasion of its smaller neighbor. Ukraine, in this version, is not a victim but a villain. And Mr. Zelensky is not a latter-day Winston Churchill, but a ‘dictator without elections’ who somehow started the war himself and conned America into helping.”
President Trump is putting the “squeeze” on President Zelensky, attempting to bully Ukraine into giving up half of its mineral wealth to the United States or capitulating to Russia.
President Zelenzky has responded by accusing Trump of “living in a disinformation space” and parroting Russian talking points.
Authoritarian regimes often rewrite historical accounts and distort historical records in order to promote their policies and political aims. This is a classic move by dictators and their regimes.
The New York Times argues that “Mr. Trump’s revisionism sets the stage for a geopolitical about-face unlike any in generations as the president embarks on negotiations with Russia that Ukraine fears could come at its own expense. By vilifying Mr. Zelensky and shifting blame for the war from Moscow to Kyiv, Mr. Trump seems to be laying a predicate for withdrawing support for an ally under attack.”
“The sharp exchange of words between Mr. Trump and Mr. Zelensky this week signaled how much has changed with the inauguration of a new president in Washington. Even for Mr. Trump, who has never been a fan of Ukraine and has long expressed admiration of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, the vitriol expressed toward Mr. Zelensky drew gasps of surprise on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean,” according to The New York Times.
The Trump administration has shockingly begun direct talks with Russia, without any Ukrainian participation.
President Trump’s statements and actions have purposefully created a severe diplomatic rift with Ukraine, but also with the United States’ closest military and political allies in Europe.
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth angered NATO allies in Europe during his European trip this week. Vice President Vance’s anti-European comments at the Munich Security Conference have further alienated long-time U.S. allies. Trump has long been opposed to NATO and seems determined to destroy it entirely.
Stephen N. Walt, Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Relations (Harvard University), argues that “Yes, America Is Europe’s Enemy Now.”
Walt indicates hat “a few weeks ago, I warned that the second Trump administration might be squandering the tolerance and good will that Washington had long received from the world’s major democracies. Instead of seeing the United States as a mostly positive force in world affairs, these states might now ‘have to worry that the United States is actively malevolent.’ That column was written before Vice President J.D. Vance gave his confrontational speech at the Munich Security Conference, before President Donald Trump blamed Ukraine for starting the war with Russia, and before U.S. officials appeared to preemptively offer Russia almost everything it wants before negotiations on Ukraine were even underway. The reaction of mainstream European observers was neatly summed up by Gideon Rachman in the Financial Times: ‘[T]he Trump administration’s political ambitions for Europe mean that, for now, America is also an adversary.'”
The New York Times reports on “Trump Falsely Says Ukraine Started the War With Russia. Here Is What to Know.”
The New York Times also reports on President Trump’s foreign policy toward Ukraine.
The BBC fact checked President Trump’s comments on the Russian-Ukrainian War
Politico reports on the Munich Security Conference.
Stephen N. Walt’s article on “Yes, America Is Europe’s Enemy Now” is published by Foreign Affairs.
The Trump administration is seeking to militarize immigration policy enforcement and undermine civil-military relations in the United States.
“The Trump administration is ramping up plans to detain undocumented immigrants at military sites across the United States, a significant expansion of efforts by the White House to use wartime resources to make good on the president’s promised mass deportations,” according to The New York Times.
“President Trump’s team is developing a deportation hub at Fort Bliss, near El Paso, Texas, that could eventually hold up to 10,000 undocumented immigrants as they go through the process of being deported, according to three officials familiar with the plan.”
“Fort Bliss would serve as a model as the administration aims to develop more detention facilities on military sites across the country — from Utah to the area near Niagara Falls — to hold potentially thousands more people and make up for a shortfall of space at Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities, the officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details of a plan that is still in its early stages and has not yet been finalized.”
The New York Times indicates that “previous administrations have held some immigrants at military bases, most recently children who would then be released into the country to the care of relatives or friends. The bases served as an emergency backup when the federal government’s shelter system for migrant children reached capacity.
“But the Trump administration plan would expand that practice by establishing a nationwide network of military detention facilities for immigrants who are subject to deportation. The proposal would mark a major escalation in the militarization of immigration enforcement after Mr. Trump made clear when he came into office that he wanted to rely even more on the Pentagon to curtail immigration.
“For Trump officials, the plan helps address a shortage of space for holding the vast number of people they hope to arrest and deport. But it also raises serious questions about the possibility of redirecting military resources and training schedules. Military officials say the impact would depend on the scale of arrests and how long detainees remained in custody. And advocates for immigrants point to a history of poor conditions for immigrants held in military facilities.”
The New York Times reports on the militarization of immigration policy enforcement.
Historians of war and society and military institutions have long studied civil-military relations in the United States. For an introduction to these studies, see:
Bacevich, Andrew. Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2013.
Bruneau, Thomas. “Civil-Military Relations.” Oxford Bibliographies in International Law. doi: 10.1093/obo/9780199796953-0184
Feaver, Peter D. Armed Servants: Agency, Oversight, and Civil-Military Relations. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003.
Feaver, Peter and Richard H. Kohn, eds. Soldiers and Civilians: The Civil-Military Gap and American National Security, BCSIA Studies in International Security. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001.
Huntington, Samuel P. The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1957.
Janowitz, Morris. The Professional Soldier: A Social and Political Portrait, reissue edition. New York: Free Press, 2017.
Kohn, Richard H. “Building Trust: Civil-Military Behaviors for Effective National Security.” American Civil-Military Relations: The Soldier and the State in a New Era, ed. Suzanne Nielsen and Don Snider, 264-289. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009.
Kohn, Richard H. “The Constitution and National Security: The Intent of the Framers.” In The United States Military under the Constitution of the United States 1789–1989, ed. Richard H. Kohn, 61–94. New York, NY: New York University Press, 1991.
Kohn, Richard H. “Out of Control: The Crisis in Civil-Military Relations.” The National Interest 35 (Spring 1994), 3–17.
Illinois State University is hosting an Illinois Digital Humanities Symposium on 11 April 2025.
Undergraduate and graduate students in History and other Humanities disciplines at Northern Illinois University may be interested in presenting at this symposium or attending the sessions.
Here is the call for submissions from the Milner Library at Illinois State University:
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
Illinois Digital Humanities Symposium: Focusing on Student Work 11 April 2025, 10–6 Milner Library, Illinois State University
Submissions will close at midnight on 7 March 2025. Notifications of acceptance will go out on 11 March 2025.
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Dear Illinois (and neighboring!) DH Scholars and Students,
We would like to invite submissions for a one-day symposium of and on student DH work, to be held at Illinois State University, in Normal, Illinois, on the 11th of April 2025. We would like to engage universities throughout and neighboring Illinois, and have built the event around the Chicago-Normal and St. Louis-Chicago train schedules, in order to encourage participation from opposite ends of the state. Our hope is to start an annual rotation of conferences between Chicagoland and the rest of Illinois, and hope you will join us to kick off this event this year in Normal!
Our program will include a keynote lecture by Dr Ted Underwood, Professor of English and Information Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign on What Humanists Can Contribute to AI, a panel on DH pedagogy, panels of short papers, and a poster session.
Coffee breaks and lunch (sponsored by Milner Library) and a reception (sponsored by Loyola University) will be provided. There is no cost for attendance.
Please submit a 200–500 word abstract for a poster or 20-minute paper to Dr. Sean Winslow <smwinsl@ilstu.edu> by midnight on 7 March 2025. Acceptances will be sent out on 11 March 2025. Posters and papers should be by or in collaboration with students or focused on student DH work or pedagogy. We also invite instructors to nominate themselves or particularly involved students for the panel on PhD pedagogy.
Republicans in the House of Representatives are planning to make massive cuts to Medicaid, one of the essential healthcare programs in the United States.
“Mike Johnson, the House Speaker, has been hard at work on a major bill that can balance various priorities of Mr. Trump and his caucus: a desire for $4.5 trillion in tax cuts, a wish to trim federal spending, and concerns about rising federal debts,” according to The New York Times.
“The budget Mr. Johnson negotiated for the next decade, a first step in passing that agenda, calls for around $880 billion in cuts to Medicaid, in an effort to counterbalance a portion of the tax cuts.”
President Trump has endorsed the House Republicans’ plans for massive cuts to Medicaid and Medicare in order to cover the costs of his tax cuts.
Trump is now claiming on Fox News that he does not want cuts to Medicaid, however his frequent misstatements and outright lies mean that his promises are not credible.
President Trump has actually called for cuts to Medicaid and Medicare frequently during his presidential campaigns and previous administration, clearly signaling his intent to cut healthcare.
The Republicans’ proposed cuts to Medicaid would be devastating for millions of ordinary American citizens.
The New York Times points out that “Medicaid covers nearly half of all births in the country, and around two-thirds of nursing home stays. In 41 states that expanded the program as part of the Affordable Care Act, it also covers millions of working-class Americans with incomes close to the poverty line.”
Nursing home residents have no power to fight back against the proposed cuts, so their family members will have to mobilize to represent them.
“The House plan remains vague. It does not specify Medicaid policies other than the budget target for the committee that oversees the program. But spending reductions so large would require major changes. Adding a work requirement to the program, a proposal with some public support, would save only around $100 billion.”
The New York Times reports on “Trump Says Medicaid Won’t Be ‘Touched.’ House Republicans Want It Cut by Hundreds of Billions.”
Historians of medicine and analysts of public healthcare are monitoring these ongoing developments.
For an understanding of the history of public healthcare systems in the United States, see my colleague’s important study:
Hoffman, Beatrix. Health Care for Some: Rights and Rationing in the United States since 1930. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2012.
U.S. citizens who are concerned about the proposed cuts to Medicaid should contact their U.S. Senators and Representatives to demand that they defend Medicaid and Medicare.
Brian Sandberg: Historical Perspectives 