I left legacy media to build something different: independent, honest political analysis with no corporate or partisan agenda.
I call balls and strikes ⚾ — because politics needs referees, not cheerleaders.
If you want clear, concise analysis that cuts through the noise, subscribe today. You’ll get what actually matters—not just what people want you to hear. 🎯
Subscribe now
Don’t forget to like and subscribe to “Super Tuesdays” — the weekly podcast from me and Chuck Todd!
Understanding Donald Trump is relatively easy. He’s a bully, a braggart and a deeply insecure man.
Understanding an America that elected Donald Trump president not once but twice is the work of a lifetime.
In my ongoing efforts to do so, I recognize I need to call on smarter minds than me to make sense of this moment in our politics and our culture.
Which brings me to , a senior lecturer in political science at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of the terrific Substack.
Damon and I spent an hour on Tuesday thinking and talking about Trump — his historical antecedents and the mark he will leave on American politics after he is gone.
The whole conversation was fascinating to me but I was particularly struck by Damon’s comparison between Trump’s populist appeal and that of third party presidential candidate (and former Alabama governor) George Wallace in 1968.
Here’s Damon on that:
*I really do think that a good way of trying to understand Trump is to think about him like George Wallace in 1968, but with one absolutely crucial difference. *
*George Wallace won five states in 1968. The kind of pro-segregationist, bomb-throwing, rabid right-wing populist who combined that with a kind of working class attack on economic issues — that the working class was being left behind by the growth and they were all being sent to die in Vietnam… *
*…It was very proto-Trump. Those people were deeply alienated by the Democratic Party because it had moved to the other side on civil rights. And so [Wallace] did well in a whole bunch of like Midwestern Rust Belt states and [got in] the teens. *
But the difference with Trump is that [Trump] ran as a Republican because he sensed actually the voters within this party are ripe for overthrowing the establishment of the party.
Damon and I also talked about how “left versus right” doesn’t really describe our modern politics accurately, how Trump is a “world-historic genius” when it comes to political instincts, what you should do if you don’t like either party, why we are still a center-right country and how people still underestimate how much social media sits at the center of the Trump phenomenon.
You can listen/watch/read my whole chat with Damon above. And PLEASE consider subscribing to his newsletter!
**This post is FREE. But practicing actual independent journalism isn’t free! Please consider becoming a paid subscriber to “So What” today. You can read more about what you get from a subscription — and what you are supporting — **here.
Subscribe now