Voices: the writers, the warnings and the videos
People who saw this coming and said so on the record, and the people documenting it now. Newsletters first because they are free to read and hard to cancel; then the articles that still hold up; then video. Inclusion here means I read or watch them, not that I agree with everything they say.
Newsletters worth your inbox
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Letters from an American
Heather Cox Richardson, historian
A nightly letter putting the day's news in historical context; the most-read political newsletter in the country.
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Thinking about...
Timothy Snyder, historian of fascism
Author of On Tyranny. His 20 lessons, read by John Lithgow, are the fastest primer on how democracies die.
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Anne Applebaum at The Atlantic
Anne Applebaum, Pulitzer winner
Autocracy, Inc. explains how strongmen help each other get rich and stay in power.
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Civil Discourse
Joyce Vance, former US Attorney
The clearest plain-English explainer of the court cases, written the night they happen.
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The Warning
Steve Schmidt, former Republican strategist
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Robert Reich
Robert Reich, former Labor Secretary
Economics and oligarchy, with short videos from Inequality Media.
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Lucid
Ruth Ben-Ghiat, historian of authoritarianism
Author of Strongmen; tracks the playbook as it is used.
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The Bulwark
Tim Miller, Sarah Longwell, Bill Kristol and the never-Trump right
Conservatives who left. Daily podcast and video.
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Zeteo
Mehdi Hasan
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The Contrarian
Jennifer Rubin and Norm Eisen
Founded by writers who left the Washington Post after its owner changed the opinion pages.
The warnings, on the record
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John Kelly: Trump 'falls into the general definition of fascist'
The New York Times, Oct. 22, 2024
Trump's longest-serving chief of staff, a retired Marine general, on tape.
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Mark Milley: 'fascist to the core,' 'the most dangerous person to this country'
Bob Woodward, War (2024), via CNN
The former chairman of the Joint Chiefs, appointed by Trump.
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James Mattis: 'the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people'
The Atlantic, June 3, 2020
Trump's first defense secretary, after troops were turned on protesters in Lafayette Square.
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A Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable. We should stop pretending.
Robert Kagan, The Washington Post, Nov. 30, 2023
The essay that moved the word 'dictatorship' into mainstream conversation a year before the election.
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If Trump Wins
The Atlantic, January/February 2024 issue
Twenty-four writers forecast a second term: NATO, the Justice Department, immigration, the press. Read it against this site's stories.
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Trump calls his opponents 'vermin,' echoing dictators Hitler and Mussolini
The Washington Post, Nov. 12, 2023
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On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century
Timothy Snyder, 2017
Lesson one: do not obey in advance.
Video
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The Daily Show
Jon Stewart
Monday nights. The Iran-war segments are the sharpest summaries of the war on television.
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The Lincoln Project
Attack ads made by former Republican ad-makers.
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