Reading Through Trump 2.0 in 2025. 

Those who are semi-regulars here will be aware that one of my major reading themes (or ‘steams’ as I’ve labelled them) is the attempt to understand the weirdness that is the USA. I have entitled this USA: WTF which seems more than appropriate. With the most recent political ‘events’ over there – most especially the re-election of Trump despite knowing what he did last time, knowing what he is capable of and knowing what he had planned. So, as a ‘side quest’ or maybe a tributary to my original knowledge stream, I’ll going to be exploring why such a thing could happen there and just why so many people still support it. Here’s what I read about that in 2025 (a few books were reviewed in 2024 but after the election results had been announced so I’m going to count them). 

Our Own Worst Enemy – The Assault From Within on Modern Democracy by Tom Nichols 

The American Revolution – A Very Short Introduction by Robert J Allison 

Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell 

Surveillance – A Very Short Introduction by David Lyon 

The Shortest History of Democracy by John Kean 

How Civil Wars Start and How to Stop Them by Barbara F Walter 

The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine – A History of Settler Colonial Conquest and Resistance by Rashid Khalidi 

How the Right Lost Its Mind by Charles J Sykes 

1923 – The Crisis that Led to Hitler’s Coup by Mark Jones 

Whilst somewhat ‘unfocused’ at this point I don’t think this was a terrible start. I’m hoping/expecting my reading within this ‘side-quest’ to be a little more on point once I’ve finished with my present 20th century history read. With luck I’ll even start to clue into just WTF is going on over there!