Philippa Kaur

In an episode of HBO’s Real Time in March 2023, comedian Bill Maher hit the nail on the head when describing the current debate over Donald Trump v Ron DeSantis for the Republican presidential nomination.

Conventional wisdom is that lots of voters want Trump’s policies without Trump – so Florida governor DeSantis, wrapped up in “more electable” packaging, might appeal to the Republican base.

However, Maher asked: “Why would [Republicans] want a tribute band when the actual band is still playing?” It’s a valid question – and one that deserves an answer.

Different on policy?

Policy-wise, there’s not much separating Trump and DeSantis. Domestically, both embrace tax cuts, conservative judges, and hardline immigration stances. On foreign policy, both are sceptical of US aid to Ukraine and want to give China a punch in the gut.

Trump leans more into his populist, anti-globalisation crusade, while DeSantis’s hallmark is his “anti-woke” stance. But in the end, both are right-leaning culture warriors who portray themselves as outside-the-Beltway antidotes to Washington’s “swamp culture”.

Still, Trump and DeSantis aren’t clones. Here’s what most distinguishes the tribute band from the original.

Trump’s personal flair

Love or hate Trump, he’s got flair. Charisma may be too strong a word, but the reality is that he can fill a room – or a stadium – and knows just how to flatter his base. There’s a reason his cultish fans once rolled out a golden statue of him at a flagship conservative conference.

DeSantis is a chest-thumper, but in a lower-key way than Trump. His speeches tend to be briefer, more pointed, and less rambling. DeSantis sticks to the script, is less inclined to hurl insults, and is arguably more stilted on the stump.

A clear separator between Trump and DeSantis is the capacity for shock value. DeSantis can play dirty, but he hasn’t (yet) shown Trump’s penchant for pathological lying and overtly racist and misogynistic remarks. Even if he traffics in dog whistles, he’s less likely to “say the quiet parts out loud”.

DeSantis speaks about his position on the Ukraine war.

Trump and DeSantis share similar policy platforms, but there’s no mind meld. Trump is a former Democrat. He’s less ideological, more pragmatic, and seemingly more comfortable “owning the libs” than discussing the intricacies of economic or healthcare policy.

Read more:
Why the 2024 election cycle could result in more threats to US democracy

DeSantis, by contrast, is a “true believer”. In line with his Ivy League pedigree, he’s a wonk who can go 15 rounds talking policy minutiae if needed. Whether it’s ranting about the inner workings of critical race theory or drafting a “Don’t Say Gay” bill, DeSantis can get down into the weeds.

Despite – or maybe because of – his notoriously loyal base, Trump isn’t afraid to break from the right-wing straightjacket. On COVID-19, for example, Trump endured boos after praising the vaccine. DeSantis, meanwhile, towed the party line (as per usual) and earned plaudits for insisting that his home state of Florida was “open for business”.

Respect (or lack thereof) for democracy

Trump won’t back down from the “big lie”, maintaining that he won the 2020 election. Which brings us to a big delusion: that DeSantis poses just as much a threat to American democracy as Trump.

DeSantis may be “Trump lite”. But he’s done nothing to suggest that if he lost an election, he’d spend months denying it, call on a secretary of state to “find votes”, then whip up a crowd of bloodthirsty rioters to storm the US Capitol.

On foreign policy, DeSantis also seems less likely to cozy up to dictators. Whereas Trump regularly extolled autocrats like Vladimir Putin, DeSantis lacks the same wannabe authoritarian impulse. Still, DeSantis’s recent euphemism – calling Russia’s war in Ukraine a mere “territorial dispute” – didn’t exactly inspire confidence that he’d aggressively promote democracy abroad.

The biggest divider between Trump and DeSantis is also the most obvious: Trump was president before. He’s tested on a national stage, a known quantity, and voters realise what they’re getting when they pull the Trump lever.

At the same time, he is also a proven loser. Trump has never won the popular vote, lost in 2020, and some of his endorsed candidates fared poorly in the 2022 midterms.

DeSantis is now a household name, but it’s unclear how he’ll respond under the bright lights. Plenty of Republican favourites in the past – including fellow Floridian Jeb Bush – have wilted under the pressure. DeSantis doesn’t look like a flash in the pan, but he still needs to prove himself in prime time.

Battle of the bands

Even though DeSantis is likely not to officially declare as a candidate until May, and other candidates have already announced a run, “Don v Ron” dominates Republican chatter right now, and for good reason. Trump’s stranglehold over the GOP and DeSantis’s rising stardom make for a captivating battle. Yet, for now at least, it’s important to remember the race isn’t a one-on-one matchup. And it’s a long way to the first primary in February 2024.

Trump’s level of support all but guarantees him 30-40% of the party’s vote. If other Republican hopefuls split the never-Trump ballot, that gives Trump a huge edge, especially in early, winner-takes-all primary states.

This doesn’t mean 2024 is settled, far from it. The final nomination has to be decided by July that year, so there’s plenty of time for things to change. DeSantis is the new darling of Fox News, and his “soft launch” campaign has already earned plenty of major donations. But if he wants a clean shot at Trump, Republicans will need to consolidate around him, and early.

Whether the tribute band can upstage the original is still to be determined. But if Trump strums his greatest hits – from Deep State Conspiracy Blues to Waitin’ on a Witch Hunt – don’t be surprised if he’s the one belting out the encore. More

John F. Kennedy, whose ancestors left Ireland during the potato famine of the mid-19th century, was famously the first United States president of Catholic Irish descent.

When Americans narrowly elected Kennedy in 1960, anti-Catholic bias was still part of the mainstream culture.

I am a scholar of Irish literature and the author of “Race, Politics, and Irish America: A Gothic History,” a new book that describes how the Irish were long excluded in America.

So when Kennedy accepted shamrocks from the Irish ambassador to the U.S. on his first St. Patrick’s Day in the White House in 1961, it signaled the social and political arrival of the Irish American elite. It also was a pivotal moment, marking Irish Americans’ fulfilled dream of full assimilation into the U.S.

The dream soured when Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas in November 1963. That tragedy – and the many others that followed for the Kennedy family – began to be told by others in the Gothic story tradition, which hinges on nightmarish scenarios and the abuse of power.

This kind of storytelling has shown to be a suitable match for the different narratives of the Kennedys as both innocent victims and wicked schemers.

The phrase “the luck of the Irish” is often used of Irish America, especially on St. Patrick’s Day, observed on March 17. Since it typically refers to good luck, however, it cannot be used of Irish America’s best-known dynasty.

This phrase has various proposed origins, including the success Irish gold miners had in the U.S. in the 1800s.

Irish America’s best-known dynasty might not be described as lucky, but rather as Gothic.

President John F. Kennedy accepts shamrocks from the Ambassador of Ireland, Thomas J. Kiernan, in 1961.
Cecil Stoughton. White House Photographs. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston

The Kennedys and Gothic

Since its 18th-century beginnings in literature, Gothic storytelling uses a sinister atmosphere of conspiracy and the supernatural. It also generally features an all-powerful Catholic patriarch.

Many other elements repeat over centuries in different classic Gothic works, like “Dracula,” for example. This can include a secret or curse linked to a corrupt bloodline, endangered beautiful women and disrupted inheritance or murdered heirs.

For both sides of America’s political divide, the Kennedys fit the ready-made mold of Gothic, though in different ways.

After JFK’s assassination, liberals and Democrats who had approved of his administration’s progressive policies believed that the idealistic Kennedys were the blameless targets of dark conspiracies.

These conspiracies included persistent questions about who or what was behind JFK’s assassination, even though a former Marine, Lee Harvey Oswald, was arrested in 1963 and charged in the president’s death. Oswald himself was killed before he could stand trial, feeding the conspiracy theories.

However, for conservatives and Catholic Irish Americans leaving traditional Democratic Party loyalty behind, the family known as “America’s royals” represented the corruption of the elite.

Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy’s official portrait, painted in 1970, is similar to some classic portrayals of women in Gothic literature.
White House Collection/White House Historical Association

The Gothic patriarch, Joe Kennedy Sr.

In traditional Gothic fiction, the usual source of such immorality is the all-powerful Catholic elder.

In the Kennedy narrative, that role of Catholic elder is played by the president’s father, Joe Kennedy Sr. He was a wealthy investor and politician. Kennedy family biographers have recorded rumors of shady dealings in his numerous business interests.

In addition, the Kennedy patriarch’s very Gothic ambitions to hereditary rule were repeatedly disrupted.

Joe Sr. strategized to help launch JFK’s political rise only after the first-born he had planned to make president, Joseph Jr., was shot down and killed in action during World War II.

Jackie Kennedy

The Kennedy Gothic narrative also enfolds people who marry into the family.

Joe Sr.‘s daughter-in-law, Jacqueline Kennedy, was filmed clambering over the back of the presidential open-top limousine in a bloodied suit immediately after her husband was shot while being driven in a motorcade. In that moment, she became Gothic’s classic endangered, beautiful woman.

Strikingly, Jackie Kennedy’s eerie official portrait resembles the fleeing woman in a flowing white gown of Gothic paperback cover tradition.

Right after her husband’s assassination, Jackie Kennedy talked about how the Dallas mayor’s wife had given her blood-red roses earlier that day – which she implied was a bad omen of the forthcoming assassination, given the flowers’ color.

In the same interview, Jacqueline used the phrase “Camelot” to refer to the idealism of her husband’s administration.

However, many biographies and media stories in the years that followed painted the picture of a morally complex Kennedy family.

Former First Lady Jackie Kennedy receives red roses shortly before JFK’s assassination in Dallas, Texas.
Cecil Stoughton. White House Photographs. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston

The Kennedy curse

Some Kennedy men’s sexually promiscuous or otherwise “liberal” behavior with women, for example, got as much press as their liberal politics.

In 1969, a year after Robert Kennedy was assassinated during his presidential run, his brother Ted drove off a bridge in Massachusetts. Ted Kennedy was yet another son of Joe Sr. with ambitions to one day become president.

His 29-year-old passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, drowned after Kennedy left her in the water. He did not report the accident for 10 hours. Ted pleaded guilty in 1969 to a charge of leaving the scene of an accident and later received a two-month suspended jail sentence.

A 1965 mosaic in Galway Cathedral memorializes John F. Kennedy’s visit there in June 1963.
Peter Moore/Author provided, Author provided (no reuse)

Ted later spoke about “some awful curse” playing a role in Kopechne’s death. Ted’s naming of the very Gothic idea of a family curse caught on and became popular lore.

Many observers have subsequently described the family’s tragedies as the result of a curse, especially the 1999 death in an airplane crash of John Jr., JFK’s son and possible political heir.

When the numerous premature deaths of Kennedy family members are tallied, they do appear to be statistically unlikely. But whether the family’s tragedies are the result of mere bad luck or a Gothic family curse remains a matter of open interpretation. More

President Joe Biden will convene world leaders beginning on March 29, 2023, to discuss the state of democracies around the world.

The Summit for Democracy, a virtual event being co-hosted by the White House, is being touted as an opportunity to “reflect, listen and learn” with the aim of encouraging “democratic renewal.”

As political scientists, we have been doing something very similar. In the fall of 2022 we listened to thousands of U.S. residents about their views on the state of American democracy. What we found was that, despite widespread fears over the future of democracy, many people are also hopeful, and that hope translated into “voting for democracy” by shunning election result deniers at the polls.

Our study – and indeed Biden’s stated push for democracy – comes at a unique point in American political history.

As a group, we have decades of experience studying politics and believe that not since the American Civil War has there been so much concern that American democracy, while always a work in progress, is under threat. Survey trends point to eroding trust in democratic institutions. And in addition to serving as a direct reminder of our political system’s fragility, the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol provoked concern of the potential of democratic backsliding in the U.S.

Fears of a failing democracy

The 2022 midterms were the first nationwide ballot to take place after the Jan. 6 attack. The vote provided a good opportunity to check in with potential U.S. voters over how they viewed the risks to democracy.

As such, in the fall of 2022, the African American Research Collaborative – of which one of us is a member – worked with a team of partners to create the Midterm Election Voter Poll. In an online and phone survey, we asked more than 12,000 U.S. voters from a variety of backgrounds a series of questions about voting intention and trust in national politics. Respondents were also quizzed over their concern about the state of American democracy.

On a five-point scale ranging from “very” to “not at all,” the survey asked how worried respondents were that: “The political system in the United States is failing and there is a decent chance that we will no longer have a functioning democracy within the next 10 years.”

Roughly 6 in 10 Americans expressed fear that democracy is in peril, with 35% saying they were “very worried.”

Broken down by race and ethnicity, white Americans were the most concerned, with 64% expressing some worry that democracy is in peril. Black and Latino Americans were slightly less concerned. Asian Americans appeared the least worried, with 55% expressing concern.

Of the 63% of respondents who registered concern, more than half said they were “very worried” that democracy is in trouble and that it may soon come to an end.

Such fragility-of-democracy concerns can have a self-perpetuating effect; voters’ increasing lack of faith in their system can hasten the collapse in government they fear.

For example, negative attitudes about democracy can also destabilize voting habits – prompting some to skip elections altogether while motivating others to swing back and forth between candidates and political parties from one election to another. This pattern of voting can, in turn, lead to gridlock in government or worse: the election of cynical politicians who are less able – or even willing – to govern. It is a process that former Democratic Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts described in 2015 as the “self-fulfilling prophesy of ‘government doesn’t work.’”

Turning hope into action

But the story that emerged from our survey isn’t all doom and gloom.

In addition to confirming how endangered Americans believe their democracy is, citizens appear hopeful that their political system can recover. When given the prompt: “Overall, as you vote in November 2022, are you mostly feeling …,” more than 40% of the respondents – regardless of race or ethnicity – said they felt “hopeful.”

Indeed, “hope” was by far the most common feeling out of the four emotions that respondents were able to choose from. “Worry” was the second most typical emotion, with 31% of the total sample selecting it, followed by “pride” and “anger.”

Rather than resigning themselves to a lost democracy, the results indicate that voters from a broad array of demographic and political backgrounds feel hopeful that American democracy can overcome the challenges facing the nation.

Black Americans were among the most hopeful (49%), second only to Asian Americans (55%), while white Americans were the most worried (33%). These racial and ethnic differences are consistent with recent research on how emotions can shape politics.

The results also make sense in the context of the trajectory of race relations in the U.S. Black people have borne the brunt of what happens when authoritarian forces in this country have prevailed. They have suffered firsthand from anti-democratic actions being used against them, depriving them of the right to vote, for example. Throughout U.S. history, stories of racial progress often reveal a struggle to reconcile feelings of hope and worry – particularly when thinking about what America is versus what the nation ought to be.

Such hope in democracy has turned into action. Efforts to counter GOP-led attempts to suppress votes are encouraging signs of citizens combating anti-democratic measures, while punishing parties deemed to be pushing them.

Take the example of Georgia, which has “flipped from Republican to Democrat” in large part because of voting rights activist and Democratic politician Stacey Abrams’ tireless mobilization efforts. In the midterm election, GOP Senate candidate Herschel Walker underperformed among Black voters, winning less of the Black vote than GOP candidates in other states.

The breaking of the Republican stronghold in Georgia fits with a broader theme of Black voters casting ballots to “save democracy,” as scholars writing for the Brookings Institution think tank put it. In rejecting anti-democratic measures – and representatives of the party held responsible – in Georgia, “Black people were the solution for an authentic democracy.”

Black women deserve the most credit here, consistently voting for pro-democracy candidates. Not surprisingly, when broken down by race and gender, our survey shows that Black women are most hopeful (56%), some way ahead of white men (43%), with Black men and white women both at 42%.

A democracy, to keep for good.

Democracy has long been a cherished ideal in the U.S. – but one that from the country’s founding was perceived to be fragile.

When asked what sort of political system the Founding Fathers had agreed upon during the Constitutional Convention of 1787, Benjamin Franklin famously replied: “A republic, if you can keep it.”

While acknowledging that the success of our government isn’t promised, Franklin’s words serve as a reminder that citizens must work relentlessly to maintain and protect what the Constitution provides. What we’ve discovered, both from our survey and from how people voted, is that Americans are sending a clear message that they support democracy, and will fight anti-democratic measures – something that politicians of all parties might benefit from listening to if we want to keep our republic. More

Speculation over US President Joe Biden’s intention to run for office again is reaching fever pitch. Biden is, reportedly, on the verge of announcing he will indeed seek reelection. Opinion pieces are being churned out at a rapid clip. Polls are being commissioned with a feverish intensity.

Much of the focus is on one apparently simple question: is the 80-year-old Biden too old to run for reelection in 2024? He would be 82 at the start of a second term, and 86 by the time he left office.

Nikki Haley, the former UN ambassador and South Carolina governor, sought to fire up the Republican Party’s base after announcing her presidential campaign earlier this month, making the not-so-subtle proposal that politicians aged over 75 submit to mandatory cognitive testing.

The president’s age is, clearly, a matter of concern. But the intensity of the questioning over this issue is striking. It would be easy to believe this is the most pressing question for American politics right now.

Meanwhile, only last week, the dangerously influential Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor-Greene tweeted the United States needed a “national divorce” between red and blue states.

Just over two years ago, Donald Trump, the former president, incited an insurrection that very nearly succeeded. Today, his followers are openly invoking the spectre of secession.

Is Biden’s age really the dominant question?

The relentless focus on Biden’s age is indicative of an uncomfortable reality. The vast bulk of the American media establishment is incapable of grasping the true significance and dangers of the current political moment.

As Biden contemplates a re-election campaign, he is grappling with a potentially catastrophic breakdown in democracy facilitated by a group of fanatical and influential Republicans that explicitly believe in minority authoritarian government based on racist disenfranchisement.

At the same time, the United States is experiencing an uneven social, economic and environmental fracturing caused by decades of destructive deregulation. The country now appears grounded in policy inertia from an increasingly gridlocked Congress.

And internationally, Biden inherited the legacy of a failed imperial project in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, which the policy establishment in the US remains unable and unwilling to think beyond.

Some observers have described this as a state of “polycrisis”, a series of disparate but interacting systemic shocks that are upending assumptions and challenging old certainties.

The most pertinent question is not Biden’s age. It is whether Biden is capable of negotiating the extraordinary ruptures in American politics. And if he is not, who is?

Biden’s place in history

In his first term, Biden has demonstrated his grasp of the pressing needs of the moment. And he has quietly established himself to be the most consequential president of our times.

The office of the US presidency personalises power to such an extent that it is often presumed it is presidents and their individual traits (such as age) that determine the course of events. But the truth is, whatever power a president has at their disposal, they remain constrained by the circumstances inherited from their predecessor and current economic and political realities. Presidencies will forever be bound by events beyond their control.

Fundamentally, what defines a presidential tenure is not the particular personality or priorities of a president, but whether they rise to the needs of the moment.

In another era, Abraham Lincoln may have been too colloquial or cerebral for national office (he was a paradoxical man). Outside the specific circumstances of the Great Depression and the second world war, Franklin Roosevelt’s patrician air may have grated too harshly on the electorate to claim a place in history. Jimmy Carter could have been lauded for his moral presidency across two terms.

The current state of the American republic means that what this president does, and what he is able to achieve, is quite simply more consequential than any other post-war president.

Viewed against the broad sweep of American history, Biden’s self-appointed task is not to win reelection. It is not to win partisan points against his opponents. In a strict sense, it is not even to accumulate a record of legislative accomplishment.

The task he has been set by this moment is the rescue and repair of American democracy.

Read more:
Biden’s first 100 days show a president in a hurry and willing to be bold

Biden demonstrates an awareness of this position that is rare among presidents. He has already expended considerable effort in consulting with leading historians to place his administration in the context of American history – particularly his efforts to enact large-scale reform amid crisis.

The effect of this is evident in his administration’s legislative record. Through the climate-focused Inflation Reduction Act (the largest piece of climate spending in US history), to protecting marriage equality and providing student debt relief, the Biden administration has sought to make meaningful reform without risking further instability.

Whether he succeeds in this approach – and that remains an open question – Biden is already presiding over tectonic shifts in American history. And he is all too aware of the consequences of failure.

It is within this context that Biden must determine if he will run.

President Joe Biden delivers an update on the student debt relief portal beta test.
Bonnie Cash/Pool/EPA

A reminder of better times

There is a simple and uncomfortable reality for Democrats: no one else has as effectively demonstrated their awareness of the needs of the moment as Biden – and they are unlikely to get the chance to do so in the immediate term.

Biden has a singular capacity to communicate the seriousness of the threat to US democracy to swathes of the American public that might otherwise be disengaged or feel disenfranchised. And he does it from behind the presidential seal.

Biden may be returning lacklustre opinion poll results, but the one time the resonance of his message was put to the test was at the midterm elections. Then, Biden demonstrated a grasp of the national mood that most pundits and political professionals missed. It turns out many Americans continue to care deeply about the state of their democracy and the maintenance of institutional protections for basic rights.

Read more:
Midterm election results reflect the hodgepodge of US voters, not the endorsement or repudiation of a candidate’s or party’s agenda

Biden can seem like a relic from a different age. He ambles, and he is visibly frailer than he used to be. He reminisces a lot about the good old days. He is easy to dismiss.

But he also represents something more. He represents tradition, a form of politics that is not trapped in constant, partisan trench warfare on every issue. He reminds people of a time when things got done. From a distance, we can dismiss this as misguided nostalgia. But there is nothing nostalgic in millions of Americans wishing for a government that actually governs.

Biden may be from a different time. But against the odds, the president may have found his moment. More