The island of North Haven in the Penobscot Bay, Maine, is an eastern establishment, white-shoe summer-place overlain on a diesel swilling, bottom feeding lobster-industry that supports the year-round residents of this tiny, fractal-shored resort. It is washed by the Gulf Stream and reports the fastest rising ocean temperatures in the Western hemisphere, dramatic sea level rises and a devastated eco-system. Comprehensively cleared of its old-growth hardwood forests in the nineteenth century, its second growth pines are now attacked by bark beetles moving north under the duress of a warming climate…But some still say it is paradise. More

Mick Mulvaney staunchly defended President Trump after the shootings in Ohio and Texas, claiming he was horrified by the actions but had said nothing that could be construed as provoking them. Trump did come out strongly two days later against hate groups and “white supremacy,” a little late for many who contend these shootings demonstrate his inflammatory rhetoric was at least partially to blame for the incidents. Hopefully this will be a real change from his irresponsibly-quick tweets that often lead to reversals and clumsy apologies for misguided claims and send many of his supporters ducking for cover; or his history of hesitancy to condemn the actions of “far right” groups like those in Charlottesville. More

One of the occupational and intellectual hazards of being a historian is that current events often seem far less new to oneself than they do to others. Recently a leftish liberal friend told me that the United States under the Donald Trump had “become a lethal society.” My friend cited the neofascist Trump’s: horrible family separations and concentration camps on the border; openly white-nationalist assaults on four progressive nonwhite and female Congresswomen; real and threatened roundups of undocumented immigrants; fascist-style and hate-filled “Make America Great Again” rallies; encouragement of white supremacist terrorism; alliance with right-wing evangelical Christian fascists. More