American Carnage - An Introduction
A new Substack explaining Election 2024 through the history of US polarisation
My Road to 2024
I’m 15 years old, sitting in the front seat of my mum’s (yep, US readers, I’m across the pond) car as she drives us to school, and my two younger brothers are once again squabbling. Normally, that’s fine - their morning fights are my daily soundtrack - but today I’m irked by their incessant din.
On the radio, the newscaster - a local reporter for Clyde 1 FM, a Glasgow, Scotland based radio station - is spending yet another day informing us about the ongoing drama across the Atlantic, where, weeks after Election Day, the 2000 Presidential Election still does not have a winner.
I don’t even know who George Bush or Al Gore are, let alone their political positions. The only American politics of which I’ve been vaguely aware in my short life is Bill Clinton apologising for cheating on his wife with an intern. But I’m hooked to the story.
We often don’t choose the things that grab our interest, they choose us.
Fast forward four years, and I’m in my first serious girlfriend’s house. She’s long since retired to bed. Me? I’m up glued to BBC News election coverage as Bush sneaks home in Ohio, and wins re-election. I go to bed at 5am, and amazingly don’t get dumped in the morning.
(On a side note, I’ll never forget the Daily Mirror’s front page the following day - below)
In 2008, I’m up all night with a buddy and a few beers to see the US elect its first Black president. Come January, I sprint out of my History seminar to the nearest pub, which is showing Barack Obama’s inauguration speech (I don’t recall a word he said, but I do remember being convinced he’d be shot).
And, in 2012…..well, by now you’ve got the gist of it. I’m a huge US elections nerd. For reasons I cannot fathom.
Expressions as mundane as ‘Campaign trail’ get my blood pumping, while I can’t remember the last US Election Day in which I haven’t awoken at 4am in excited anticipation (despite the fact that the UK is 5 hours ahead of EST and it will therefore be a whole 24 hours until results start trickling in).
Perhaps I like the razzmatazz, ‘the greatest show on Earth’ as I believe David Axelrod described it.
But there’s something deeper, American presidential elections always feel momentous - a battle for the free world’s soul. Perhaps that’s increasingly part of the problem, they’ve come to mean too much and part of a larger war that never stops (more on that in future posts).
I’m also a historian, a Lecturer in 20th Century US History at Lancaster University, UK. I teach a course on US polarisation (1945-present) and a module on the Vietnam War. I’ve written a book on the Republican party and co-edited a book on midterm elections.
I love my job. I love American History and its rich vault of tumultuous events and fascinating personalities.
Unlike us reserved Brits, Americans often say the quiet part out-loud. I love them for it.
This Substack has a clear mission: to provide an objective and entertaining account of US polarization to inform your understanding of the 2024 US election.
I want to write a Substack that 20-year old me - interested but largely clueless in American politics/history - would have loved to read.
I, of course, have my political views, but I have no interest in you knowing them - I pride myself on teaching in a way that means students cannot be 100% sure what I believe.
I plan to post frequently (I challenge myself to at least one per week) and on a range of topics, from specific events or people in US history, like Vietnam and Richard Nixon, to broad trends that have shaped US politics and life.
Deep breath, here we go…