Mem Research
O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day. Thou through thy commandments hast made me wiser than mine enemies: for they are ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the ancients, because I keep thy precepts. . . Through thy precepts I get understanding: therefore I hate every false way.
Though I haven't written much about it here during its first decade, I have given a great deal of thought to Trumpism and even how it may relate to my earlier writings. I recently wrote papers for two college courses, and each of them come at the movement from a different angle.
Insurgency as a Conceptual Model for Right-wing Extremism in the Trump Era
(English 230, Technical Writing) argues that exceptionalist ideas get in the way of our perceptions and that we need to use the same analytical frameworks for US politics that we would for other countries rather than insisting that it can't happen here
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The Use of Information Operations to Weaken Military and Political Alliances in Advance of a Ground Invasion
(CISS 473, Information Warfare) somewhat decentralizes domestic politics as a cause of Trumpism and looks at it in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Compiled in 2001 and updated in 2019, this collection of essays explores how the black market economy may influence how presidents gain and lose power in America, from the Kennedy Asassination to Watergate and the Iran-Contra scandal.
Contributors include William Chambliss, past President of the American Society of Criminology; J. Orlin Grabbe, author of International Financial Markets and former professor in the Department of Finance at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania; and Peter Dale Scott, former Canadian foreign service officer.
Read it here.
I have been by turns much gratified and irritated to have seen this work's print edition cited by others in their publications. I have been pleased to see my efforts reach a wider audience, and irritated to see my words used to justify conclusions that in some cases I strongly disagree with. For better or worse, Without Smoking Gun (TrineDay, 2004) has become the preferred printed reference on the Pitzer case. The updated e-Book edition is in part a result of my wish to more decisively debunk the Pitzer urban legend and to atone for my earlier credulity regarding Lieutenant Colonel Dan Marvin.
Find the 2019 edition here and my 2015 essay reflecting on my journey as an author here.