In early July German historian Thomas Zimmer was invited to deliver a lecture to the Academy by the Sea, an adult education center on the island of Sylt in the North Sea. Zimmer, until earlier this year an affiliate professor at Georgetown University, describes feeling bad about forcing people on an education-vacation to think about Donald Trump; his presentation focused on American national identity and “who gets to be ‘We the People.’” As his presentation – full of stark assessments and doubts about any quick return to “normalcy” – wound down, one of the participants demanded more: “something people could do, something to carry us all forward.”

Zimmer, who confesses to normally avoiding such questions, characterizing himself as very much not a politician or an activist, was nonetheless moved on this occasion to “offer something more.”

The anti-democratic radicalization of the Right has not been fueled by a sense of strength, but by a pervasive sense of weakness. They are feeling their backs against the wall. And they are reacting to something real: Our “Western” societies have indeed become more pluralistic, less white, less overwhelmingly Christian. In that sense, it was not the perfectly stable liberal democracy that suddenly fell into crisis (because such an order had never existed), but white Christian patriarchal dominance – what the Right likes to call the “natural order” – that has been coming under pressure.

Almost exactly a year ago I wrote that, in part because it was a “challenge to choose a topic to focus on in the current information environment,” I would post a “checkpoint” article instead that looked at a variety of topics making headlines at the time, including: the stopgap funding bill, debate over a possible government shutdown, early signs of “uncertainty” about the Trump presidency among Republicans, and a discussion of effective protests.

A year later we’re in the midst of another shutdown – this one "partial" – and although some of the topics have changed or mutated, a "firehose" of factual and counterfactual stories continues to emanate from the administration, the Republican party, MAGA world, etc.

The story grabbing the most headlines at the moment is undoubtedly what Trump has labeled his “excursion” into Iran....