Obviously I’m ‘against’ Trump as a European, an ‘intellectual’, a liberal and a socialist. But it’s my identity as a historian that raises my hackles against him most.

Trump obviously values history (as he understands it) as a means of inculcating patriotism. I on the other hand – patriotic as believe I am, in my own way – hold strongly that this is to prostitute the discipline for what are usually misleading and could be nefarious ends. This piece by David Reynolds in today’s Guardian puts the case against Trump qua historian well: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jun/14/trump-obsessed-us-history-but-learned-wrong-lessons.

But is there any point in labouring this? Americans never seem to listen to us historians; as nor do most of us Brits. It’s ‘people’, more generally, who are at fault.

Anyway, I hope he enjoyed his little boy’s parade yesterday.