America’s history and culture wars have escalated at pace since Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025. And while the President’s second term has been marked by a rapid stream of executive orders and supporting remarks, articles, and statements affecting all aspects of life, it has demonstrated a particular interest in the nation’s cultural assets and has coalesced on the Smithsonian Institution. This article argues that Trump’s attention to the Smithsonian Institution has arisen because 2026 is the 250th anniversary of American independence. It presents archival evidence from the Smithsonian alongside contemporary analysis to demonstrate that the political playbook being utilized by President Trump has an extensive history. To make its point, the article offers a case study of The West as America, an exhibition that was shown in 1991 at the Smithsonian and generated such political controversy that it ended up being the subject of extensive questioning in Congress. The article aims to show the clear similarity between political and public responses to the 1991 exhibition—which was designed to commemorate a national anniversary but occurred in a period of heightened history wars—with conservative attempts to regulate culture in 2025, ahead of “America 250.” It exemplifies how important historical inquiry is in informing decisions and responses to processes of cultural production in the current era.

The 2016 election serves as an important case study in understanding how gendered political contexts can shape emotional reactions and engagement, particularly among women. Two important features of that election, Trump’s treatment of women and Clinton’s historic run for office, influenced emotional reactions to politics in distinct ways. We used two experimental designs in which participants were randomly assigned to read vignettes about Trump’s treatment of women or Clinton’s historic run for office. Reading about the former led to higher anger, especially among Democratic women and men, while reading about the latter increased enthusiasm among highly educated women. These elevated emotions increased intended future engagement. We conducted a third study in which we induced anger about Trump’s treatment of women and found that it led to greater intended engagement.

Michael Blake, Yuna Blajer de la Garza, and Alex Zakaras offer insightful critiques of several arguments central to my book Beyond the Law’s Reach? In the process, they raise large questions in political philosophy more generally, especially as it pertains to global affairs. Blake is skeptical about the distinction, driving much of the book, between consolidated liberal democracies and jurisdictions where the “shadow of violence” prevails. Blajer de la Garza worries that the international reparative duties that the book highlights may linger indefinitely, and, consequently, be exploited by cynical political actors. Finally, whereas Beyond the Law’s Reach? argues that liberal democracies’ collective integrity is affected by their entanglement in violence and corruption abroad, Zakaras doubts whether this collective moral problem carries over into the individual level, given individual citizens’ reasonable ignorance of policy details. I offer responses to each of these critiques in turn. I conclude by highlighting the picture of democratic civic responsibility that emerges from these responses.

Transitional justice (TJ) emerged during the consolidation of the liberal international order (the LIO). It was deemed to flow from, and contribute to, the emergence of democracy, human rights and the rule of law in post-authoritarian and post-conflict states. The LIO generated material and discursive support for processes of accountability, truth, repair and guarantees of non-repetition. The LIO is now widely perceived to be under significant threat with the rise of authoritarian states (most notably China and a revanchist Russia) and the erosion of liberal democratic values in the US and Europe. Some worry that TJ may have peaked and is doomed to decline in this more challenging ecology. This article is an attempt to show how the material and discursive environments of TJ have altered with the decline of the LIO and the rise of a multipolar world. In material terms, there are fewer democratic transitions that might facilitate the type of state-level rule of law or rights-promoting impact associated with accountability, truth or reparation processes, while liberal peacebuilding is now far less premised on democratisation and human rights that post-conflict TJ processes built upon. In a world where authoritarian rejections of human rights and the rule of law meet widespread support and where a chastened liberal West resiles from effectively exporting or supporting norms like TJ, there is also a lowering of the argumentative burden for those who want to outright defy, water down or find workarounds for TJ.

Individuals who particularly like or dislike a president or presidential candidate may, through a process of motivated reasoning, personally support or oppose the politician’s policy positions as a consequence. I examine the extent to which attitudes toward Donald Trump shaped public opinion on immigration policy, a case that appears to invite motivated reasoning. I estimate the influence of attitudes about Trump by comparing them directly to views of Barack Obama and trade policy using large reputable national surveys. I find a material, if limited, Trump effect. Trump polarized Americans on immigration considerably. However, the polarization was not along racial or ethnic lines. Moreover, any Trump effect on immigration appears not to have been as large as that he brought to bear on trade. Contrary to some recent work, such an effect also appears to have elevated immigration only marginally in the list of those deemed important.

The two economic superpowers operate increasingly outside WTO norms. China's reliance on non-market practices challenges the competitive equality among WTO members, while the US, under a second Trump administration, has unilaterally raised tariffs in defiance of multilateral rules. This essay examines how the rest of the world is de-risking from the two rogue superpowers while shoring up trade multilateralism. It identifies three interlinked strategies: (1) recalibration – reducing trade dependency through targeted trade remedies against China and narrow bilateral agreements with the US; (2) shielding – collective and unilateral responses to economic coercion of both superpowers; and (3) containment – preventing illegality from spreading to the rest of the world. Together, these modes of governance not only mitigate systemic spillovers from rule-breaking but also help rebalance global trade by addressing structural imbalances in Chinese overproduction and US overconsumption. In doing so, the rest of the world may lay the groundwork for a renewed and more resilient multilateral trading system.

This article presents a short selective history of contemporary collecting at the Smithsonian Institution. I explain what contemporary collecting is and show how contemporary collecting in the 1960s and 1970s produced histories of political reform movements and participatory democracy. I argue that many material records would not exist today if it had not been for a small group of committed curators who pioneered this practice in the absence of policy guardrails—and often despite a lack of institutional support. I present a brief overview of contemporary collecting methods and outcomes to argue that it is more important than ever for us to collect evidence of diverse political activity in our current moment—a moment in which cultural institutions, including the Smithsonian, are being attacked by executive orders issued by President Donald Trump, despite their long-standing reputation for maintaining truth and public trust in times of political change and contestation. The article concludes by suggesting how people can approach this work today.