Category Archives: Uncategorized

For the Globe and Mail, I wrote about Trump’s long-running birther crusade against President Obama: What Americans did not know is that this was arguably the moment Mr. Trump’s serious presidential ambitions began. When Mr. Trump announced his 2016 candidacy, he … Continue reading →

I have been writing and tweeting about Trump’s relationship with the US media for over a year. Now I have written a summary of the fiasco, appropriately published in a Canadian newspaper, where I can speak freely. An excerpt: Some have … Continue reading →

For twenty-five years, an invasion of Uzbekistan by Islamic terrorists has been predicted, and for twenty-five years, it has not happened. Instead, that fear has been used as a pretext for the state to clamp down on domestic dissent. For … Continue reading →

What is a Trump rally like without Donald Trump present? To find out, I drove to a Harley Davidson lot in Festus, Missouri, where the local branch of the Tea Party was holding their own rally without them. It was … Continue reading →

As I noted in an earlier post — which you should read if you’re interested in Uzbekistan — I have been studying Uzbekistan extensively for over a decade. Islam Karimov, its first and only president, has died. I will likely … Continue reading →

For the Globe and Mail, I wrote about Trump’s trip to Mexico and his horrifying immigration speech: The proposed Mexican wall is fantastical. It is as fantastical as the wall being built in Atlanta, a wall that guards nothing but … Continue reading →

For De Correspondent, I wrote on the white supremacist movement surrounding the Trump campaign, and the complicated history of “whiteness” in America. An excerpt on Polish-Americans: Here it is important to understand how, exactly, Americans ‘become white’. The history of … Continue reading →

I’ve been studying Uzbekistan for over a decade. As both an MA and a PhD student, I studied the country extensively, and was the first scholar to study Uzbek digital media in depth. Other areas of research are state and dissident politics, … Continue reading →

As Milwaukee burns and Baton Rouge floods, I wrote about the abandonment of the heartland for Quartz: They come for the chaos. They don’t stay for the banal brutality of the time in between, the slow erosion of opportunities that … Continue reading →

For Quartz, I looked over years of Russian-language coverage of Trump, which long preceded his campaign, and reflected on their relationship and their collaborative white supremacist bases: While some members of the US media have dismissed attempts to examine Trump’s … Continue reading →