Presidents & Prime Ministers

Read History. A blog by a local councillor and graduate. 🇬🇧 🇺🇸

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Welcome;

A blog about politics and history. Mostly focused on presidents and prime ministers. Read books I recommend here. All Bookshop links are affiliate links:)

Currently reading:

- Peril, Bob Woodward & Robert Costa

- The Plot Against America, Philip Roth

- Hillbilly Elegy, JD Vance

- Chasing the Flame, Samantha Power

Good research resources:

@deadpresidents - an amazing Tumblr by a dedicated and knowledgeable historian.

https://www.museumofpm.org - a new but detailed site setup by one of the leading historians of UK PMs.

https://millercenter.org - a fantastic resource for presidential history.

https://www.oxfordreference.com - Fantastic all round, but need a UK library card to access.

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Pres. Trump honours golfer Tiger Woods at a Black History Month reception.

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The UK economy has never really recovered from the 2007/8 recession and economic crisis. That is the root of the stagnation of the last decade and a half that has resulted in Brexit, Boris and Reform UK.

[polish-lolita]

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PM Starmer hosts a press conference with schoolchildren.

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Nigel Farage, leader of Reform UK, has begun advocating for a return to 'Judeo-Christian' values, as he's called it.

Nigel Farage speaking on stage.

This is an echo of a common American-right talking point, focusing on the alleged decline of civilisation, and the need to save it from modern values. This usually manifests as attacking LGBTQ+ rights.

He's also hit out against the declining birth rate in the UK, taking aim at a lack of 'optimism', and the state disincentivising young people.

He appeared alongside Professor Jordan Peterson, who said that the western world must return to "stable committed heterosexual child-centred monogamy".

Separately, Farage has disagreed with President Trump's accusation that Ukrainian President Zelenskyy is a 'dictator', although he said that there must be a timeline for elections in Ukraine. He uses the example of Britain holding elections in 1945, despite this being after the end of the war in Europe.

In current polling, Reform UK sits at 27%, above Labour at 25%, and the Conservatives on 21%. Britain next goes to the polls in May, for local elections.

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Pres. Biden speaks at a lectern with VP Harris behind him.

It already feels weird to think back to when this guy was in charge, and you didn't have to worry about what crazy things the president of the United States might say or do on any particular day.

The Biden era almost doesn't feel like the same reality, it was just so much more calm and grown-up and steady.

I said it when he left, and I'm saying it again now, America is going to miss Biden, and they're going to regret the election of Donald Trump to a second term.

Dark Brandon.

The 2024 election was extremely close. Don't let Trump and MAGA try and tell you it was a landslide. Trump won a plurality of the popular vote but he didn't win a majority of the country.

And they couldn't even take that they lost in that year, and tried to violently disrupt the certification of a free and fair election when they stormed the Capitol building on January 6th 2021.

Donald Trump has never won a majority in a presidential election, and even in 2024 he received less votes than Joe Biden did in 2020.

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The former president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, has been charged with plotting a coup to forcibly retain power after losing the 2022 presidential election to Lula da Silva.

The plot allegedly included a plan to poison Lula.

Bolsonaro had attempted to attend Donald Trump's inauguration in January, but was denied as authorities had seized his passport over the coup investigation.

Bolosnaro is known as the 'Trump of the tropics' after he ran on a very Trump-like, right-wing campaign in 2018 that succeeded primarily because Lula was deemed ineligible to run, late in the race.

And so Bolsonaro's eventual opponent, Fernando Haddad, joined the race very late, and was unable to maintain the support that Lula had had in the run-up to the ballot.

[saywhat-politics]

Blame Game

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President Donald Trump at the 'winter White House' Mar-a-Lago, Florida.

Today, President Trump has been signing executive orders and calling President Zelenskyy a dictator, whilst parroting Russian talking points about its invasion of Ukraine.

Trump is a convicted felon who won a slim majority in the 2024 presidential election, having lost to Joe Biden in 2020.

President Trump taking questions at Mar-a-Lago, Florida.

The US president has been busy asserting, completely without evidence, or sense, it seems, that Ukrainian President Zelenskyy is a "dictator" because he hasn't been able to hold an election during total war time (I wonder why).

Elections are not allowed under martial law, part of a statute enacted in 2015 following Russia's first invasion into Ukrainian territory.

[liberalsarecool]

Republicans are fracturing. Russia is the initial dividing line.

There will be Putin bootlickers and their will be reality-based geopolitical critics of First Felon.

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Fmr. VP Mike Pence is an honourable man. You can, and I do, strongly and completely disagree with his politics, especially his positions on LGBTQ+ rights. But his opposition to Trump's attempts to retain power in 2020-21, and his opposition to the more outlandish and dangerous parts of the 2024-25 iteration of Trump should be applauded.

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I believe there was a whole war about not having a king in America.

I thought he led the Republican party...?

As in, a republic? No king?

"Dictator for a day" Don strikes again.

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This is a bit away from what I usually talk about on this blog, but it's something exciting and new so I will mention it.

The first pharaoh's tomb has been found in Egypt since Tutankhamun's was discovered in the early 20th century.

Researchers have located the tomb of King Thutmose II, a member of the 18th Egyptian Dynasty.

Thutmose was the husband of the famed pharaoh, Queen Hatshepsut, one of the few female pharaohs.

Thutmose was actually an ancestor of Tutankhamen, creating a nice historical link between the two events which are over a century apart.

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I think it shouldn't need to be said, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is not a dictator.

He was elected in a free and fair election in 2019, winning over 70% of the vote in the second round runoff.

He and Ukraine did not start the war, it started when Russian forces invaded in 2022.

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There's something hilarious about Trump referring to himself in the third person, but in quotation marks, like he doesn't actually think he exists.

Unfortunately the content of "TRUMP"'s post is abysmal and dangerous for Ukraine and Europe, and makes the ridiculousness of the way he talks about himself quite a bit less entertaining.

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US President Donald Trump has blamed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for the Russian invasion of his country.

This is a massive change of US position on the war in Ukraine, which began when Russian forces invaded the country in February 2022. It also interestingly echoes Russian talking points about how Ukraine is responsible for the war, supposedly based on NATO expansion and corruption.

Trump has also suggested that Zelenskyy should hold new presidential elections and that his current term, extended by the war and necessary martial law, is no longer completely legitimate and that the people don't support him.

Zelenskyy has responded, pointing out that 58% of the Ukrainian people support his presidency.

The stark departure from President Joe Biden's resolute support of Zelenskyy and Ukraine is another part of the Trump revolution that is once again upending international norms and disrupting American leadership around the world, especially in Europe.

It comes off the back of US Vice President JD Vance denigrating Europe for supposedly restricting freedoms in his speech to the Munich Security Conference, which was expected to focus on the war in Ukraine but barely mentioned the conflict.

This series of events has accelerated European international communication and potential cooperation, with many European heads of government meeting in Paris for an emergency summit in the last few days.

French President Emmanuel Macron has been leading the talks and has been pushing for a more assertive and independent Europe since his first election in 2017.

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Prime Minister Starmer shaking hands with President Macron.

UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has announced that he would be willing to commit UK troops onto the ground in Ukraine, to leverage Europe's bargaining power in peace negotiations, and to maintain any deal that is struck to end the war.

The war began in 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine, and has continued because Russia has not stopped their invasion.

New US President Donald Trump has begun talks with Russia in Saudi Arabia, but neither Ukraine or European states have been invited to take part.