Alexis Coe
@alexiscoe.bsky.social
Presidential historian. American History Columnist @NYTBR. Senior Fellow @NewAmerica. NYT bestselling author of (almost!) 3 books.
I hope Bernie Moreno gets voted out, but before you attack him for not speaking out sooner, read this: www.theatlantic.com/politics/202... /1
A Family Tragedy in the Age of Trump
Republicans have been slow to call for an Ohio congressman to end his reelection campaign.
theatlantic.com
Every Deep Throat needs a Watergate. Unfortunately hers was the bathroom at Port Authority.
Yes, but this precedent has precedent! Both parties have repeatedly declined to hold their own presidents and colleagues accountable. You can't have this Congress without all that came before it.
Maggy@maggyw.bsky.social · yesterdayYou put a criminal in charge and and complete maga Congress that is pledged to him no matter what this is what happens.
Fun fact: No American president has ever been impeached for money laundering, market manipulation, war crimes, or waging an illegal war. Financial crimes "scandals" and illegal wars are treated like "policy disputes" no matter what the body count.
Michelle@michelleroy78.bsky.social · yesterdayI’m old enough to remember when lying about adultery was worthy of impeachment. Feels quaint at this point.
Sleeping in a BYO tent is now "historical camping." For those not into reenactment, canvas tents that look an awful lot like the cabins at sleepaway camp is "camping"—and starts at $550 a night.
Monday, 8pm: I'll be doing a Substack Live with Steven Levingston, my very first big book review editor at the Washington Post! We'll talk about "Twilight of Camelot"--and that one time he commented on my draft review that "the punishment must fit the crime." open.substack.com/live-stream/...
LIVE SOON: Alexis Coe + Steve Levingston discuss his latest book, "Twilight of Camelot"
Starting Aug 3 at 8:00 PM EDT
open.substack.com
This weekend's edition is more for those who aren't terminally online: Mass-market history is thriving so scholars are fighting and the former president has a podcast. alexiscoe.substack.com/p/the-past-h...
The Past Has Entered Postproduction
History Cranks and Fiends,
alexiscoe.substack.com
Wilson’s incapacity was concealed, not normalized.
Eamonn O’Keeffe@1812andallthat.bsky.social · last wk.James Garfield and Woodrow Wilson?
Is Mitch McConnell in rigor tortoise or is “eternal leave” the correct term? Forgive me—I’m an American historian and keeping public officials in office through obvious incapacity and sometimes death from natural causes is a modern invention.
wouldn’t myth it for the world.
Jason Linkins@dceiver.bsky.social · 2w agofolks, you ODYSSEY this movie
Let's think of other words to describe big books. No more tomes, door-stoppers, bricks. Toe-breakers Thicc boys Tall coasters
A post for my sins. substack.com/home/post/p-...
Behind the TV Hit: Trump's WHCD Dinner Was a Press Conference With Table Service & Nativism
Last night, I spent over an hour on live television responding to Trump’s remarks at the rescheduled White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
substack.com
Alexis Coe@alexiscoe.bsky.social · 2w agoCaptain’s log: An hour in. Still circling the same grievance asteroid. Send supplies.
Captain’s log: An hour in. Still circling the same grievance asteroid. Send supplies.
Trump’s favorite historical voice is the exonerative passive. alexiscoe.substack.com/p/trumps-geo...
Trump’s George Washington is a Civic-Minded Enslaver
Unfortunately, there’s an update to the President's House saga.
alexiscoe.substack.com
Update: I talked to the Boston Globe about it. “We cannot distinguish sloppiness, recklessness, or intent without seeing the evidence,” says Alexis Coe...."Instead, the punishment is being used to prove the offense.” www.bostonglobe.com/2026/07/22/o...
Why won’t Tufts reveal its evidence on a discredited scholar? - The Boston Globe
The university is missing an opportunity for transparency about what happened with the historian Kerri Greenidge.
bostonglobe.com
Alexis Coe@alexiscoe.bsky.social · 3w agoI wrote about Kerri Greenidge because the vague-accusation-to-career-ending-punishment math isn’t mathing. Show us the work. substack.com/home/post/p-...
Trump’s favorite historical voice is the exonerative passive. alexiscoe.substack.com/p/trumps-geo...
Trump’s George Washington is a Civic-Minded Enslaver
Unfortunately, there’s an update to the President's House saga.
alexiscoe.substack.com
A proudly partisan public intellectual issues a warning in a proudly partisan publication: people no longer know whom to trust. 👩🍳😘
Congress, take away their car keys before they hurt...more people alexiscoe.substack.com/p/the-congre...
The Congressional Oath Does Not Include “Until Death Do Us Part”
Subscribe to ensure a steady stream of historical context arrives alongside the unrelenting Congressional performance of privilege—outrage for the cameras, coverage for life.
alexiscoe.substack.com
I went on The Guardian’s “Politics Weekly America” to trace the republic’s 250-year path from relatively young founders to seniormaxxing. www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBGf...
Are American politicians too old?
YouTube video by Politics Weekly
youtube.com
Latest Politics Weekly America asks if the US has become a gerontocracy -- with presidential historian @alexiscoe.bsky.social open.spotify.com/episode/7D7F...
Are American politicians getting too old?
Politics Weekly America · Episode
open.spotify.com
Alexis Coe points out that the story also...makes no sense. substack.com/home/post/p-...
The Scandal and the Scale
I was bleary-eyed on a delayed flight when I spotted a New York Times article about Kerri Greenidge, a historian of Black political life and memory.
substack.com
Hester Blum is forever getting that unaccountable cone and I'm so jealous
Hester Blum@hesterblum.bsky.social · 3w agoI wish I could tell you that I have consumed any other culture/thought about anything else in six months but I haven’t, and here’s a little bit about why. Thanks to @publicbooks.bsky.social and anyone who has allowed me to talk at them about HR and MD: www.publicbooks.org/heated-rival...
people point out that mainstream media has strong norms and incentives to punch left in the current moment; TNR is demonstrating that more progressive or left wing outlets can have similar problems. 1
Alexis Coe@alexiscoe.bsky.social · 3w agoI was on a post–America 250 break, so I’m only now catching up on absurd articles about historians. I've already spent today's newletter energy on Greenidge but I'll give this banger the Twitter treatment below. newrepublic.com/article/2117...
If the consequence is public and career-ending, the evidentiary basis should be publicly intelligible. "Trust us" is not a scholarly method.
Karen Franklin, PhD@karenfranklin.bsky.social · 3w agoThe frustratingly vague NYT piece "leaves the reader to assemble the crime scene from fragments, then declines to investigate the most damning ones." Curious, indeed.
Tho they didn't really suit me, I do miss short hair and twitter
My Password is Louvre@bmceuen.bsky.social · 3w ago
![Alexis Coe
5d
Update. In Glenn's review, she describes Nancy Weston as Henry Grimké’s “longtime partner,” which is some real magnolias under the moonlight bullshit:
He did not partner with her. He owned her. He kept her, and the three children she had as a result of their "longtime partner[ship]," enslaved during his lifetime.
In his will, he referred to Nancy and her “present and future issue and increase”—the language of property breeding—when he GAVE her to his white son.
The record tells us what Weston could not do: refuse him, leave him, or protect her children or herself from a transfer or sale.
This doesn't settle Glenn’s other criticisms. But it does mean this supposedly devastating exercise in historiographical precision is itself laundering an enslaver’s sexual access to a woman he owned.
The review is not descending from some antiseptic chamber above interpretation, ffs.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:noha2e74cfelnxozqpuo7orp/bafkreiccvyq75wotyaqlxrgfecjpv5qwstvfjeorko7nc2qg6qhwlm2bye)
