How to read your way through the end of the world: A media guide to Trump’s second term

The news is infinite. Your cortisol levels are finite. As America's democratic experiment faces its next chaotic act, here's your field guide to processing political reality without losing your grip on it.

Written by
Ben Hart
Categories
How To
Reading time
13 min

Illustration by David Adrien

During the French Revolution, aristocrats would gather in salons to read pamphlets about their imminent doom. In the 1930s, Germans tuned into foreign radio broadcasts for news they couldn't get at home. At the height of Watergate, Americans organised their days around newspaper deliveries and the latest hearing broadcasts. Each moment of democratic crisis has demanded its own rituals of bearing witness.

As Trump returns to power, you may feel the instinct to look away—to delete the apps, mute the notifications, retreat into the comfortable obscurity of personal concerns. It's a reasonable response: our media landscape has never been more overwhelming, more fractured, more likely to induce vertigo in even the most seasoned follower of politics.

Yet this moment—with its explicit threat to democratic institutions and implicit challenge to shared reality—demands something more sophisticated than withdrawal. We find ourselves in an era of infinite streams but finite attention, of overwhelming input but limited capacity for processing it. The challenge isn't finding information about our political crisis—it's figuring out how to maintain intellectual clarity while consuming it.

What follows is a field guide to political consciousness in an era of information abundance: four distinct approaches to processing democratic decline without surrendering to either paralysis or denial. Whether you’re into granular analyses or historical parallels, irony-laden critiques or anthropological deep dives, each of the below media diets offers a curated selection of publications crafted to match your instincts and sharpen your focus.

[A brief note: Some of the recommendations that follow are paywalled. We support paying publications by whatever business model keeps their boat afloat—if we want quality journalism, someone has to pay for it!—but if you're looking for ways of sampling hard-to-access articles, here's a handy guide on doing just that. (You didn’t hear it from us.)]

1. The Doomscroller

Some find clarity by staring straight into the abyss. Where others seek historical context or ironic distance, the Doomscroller achieves calm through immersion in the crisis—treating maximal awareness as its own form of protection. They've transcended mere anxiety to reach a state of enlightened hypervigilance, converting their feed into a kind of early warning system for democratic collapse. It's a peculiar form of cognitive armour: every analysis read, every thread unfurled, every institutional report examined becomes another piece of evidence in an ever-expanding brief about how precarious our moment is. For the Doomscroller, understanding the mechanics of democratic decay can be a paradoxical source of comfort, as if naming the threat might somehow contain it.

The Doomscroller media diet:

The Rest is Politics

In their podcast The Rest is Politics, Alastair Campbell (Tony Blair's former communications director) and Rory Stewart (ex-Conservative minister) bring a rare insider perspective to American democratic decline. Their expertise in how democratic institutions actually function—gained through years inside British politics—allows them to decode Trump's authoritarian playbook with precision. Where American commentators sometimes get lost in partisan frameworks, Campbell and Stewart's outsider-insider position enables them to identify specific mechanisms of decay: how bureaucracies get captured, how institutions get hollowed out, how democratic norms erode in practice rather than theory. Their measured analysis makes American chaos comprehensible without minimising its dangers, transforming each episode into an entertaining lesson in comparative democratic decline.

The Intercept

Born from the Snowden leaks of 2013, The Intercept has evolved beyond its contentious origins into something more essential: democracy's early warning system. While mainstream outlets see scattered data points, The Intercept's investigative team maps the circuitry of institutional decay, tracking how surveillance expands, regulatory systems are manipulated and oversight mechanisms fail. Their aggressive model of watchdog journalism, backed by substantial investigative resources, has a way of unearthing stories months before they reach traditional media. As Trump returns to power, The Intercept’s deep ties to national security and regulatory circles give them an edge in spotting system failures before they spiral into crises. Centrists may question their progressive lens, but their meticulous documentation of how power operates in shadows has become required reading for anyone seeking to understand democracy's vulnerabilities—not just its dramas.

The New York Times

For better or worse, The Times has emerged not just as the ultimate doomscrolling destination, but as the ultimate news source full stop, employing one in every thirteen American journalists (up from one in a hundred just fifteen years ago). Its concentrated journalistic firepower means no outlet is better equipped to document democracy's stress test in granular detail. Their army of reporters ensures every institutional tremor is detected, every democratic norm violation is catalogued, every political crisis is examined from multiple angles. Reasonable people can quibble with their coverage of international affairs or wince at their op-eds. But their access and resources mean no one is closer to the chaos of American politics than the Gray Lady.

Since 2016, The Times has evolved beyond its ‘paper of record’ mandate into something more contemporary: a constantly updating diagnostic tool for America’s vital signs, delivered through an endless stream of push notifications. Their election needle—that anxiety-inducing visualisation of real-time electoral chances—might be the ultimate expression of political doomscrolling. In its place over the next four years, we'll have Maggie Haberman dissecting Trump’s every move, Jonathan Swan untangling Republican strategies, Astead Herndon decoding the electorate, and Michael Schmidt uncovering the next institutional fracture. In an era of shrinking newsrooms, only The Times maintains enough reporters to keep watch on every corner of the republic's unravelling.

The Atlantic

A magazine born from abolitionist impulse in 1857 now finds its purpose chronicling the vulnerability of American democracy. Under Jeffrey Goldberg's editorship, The Atlantic has evolved beyond traditional reporting into deep institutional analysis, evidenced by their early 2024 series ‘If Trump Wins’, a 24-article examination of what his return to power might mean. With over a million subscribers, they've achieved what seemed impossible just three years ago: profitability through serious long-form journalism in a digital age. Their particular power lies not in breaking news but in connecting developments to deeper currents in American life—see ‘Shadowland’, their beautifully crafted 2020 examination of mainstream conspiracism–combining rigorous reporting with the kind of historical and cultural analysis that helps readers locate themselves in political time.

The Economist

In a splintered media landscape, The Economist offers a distinctive vantage point on American democracy's vulnerabilities. The British magazine often transforms complex developments into crisp analysis, situating America's turmoil within historical patterns of institutional change. Through their characteristic blend of data visualisation and precise prose, they map how democratic erosion ripples through global systems—even if their solutions sometimes default to market orthodoxy (as a publication called The Economist is probably always bound to do). While US media grapples with daily developments, The Economist's geographical and philosophical distance provides a useful perspective on structural decline. Critics may note the paper’s tendency to view social challenges through an economic lens, but its institutional memory and global network make The Economist essential reading for understanding the crises at hand, even if you end up disagreeing with some of their prescriptions.

2. The Connoisseur of Chaos

The Doomscroller tracks democratic decline with a fatalistic precision. But those who opt for a ringside seat achieve something rarer: the ability to appreciate the dark theatre of it all. These are the media consumers who’ve traded panic for popcorn, watching institutional collapse and constitutional crises like episodes in democracy's most gripping prestige drama series. The Connoisseur of Chaos maintains their sanity not through detachment but through a kind of gallows humour. For this audience, Trump's America isn't just a crisis (although it definitely is that); it's a spectacle that demands to be appreciated in all its baroque absurdity.

The Chaos Connoisseur’s media diet:

Today in Tabs

From a weathered house on a Maine island accessible only by ferry, Rusty Foster decodes the media’s daily convulsions in Today in Tabs, a newsletter currently on pause as he takes a well-earned break from his role as professional doomscroller. The newsletter operates as a kind of field report from the frontlines of digital discourse—part anthropological study, part media critic, part deadpan comedy. What distinguishes Foster's work is his peculiar distance from the material: physically removed from America’s media centres yet intellectually embedded in their rhythms, Foster turns industry melodrama and social media chaos into a precisely (if acerbically) calibrated analysis. His prose maps the duality of our current era—a moment that feels both urgently consequential and absurdly dumb—blending exacting analytical precision with the kind of off-kilter wit the internet used to be known for.

Vanity Fair

With its unique fusion of Hollywood storytelling and political reporting, Vanity Fair finds itself uniquely suited to cover the latest reality show presidency. The magazine's high production value investigations feel increasingly apt as Washington morphs into a Shakespearean drama with a grotesque twist, complete with power struggles, family dynasties and baroque corruption. Their signature blend of insider access and narrative flair makes them essential chroniclers of an administration that approaches governance as performance art.

Garbage Day

As digital culture increasingly drives political reality, Ryan Broderick's thrice-weekly dispatch reads like intelligence from the internet's frontlines. Where Today in Tabs chronicles media industry dynamics with sardonic detachment, Garbage Day maps the deeper currents of online life, tracking how digital microtrends crystallise into consequential movements. Drawing on his years studying internet phenomena at BuzzFeed and Vice, Broderick combines digital anthropology with broader cultural analysis, dissecting everything from surreal AI cooking videos to the genesis of viral political narratives. His prodigious output (three issues weekly, each a careful dissection of digital chaos) provides vital insight into how online dynamics shape offline power.

The Daily Beast

Founded in 2008 as a buzzy digital upstart by Tina Brown—Vanity Fair royalty whose tenure at The New Yorker is widely regarded as a wondrous misstep—The Daily Beast has since matured into something far more substantial: a high-metabolism news operation where establishment access meets tabloid instinct. Their ability to break significant stories while maintaining an almost theatrical appreciation for political spectacle makes them uniquely positioned for our current moment, where power, performance and public life have become inextricably entangled. Think Politico with a shot of adrenaline, or TMZ with a graduate degree in constitutional law.

3. The Time Traveller

For those who find direct engagement with our political moment too overwhelming, there exists a more oblique path to understanding: looking back, rather than forward. The Time Traveler approaches contemporary chaos through historical reflection and cultural allegory, using past patterns to bring clarity and perspective to present turmoil. It's a particularly productive form of avoidance—rather than doomscroll through breaking news or view events as entertainment, the Time Traveller seeks to understand our moment by studying its rhymes in history, literature and art. For these close readers of the past, democratic decay and institutional collapse aren't just trending topics but recurring patterns in human experience.

The Time Traveller media diet:

Empire

If we accept that Trump’s rise (and rise again) is just a chapter in the larger story of an empire’s collapse—and there’s little reason to think otherwise—the podcast Empire provides a compelling parallel, charting the decline of past powers and remixing those lessons for modern audiences. Historians William Dalrymple and Anita Anand's episodes on the East India Company's transformation from trading venture to quasi-state draw unmistakable parallels to today: how private power erodes and exploits public institutions, how democracy yields to oligarchy, how imperial ambition breeds institutional decay and overreach. Part historical analysis, part contemporary commentary, their work transforms seemingly distant history into an eerily precise mirror of our moment.

Rachel Maddow's various podcasts

Since stepping back from daily MSNBC duties, Rachel Maddow has turned her focus to excavating the darker corners of American history that challenge our post-war myths of democratic stability. Bag Man reveals how criminal Spiro Agnew rose from local corruption to the vice presidency, Ultra exposes the 1940s congressmen who collaborated with Hitler's Germany, and Deja News tracks how conservative reactions to progress—from anti-integration to today's civil rights backlash—keep repeating. Together, these meticulously researched series suggest our current crisis isn't an aberration but the continuation of forces that have always threatened democracy.

The Marginalian

Maria Popova’s cult email and website The Marginalian mines humanity's deepest archives for patterns of survival and resistance. Through a rigorous daily practice—400 monthly hours of reading everything from literature to philosophy to science—Popova curates historical wisdom that speaks directly to our moment. Her posts, like Zadie Smith on the fragility of progress or John Steinbeck on how evil never wins, offer more than mere comfort: they provide a framework for understanding political turmoil as part of civilisation's recurring cycles. Popova's project suggests that the greatest minds of history weren't just documenting their own crises, but leaving us tactical guides for navigating ours.

Letters from an American

Heather Cox Richardson's transformation from Boston College professor to democratic chronicler began with a simple Facebook post about Trump's first impeachment. Now, through her Substack, Letters from an American, she connects our fractured moment to America's deeper patterns: Trump channelling Andrew Johnson's assault on Reconstruction, Christian nationalism echoing McCarthyism's moral panic, voter suppression tactics recycling Redemption-era strategies, and so on. Drawing on decades of studying the American right and the Civil War era, Richardson maps our place in democratic time—not to reassure readers with tales of chaos endured, but to illuminate the unresolved tensions that have shaped the republic since its founding and now threaten to reshape it once again.

4. The Mirror World Tourist

Many on the left averted their gaze from MAGA media during Trump's first term. But as they turned inward, alt-right figures like Steve Bannon looked outward, studying progressive movements with anthropological precision. As Naomi Klein notes in her 2023 book Doppelganger, this proved costly—the right learned to appropriate leftist concepts while progressives remained blind to the parallel reality (what Klein calls the “mirror world”) taking shape. The Mirror World Tourist represents a correction to this error, approaching right-wing media ecosystems as a field researcher rather than partisan. Most of the below recommendations (with the exception of Bannon's own War Room podcast) serve as expert interpreters of this alternative universe, tracking how extremist narratives move from the digital fringe into mainstream political discourse.

The Mirror World media diet:

Conspirituality

Apparently Byron Bay, full of yoga teachers and wellness influencers, is now a hotbed of Trump support. How did this happen? The Conspirituality podcast examines one of the most consequential yet least understood dynamics in modern politics: how New Age wellness circles became a pipeline for far-right ideology. Founded during the pandemic by a historian, a yoga teacher and a cult researcher, Conspirituality documents how anti-vax sentiment evolved into full QAnon belief, how wellness influencers transformed into MAGA propagandists, and how ancient spiritual practices got weaponised for political ends. Their deep dives reveal how conspiracy entrepreneurs exploit those seeking spiritual guidance for political gain. Essential listening for understanding how Trump's coalition expanded beyond the evangelical right to capture a demographic that once would have seemed unthinkable: the crystal-healing, chakra-reading, wellness-seeking left.

The Bulwark

When Bill Kristol and Charlie Sykes launched The Bulwark from the ashes of The Weekly Standard in late 2018, many dismissed it as a vanity project for ‘Never Trump’ conservatives. Instead, it's become something more valuable: an insider's guide to American conservatism's transformation from Reagan orthodoxy to Trump personality cult. The Bulwark’s team of former Republican operatives, congressional aides and conservative journalists offers a unique insight into how their old party works. They understand the GOP's internal mechanics because they helped build the machine—now they're documenting how it's being converted for authoritarian purposes. Regular contributors like Tim Miller and Amanda Carpenter don't just critique their former movement; they decode it, explaining precisely how traditional conservative infrastructure is being repurposed for anti-democratic ends.

Knowledge Fight

Since 2017, Dan Friesen and Jordan Holmes's podcast Knowledge Fight has conducted an exhaustive archaeological dig through the InfoWars empire, documenting Alex Jones's evolution from fringe conspiracy theorist to key architect of January 6th and trusted Trump ally. Their combination of granular research and gallows humour is invaluable for understanding how extreme rhetoric enters the mainstream—tracking, for instance, how Jones's early claims about "globalist elites" morphed into Trump's campaign messaging about "the enemy from within". Beyond just fact-checking Jones's claims, they analyse his rhetorical techniques, funding sources and network of influences, revealing how conspiracy entrepreneurs build parallel realities that shape electoral outcomes.

The War Room

Unlike the above recommendations, all of which interpret right-wing media, Steve Bannon's often lengthy broadcast The War Room is a direct engagement with MAGA's primary theorist. Bannon’s flow of tactical instructions, ideological frameworks and narrative construction offers an unfiltered insight into how Trumpism actually functions. As a key architect of Trump's first presidency, Bannon has demonstrated his ability to transform fringe ideas into political reality—this show reveals how he does it, workshopping rhetoric and testing narratives that regularly surface in Trump's speeches and across conservative media. While the constant apocalyptic framing and calls for mobilisation make for gruelling listening, understanding Bannon's strategic approach to information warfare has become crucial. This isn't just a podcast; it's a command centre.

Consider those French aristocrats reading their pamphlets of doom. They often had just one source of news, one perspective, one narrative arc toward their demise. We have infinite sources, infinite perspectives, infinite stories about our potential end times, making their singular narrative of inevitable doom seem almost quaint. Our information chaos at least offers choice: in how we process it, in how we understand it, in how we maintain our grip on reality even as reality itself seems increasingly up for grabs.

Perhaps that's the peculiar gift of our moment: we can watch democracy's stress test unfold in real-time—and choose the lens through which we view it. In the multiverse of modern media consumption, there might just be a timeline where democracy survives—not because we looked away from the chaos, but because we found better ways to look at it, to understand it, to process it without being consumed by it. The French aristocrats had no choice but to read their way to the guillotine. We at least get to choose how (and where) we read our way through whatever comes next.

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