The Bologna Institute for Policy Research hosted David Milne for a seminar exploring how Donald Trump fits within the longer sweep of American political history. Instead of portraying Trump as an unexpected disruption to established norms, Milne argued that he should be understood as emerging from patterns deeply rooted in the United States' own political traditions.

The talk opened with an exploration of the many historical figures to whom Trump has been compared, ranging from authoritarian leaders abroad to American populists of earlier eras. For Milne, these parallels reveal more about the interpretive frameworks and anxieties of those drawing them than about Trump himself. He suggested that Trump's significance lies in the way different observers project their concerns onto him, rather than in any straightforward resemblance to a single historical precedent.

A major portion of the seminar examined developments within the Republican Party. Milne pointed out that long before Trump entered national politics, prominent Republican strategists had relied on themes of cultural grievance, coded racial appeals, and narratives of national decline. These strategies contributed to a political climate in which distrust of institutions and antagonistic rhetoric were already familiar. Within such an environment, a figure like Trump could rise not by altering the trajectory of the party, but by intensifying tendencies that had been present for decades.

Milne then shifted attention to reactions among Democrats and liberal commentators. He noted that many analyses of Trump have relied heavily on references to European fascism. Yet several historians of modern authoritarianism have questioned the usefulness of this approach, arguing that while Trump challenges norms and displays clear authoritarian impulses, he does not fit comfortably within those historical models. Part of Trump's political strength, Milne suggested, comes from a style of communication that is deliberately direct, informal, and emotionally charged, a mode of speaking that resonates strongly with many voters and complicates attempts to categorize him through traditional analytical lenses.

The conversation also addressed the foreign policy backdrop against which Trump rose. Milne located this backdrop in the decades following the Cold War, when American interventionism abroad and widening inequalities at home gradually eroded public trust in political elites. Episodes such as the 2003 invasion of Iraq undermined confidence in the judgment of both major parties, creating an opening for a candidate who promised a decisive break from previous approaches. Appeals to the liberal international order, he argued, often fail to resonate with citizens whose experiences of globalization have been uneven or negative.

In his closing reflections, Milne emphasized that Trump is best understood as a distinctly American phenomenon, shaped by the country's political history rather than standing outside it. Recognizing the shared responsibility of both parties in creating the conditions that enabled his rise, he argued, is essential for developing a clearer understanding of U.S. politics today and for thinking more constructively about the political challenges that lie ahead.

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hosted by Professor Mark Gilbert


David Milne is currently Professor in Modern History at the University of East Anglia. Milne was an associate tutor at the LSE from 2002 to 2003 and a lecturer in American Foreign Relations at the University of Nottingham from 2004 to 2008.

Milne graduated from the London School of Economics with a BA in History in 1998 and an MSc in the History of International Relations in 2000. He earned his PhD from the University of Cambridge in 2005.

Milne's first book, America's Rasputin: Walt Rostow and the Vietnam War, was published in 2008, followed by Worldmaking: The Art and Science of American Diplomacy in 2015, which was praised by novelist Christos Tsiolkas in 2021. He serves as the senior editor of the Oxford Encyclopedia of American Military and Diplomatic History and co-edited Ideology in U.S. Foreign Relations: New Histories. Milne has published in various academic journals, including Diplomatic History and The Journal of Military History, and his writings have appeared in prominent outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and Foreign Policy.

David's current book-in-progress is a biography of the trailblazing Chicago Tribune journalist, Sigrid Schultz. British journalist Quentin Reynolds believed Schultz's Berlin reporting made her "Hitler's greatest enemy."; Hermann Göring denounced Schultz as "that dragon lady from Chicago." Yet Schultz has largely vanished from historical view. An ally to Gustav Stresemann, interviewer of Hitler, and prescient analyst of Nazism, Schultz overcame significant obstacles - as a woman in a male-dominated milieu; as a foreign journalist working a totalitarian state; and as an interventionist at an isolationist newspaper - throughout a remarkable career. "Witness to Catastrophe: A Life of Sigrid Schultz" is under contract with Oxford University Press.