The Commander in Chief Has Thoughts About Catapults
Notes & Observations on Presidential Micromanagement and Military Readiness
- Notes & observations
- Trump-era governance
- Civics unhinged
Civics Unhinged — A chronicle of American absurdity, written with a straight face and a sharp pen. Civics Unhinged — satire for those who still give a damn.
The Circus Is Back in Town
Notes & Observations from the White House Oval Office
- Notes & observations
- Trump-era governance
- Civics unhinged
The Commander in Chief Has Thoughts About Catapults
Notes & Observations on Presidential Micromanagement and Military Readiness
- Notes & observations
- Trump-era governance
- Civics unhinged
The Circus Is Back in Town
Notes & Observations from the White House Oval Office
- Trump-era governance
- Democratic norms
- Loyalty economy
The Truths Presidents Hear—or Don't
How organizational culture determines what truths reach the Oval Office—and which never do.
- Trump-era governance
- Loyalty economy
- Civil service
Why I Write: On Politics & Political Satire
On Politics & Political Satire
- Trump-era governance
- Democratic norms
- Civil service
Why I Write: On Politics & Political Satire
Why I Write (Still): The Case for Satire in a Post-Conviction Presidency
The Case for Satire in a Post-Conviction Presidency
- Trump-era governance
- Democratic norms
- Civics unhinged
Why I Write (Still): The Case for Satire in a Post-Conviction Presidency
The Presidency Teddy Roosevelt Would Not Recognize
On stewardship, spectacle, and the direction of executive power.
- Trump-era governance
- Democratic norms
- Civil service
When Congress Stopped Saying No
Congress still possesses every constitutional power necessary to restrain an ambitious president. The more pressing question is whether it still remembers that one of its constitutional duties is to do so. For most of American history, presidents expected Congress to resist them. They did not always welcome that resistance. They complained about it, campaigned against it, negotiated around it, and occasionally attempted to intimidate it. Yet they understood that resistance was part of the con...
- Democratic norms
- Trump-era governance
- Loyalty economy
Limiting the Presidency: We Have the Tools, But Will We?
On the uncomfortable distinction between holding constitutional authority and actually choosing to use it.
- Trump-era governance
- Democratic norms
- Civil service
About Civics Unhinged
Civics Unhinged is the new home for my long-form satire and political commentary — a place where essays can breathe without algorithms or paywalls. I write about the civic unraveling of our time: the absurdities of power, the decay of seriousness, and the endurance of humor as a last civic virtue. Dunnegin is a former senior federal official, policy analyst, and longtime political consultant who has advised members of Congress, federal agency heads, and corporate leaders. He has spent decades...
About Civics Unhinged
The Real Heirs of the Republic
Heritage, Myth, and the Power We Inherit
- Democratic norms
- Sovereignty
- Civics unhinged
World Stage, MAGA Script: Willfulness as Governance
How impulse displaced architecture in American statecraft [This essay is Part 1 of a two-part series on Trump’s foreign policy method and its global consequences. Part 2, Coercion Without Credibility Publishes March 3.]
- Trump's second term
- Trump-era governance
- Civics unhinged
History’s Exit Interview: Notes from the End of Progress
Somewhere between the ruins of Enlightenment optimism and the latest GOP fundraiser, History called it quits.
- Democratic norms
- Trump-era governance
- Civics unhinged
When Courts Rule but Power Doesn't Listen
Why Judicial Power Now Turns on Compliance, Not Rulings
- Trump-era governance
- Democratic norms
- Civics unhinged
The Domestic Terrorist in the Oval Office
Trump and the Politics of Permissioned Violence
- Trump's second term
- Trump-era governance
- Democratic norms
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A chronicle of American absurdity, written with a straight face and a sharp pen. Civics Unhinged — satire for those who still give a damn.
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