In “Shorter America”, Dr Emma Shortis keeps you up-to-date on the United States with news and analysis that you can trust.
Fri 23 Oct 2026 10.11 AEDT
Photo: The White House/Flickr
With dozens of strategic bombers and nine Carrier Strike Groups, the United States likes to maintain a near-permanent display of its military might (what defence groupies call “strategic posture”) around the globe. Until it can’t.
This week, the Pacific showed world leaders firsthand what climate change looks like. Back home, the Coalition and One Nation saw something else. They saw an opportunity to dog whistle and punch down on our Pacific nations.
The mid-term elections are less than two weeks away. Trump keeps encouraging violence – relishing it, as he always has. This week, we look at the Senate race in Michigan, how Europe is dealing with a cruel and vindictive president, and political violence.
This week:
Michigan has long been seen as one of the bellwethers of modern American politics. For a while, it seemed as though the only way to understand America was to go to Detroit – the heart of the Rust Belt – and look at the carnage wrought on middle America by globalisation.
Michigan’s influence has shifted since Trump was first elected, but it still very much matters. The Democratic Senate candidate there, Dr Abdul el-Sayed, is ahead in the polls. This week, his response to a bad faith white boy question went viral, as El-Sayed offered a masterclass in politics.
And as this BBC Global Story podcast episode outlines, he’s representative of a potentially dramatic shift in the Democratic Party, too. The show is co-presented by Asma Khalid, a former NPR journalist, and one of my favourite, thoughtful voices in coverage of American politics. The NPR Politics podcast – still a great resource – just isn’t as good without her.
Like Khalid, El-Sayed’s candidacy reminds us of other versions of America. There’s Trump’s version – white boy Tommy’s version – and then there’s the version where an Arab-American epidemiologist offers a dramatically different politics and future. America can be one of the most horrendously racist places. And yet.
Quality research, analysis, explainers and factchecks from experts you can trust.
As Trump continues to be Trump, the rest of us continue to work out how to respond. That’s been particularly pertinent for Europe in the last few weeks, as Trump doubles down on his ideological alignment with Putin’s Russia.
On After America this week, I spoke with Tobias Cremer, a Member of the European Parliament from the German Social Democratic Party, about how Europe can and should respond.
Tobias and I also spoke about Australia’s Free Trade Agreement with Europe – finally signed in March this year as a direct response to Trump’s global reordering. I wanted to do that partly because (I hope you’ll forgive me for this) coverage of Europe and the deal in Australia is (with some exceptions) monumentally stupid.
We’re treated to analysis that says Europe has “ruled out” changing the deal, when Europe could never rule that in. 27 member states came to a negotiated position, and negotiated with Australia in good faith. This is not Trump’s one-man rule, and the Coalition’s attempts to import Trumpian objections to trade deals are pretty embarrassing.
Just your regular reminder that both the coverage and exercise of Australian foreign policy is severely lacking in thoughtfulness, imagination and ambition.
The mid-term elections are really close now. I was asked on radio this week if I’m nervous, and the answer is: of course I am. I’m always nervous before American elections, as I know many of you are. And we have reason to worry. Not least because, as this short essay by Garrett Graff reminds us, violence is a mundane, basic feature not just of American politics, but of everyday American life.
We can’t have that here. And we send all our love and support to Dr Helen Haines, who represents the very best of our democracy.
