Martians, McPolicies & Mimicry: The Art of Taking Seriously That Which is Patently Absurd

ICYMI: I appeared in two different episodes of the JFK Library’s podcast: presidential transitions and violence.

In a delicious confluence of the absurd and the erudite, two dear friends have just released new work:

Pulitzer-prize winning historian Marcia Chatelain wrote an op-ed about the curious intersection of presidential ambitions and fast-food folklore.

Meanwhile, Mike Duncan, the velvet-voiced chronicler of revolutions past, has a new series on a Martian uprising that exists solely in the realm of 'what if.'

These seemingly disparate works orbit the same sun of human folly. From Earth's grease-stained campaigns to Mars' imagined barricades, Marcia and Mike hold up a mirror to society. As November 5th approaches, the line between ridiculous and profound appears razor-thin.

Check out their previous SMK appearances: Mike did a two-part takeover and I subjected Marcia to a Q&A.

Marcia Chatelain on Harris and Trump’s McPolicies

In the New York Times, Pulitzer-prize winning historian Marcia Chatelain dissects the peculiar spectacle of presidential hopefuls genuflecting before the altar of fast food capitalism. Harris, erstwhile purveyor of processed patties, now peddles her proletarian pedigree—and it turns out Emhoff was McDonald’s "Employee of the Month." And then Trump, after months of accusing her of inventing the whole story, performed a bizarre pantomime of blue-collar bonhomie over a pile of cardboard-encased calories.

But beneath this grease-stained attempt to connect with voters, Marcia discerns a more insidious performance. Harris and Trump are unwittingly (or perhaps not) reenacting a Nixonian economic farce: They promise a banquet of prosperity while proffering the same reheated policies that have left the American dream congealing under heat lamps for decades. Promises of loans and new businesses, Marcia writes, are unlikely to significantly impact "the economic precarity felt by millions of Black families."

In a perfect storm of political posturing and potential pathogens, McDonalds is looking for a crisis communications director following Trump’s campaign stop—or perhaps its for the E. coli outbreak linked to McDonald’s Quarter Pounders in multiple states. Could be either. Will the demagogue or the dysentery be their undoing?

Mike Duncan’s Martian Revolution

Mike Duncan, the cult hero who spent a decade narrating humanity's bloodiest in "The History of Rome" and "Revolutions," is back with a rigorously researched account of events that never happened: the Great Martian Uprising of 2247

Mike chronicles the Red Planet's crimson tide of rebellion with the gravitas of a UN Security Council meeting and the factual basis of a flat-Earth convention. It's a deadpan delve into the annals of future history—fictional factions are treated with the utmost historical respect, non-existent Martian sociopolitical structures are meticulously dissected, and imaginary riots recounted with scholarly precision. Much like Tomorrow, Tomorrow, Tomorrow, The Martial Revolution of 2247 is so well done, it compels me to invest deeply in a subject I might have otherwise dismissed as trivial.

Bonus: He teases our forthcoming podcast, “The Duncan & Coe History Show.”

See you soonish! In the meantime, you can find me on Twitter and Instagram and my books on Bookshop, Amazon, and your local bookstore or library. If you’d like me to sign or personalize my books, purchase copies from Oblong.