Stop Project 2025 Rally

The Plan: Project 2025 and the Rise of a New, Unashamed Extremism

Brief Analysis By Alan Cunningham on October 23, 2024 | Reading time 11 min

With the election between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump well underway, the results of this election will serve as one of the most consequential events in American history. At a time when an authoritarian world leader is threatening the safety and security of a whole continent, climate change continues to ravage the world’s environment, and misinformation runs rampant, this election will have massive implications for the world too. What is most important and interesting about this event, however, is the fact that so much of a single candidate’s political policies and standings are known to the public, specifically in relation to Project 2025 and Donald Trump, yet are little commented on or acknowledged by the candidates themselves.

Trump supporters still flying flags in the aftermath of the 2020 election

A Presidency No More: What A Second Trump Administration Means For America

In-Depth Analysis By Alan Cunningham on September 17, 2024 | Reading time 9 min

The 2024 U.S. Presidential Election will be one of American history’s most impactful and significant presidential elections. Very few other elections in modern U.S. history come close to the national, international, and long-lasting influence that such a decision will have. The choice between Kamala Harris and Tim Walz for the Democratic ticket and Donald Trump and JD Vance for the Republican ticket is a decision that has massive ramifications for every issue. As such, with so many undecided young and old voters, it is important to look at what a future Trump administration would look like and what the American people would be in for.

Female Army ROTC Cadet applies camouflage

To Arms: Sexual Abusers after the Military and a Call for Action 

In-Depth Analysis By Alan Cunningham on June 27, 2024 | Reading time 7 min

It is a well-known fact of life that many of those accused or even convicted of sexual assault, harassment, or abuse within the U.S. Armed Forces can go about their daily lives without much change. Many are able to lead active and personally prosperous lives while their victims in some cases are jailed, forced out of the military, or take their own lives. One such individual is Michael D. Kepner II, an honorably retired Lieutenant Colonel of the United States Army. He is a sexual assaulter who has been able to engage in an active, financially and professionally profitable life outside of the military despite a conviction and sentencing.

Greg Abbott, Governor of Texas

Terrorists on the Border? The State of Texas’ Classification of Drug Cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and the Efficacy of Such a Policy

In-Depth Analysis By Alan Cunningham on October 29, 2023 | Reading time 14 min

The United States Southern border is among the most contentious issues for the U.S. government and society. It affects roughly 30 million American and Mexican citizens living on the border and increased sensitivity to the matter has only grown in the 21st century. In Texas, Governor Greg Abbott signed nearly 800 new pieces of legislation into law. One of them, known as Senate Bill 1900, is the most recently controversial and impactful in terms of border security, homeland security, and immigration policy in Texas.

Human Trafficking Protest, NYC

Save the Children? A Sound of Freedom, Operation Underground Railroad (OUR), and the White Savior Complex

In-Depth Analysis By Alan Cunningham on July 24, 2023 | Reading time 10 min

Sex trafficking is an incredibly serious issue within the larger context of human trafficking, that transcends international borders and involves perpetrators across “racial, ethnic, and gender demographics”. Of all human trafficking victims worldwide, some 27% are children and are used for forced or sexual labor. Child sex trafficking is a serious human rights issue and combatting it should be (and already is in many cases) a priority for all international organizations and nation-state governments. There is also no denying that this issue is often not placed at the forefront of mainstream Hollywood films. If they are, such as in “Taken” (2008), they are quite problematic. The recent release of Sound of Freedom has changed that.

Henry Kissinger at Vietnam War Meeting in Paris

Still at Large: The Crimes of Henry Kissinger and the Dark Side of U.S. Foreign Policy

Brief Analysis By Alan Cunningham on June 6, 2023 | Reading time 6 min

Henry Kissinger is one of the most renowned statesmen in the world and the last surviving member of Richard Nixon’s Cabinet. Kissinger has remained a force in American politics and heavily influencing policy abroad and being sought for his insights by presidents as politically diverse as George W. Bush and Donald Trump to Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. However, a critical examination of his life and work is needed.

A monument for the leaders of the Seventh-day Adventist and Branch Davidian movements and the Branch Davidians who died in 1993, Mount Carmel Center, outside of Waco, Texas

Turning Point: The Rise of Right-Wing Politics, the Waco Siege, and the Response of American Law Enforcement

Brief Analysis By Alan Cunningham on February 25, 2023 | Reading time 5 min

30 years ago, federal agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives serving search and arrest warrants for a fundamentalist Christian cult known as the Branch Davidians became involved in a firefight which developed into a nearly two-month-long siege with the Federal Bureau of Investigation at the helm. The changing of the conservative movement in the U.S. into one largely dominated and controlled by extremist parties who do not have an interest in making medially or statistically informed policy, but rather in appealing to their own base and ideology, remains the legacy of the siege until today.

Permanent Memorial to Honour Victims of Slavery

Black Genocide: Classifying the Transatlantic Slave Trade and U.S. Slavery of Africans as a Genocide

Brief Analysis By Alan Cunningham on February 6, 2023 | Reading time 7 min

The American slave trade remains one of the most horrific periods of American history. Many in the United States classify the Atlantic Slave Trade, the American slavery system, and the Jim Crow laws as reprehensible acts, crimes committed by White Americans and English, and a stain upon the United States, and rightly so. However, these events should also be classified as genocide as they meet the legal criteria for such crimes and also follow a very similar line when looking at other, more internationally recognized forms of genocide.

Confederate and U.S. Flag

Winning Hearts and Minds: How the United States Lost the Civil War

In-Depth Analysis By Alan Cunningham on December 12, 2022 | Reading time 6 min

The age-old aphorism “History is written by the victors” exemplifies the belief that, whoever wins a conflict, writes the history books in favor of themselves and their message. In effect, with one’s goals accomplished and victory gained, they are able to construct the future’s telling of this battle, war, or event to better suit their own desires. This belief is often incorrect and does not account for a substantial number of historical events in which the “losers” of a conflict or event have written history to suit themselves. In the United States, perhaps the most prevalent form of pseudohistorical and false thought is our nation’s collective understanding of the U.S. Civil War.

Hayley Elizabeth Atwell as Peggy Carter in Captain America The First Avenger

Women in Power: Peggy Carter, the World of Intelligence, and a Powerful Role Model for Women

In-Depth Analysis By Alan Cunningham on November 6, 2022 | Reading time 8 min

Representation in media (comics, films, television series, and video games) has become a hot button issue over the past decade. In March of 2022, the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film of San Diego State University found “that men outnumbered women onscreen by a factor of 2 to 1 in 2021”. The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is no exception and has had its share of sexist, derogatory, and stereotypical depictions of women. However, in at least one, rather niche area, the MCU does excel in their representation of women: particularly in their representation of women within Intelligence Communities (IC) around the globe via the character of Peggy Carter.