BBC New York Correspondent Nick Bryant has studied US elections for decades and saw the election of President Trump in 2016 as inevitable, rather than a fluke. Growing executive overreach, shifting economic and cultural power, and ubiquitous distrust of media and government paved the way for a disruptor with promises of “greatness.” As a Brit in the United States, his observations translate the American experience through a lens Australian’s can understand.
Who are the power-brokers and pawns in the 2020 election? Will Americans double down or divert away from MAGA? Is the history of President Trump’s rise also a history of America’s fall?
To discuss these issues, the USSC hosted a webinar event featuring Nick Bryant, author of When America Stopped Being Great: A history of the present, in conversation with United States Studies Centre CEO Professor Simon Jackman.
Nick Bryant
Foreign Correspondent, BBC
Nick Bryant is one of BBC’s most senior foreign correspondents, currently covering New York and previously posted in Australia, Washington and South Asia. He covered the presidencies of Bill Clinton and George W Bush, including the war on terror in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He is the author of When America Stopped Being Great: A history of the present; The Bystander: John F. Kennedy and the struggle for black equality; The Rise and Fall of Australia: How a great nation lost its way and Adventures in Correspondentland. He studied history at Cambridge and has a doctorate in American politics from Oxford.
Professor Simon Jackman
Professor Simon Jackman was Chief Executive Officer of the United States Studies Centre from April 2016 to May 2022. Between 1996 and 2016, he was a Professor of Political Science and Statistics at Stanford University. Jackman's teaching and research centres on public opinion, election campaigns, political participation, and electoral systems with special emphasis on American and Australian politics.
