Jeff Sharlet

Freelance Contributor at Freelance

NYT Bestseller THE UNDERTOW: Scenes from a Slow Civil War. THE FAMILY (book & Netflix). THIS BRILLIANT DARKNESS. Words+pics @VanityFair. Teach @Dartmouth.

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Articles

Don’t Take the Bait - Kristi Noem and Fascism’s Sadistic Eroticization of Power

3 weeks ago | religiondispatches.org | Jeff Sharlet

The image above is an altered detail from a video posted on X by Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, along with a series of still photographs from her tour of the El Salvador prison to which Trump is deporting an untold number of immigrants. You know, of course, that Trump claims that they’re all gang members. And you know also, I suspect, that many aren’t.
Meet Pete Hegseth, the Man Who Will Lead the Entire US Military - A Man Deemed an ‘Extremist’ by the US Military

Nov 13, 2024 | religiondispatches.org | Jeff Sharlet

On Tuesday, Trump announced Fox News talking head Pete Hegseth as his new secretary of defense. The guy in the image above. It’s not a parody; it’s from the cover of his 2020 book, American Crusade.
The Pentagon Papers of Pete Hegseth

Nov 13, 2024 | slowcivilwar.substack.com | Jeff Sharlet

I’m back, because he’s back.
Fear and Loathing | Dagmar Herzog

Oct 26, 2024 | laphamsquarterly.org | Dagmar Herzog |Francine Prose |Jeff Sharlet |Jonathan Lyons

Sixty years ago, Alfred Kinsey, a professor of zoology at Indiana University, published Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, an 804-page tract documenting impressively high rates of non-normative behavior among ordinary Americans, including widespread premarital intercourse, marital infidelity, homosexuality, and masturbation. The report made a ponderous pretense at being value-free. The scientific facade fooled no one.
Jeff Sharlet on ‘Sanewashing’ and Fascism

Oct 10, 2024 | lithub.com | Jeff Sharlet

Nonfiction writer Jeff Sharlet joins co-hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell to discuss how mainstream media outlets sanitize Donald Trump’s rhetoric in their reporting rather than straightforwardly describing his words and behavior, an approach recently dubbed “sanewashing” by The New Republic’s Parker Molloy.
One Nation, Under Fist

Jul 15, 2024 | slowcivilwar.substack.com | Jeff Sharlet

I was in the library when it happened. I’d planned to report from Butler, Pennsylvania, had priced out the trip, but on Thursday my plans changed. There but for failures of logistics go I. So I went to the library instead, to work on a very different project, a book about books that never get finished, that remain undone. The utopian possibilities of a story without an ending. One name for such a story—only one of its many names—is democracy.
News with Nuance: July 12, 2024

Jul 12, 2024 | angeladenker.substack.com | Angela Denker |Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons |Jeff Sharlet |Brian Kaylor

Hi Readers,Welp - I was preparing to write this newsletter to you, reviewing my notes from our last News with Nuance, only to realize that I had the date wrong on that one. It said July 28, 2024 until only a few minutes ago. I had jumped ahead an entire month in my brain, possibly because June felt like an entire year, heavy and weighted and murky and gloppy. I’ve been reminded lately of that t-shirt, long gone now, that I bought off Amazon in 2020. It didn’t fit well, and the fabric was scratchy.
‘Hello, Trump Warriors!’ Little-Known Preachers and Rabble Rousers are the Unregulated Id of the Felon’s First Rally

Jun 11, 2024 | religiondispatches.org | Jeff Sharlet

“I don’t care about you, I just want your vote.”That’s the clip from Trump’s Sunday rally in Vegas that went viral: ex-president, navy blazer; open-necked white shirt, the sagging orange lizard hide shadowed by a bright red MAGA cap beneath the 105 degree noonday sun. His first rally as a felon.
Hello, Trump Warriors!

Jun 10, 2024 | jeffsharlet.substack.com | Jeff Sharlet

“I don’t care about you, I just want your vote.”That’s the clip from Trump’s Sunday rally in Vegas that went viral: ex-president, navy blazer; open-necked white shirt, the sagging orange lizard hide shadowed by a bright red MAGA cap beneath the 105 degree noonday sun. His first rally as a felon.
"Enemies of the People"

Jun 8, 2024 | jeffsharlet.substack.com | Jeff Sharlet

This Substack was born in part of my frustration with how we’re reporting on Trumpism. By “we” I mean the media, from which I can’t excuse myself. I’ve written and talked about Trumpism for magazines and in a book, and on TV, radio, and Netflix. If “the media” is doing a bad job, I’m complicit. I’m a small part of it, but I’m part of it. Accountability means not just throwing darts but also recognizing good work—and explaining why I think you should give it your time.