About Dr. Thompson
I’ve spent my career in one business: helping people learn complex things faster.
I started in marketing operations building training systems and discovering trends through social listening. Then I went back to school — and spent over a decade in higher education mastering the science of how adults actually learn and build institutions. Now I’m bringing both together with scholarly research.
I am a historian of American political development, conflict, and identity. I’m the only historian writing today with a PhD from an HBCU (Howard), a masters in military history degree from a military college (Norwich), and a political theology background from a charismatic Christian university (ORU) — which means I can understand how America’s diverse tribes actually think.
I start from the premise: America is not an exceptional project exempt from history, but a regular country subject to the same structural limitations, decay, and rules of power as all other states. The myth of exceptionalism isn’t a harmless story; it’s the reason so much current commentary can’t actually explain what’s happening. I believe that renormalizing our narratives allows us to understand the present.
Why Subscribe?
Free
Three concentrated weekly briefs — Monday, Wednesday, and Friday — applying historical realism to the present and the past. High density, no filler.
Supporting Subscriber — $8/Month or $50/Year
Everything in Free, plus full uncut podcast episodes, The Deep Cuts (bi-weekly long-form essays — the definitive, reference-grade version of the argument, the kind of piece you’ll come back to), The Syllabus (curated reading lists and self-study plans updated monthly), and access to the subscriber chat and comments.
Patron — $250/Year
Everything above, plus a named welcome on the podcast as a founding patron, The Lecture Hall (launching in July, this will host my long-form video sessions on history and statecraft), The Patron’s Dispatch (my monthly reading list and notes on what’s shaping my work), and the ability to start chat threads.
If you want a historical framework for understanding institutional power and decay, I hope you’ll subscribe.
