Moshik Temkin’s Assertions about the Limits of Analogical-Historical Reasoning

Moshik Temkin is an associate professor of history and public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. He recently published a piece in the New York Times on the limits of analogical historical reasoning.  He observes that the chaotic Trump presidency has increased the demand for the services of historians.

Donald Trump might be disastrous for most Americans and a danger to the world, but he has been a boon to historians. The more grotesque his presidency appears, the more historians are called on to make sense of it, often in 30-second blasts on cable news or in quick-take quotes in a news article.

Temkin notes that one of the most popular analogies used to understand Trump is the Nixon presidency. Temkin cautions against the use of this historical analogy and all of the other historical analogies currently being used to make sense of Trump. He writes that

We teach our…