100 Days in the Heart of Darkness

On 30^th April 2025, Donald Trump enjoys the 100^th day of his second term as President of the United States. Doing things a little differently this time, he came to power promising major reforms on government, elections, immigration, international trade, energy and resource development, environment, gender-recognition, diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), reproductive healthcare, and research. In an exercise of “everything, everywhere, all at once,” the administration unraveled decades of US policy, action and global leadership.

Rachael Lorna Johnstone traveled to Washington DC on 29^th January 2025, just two hours before a fatal plane and helicopter collision at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. She was working at the Wilson Center in the Reagan Building, two blocks from the White House, watching it all unfold, until the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) abruptly closed the bipartisan thinktank. She returned to Iceland ten days earlier than planned, on 20^th April 2025. In this talk, she discusses the first hundred days of the second Trump presidency. She considers the use of Presidential Executive Orders to bypass Congress, actions in direct violation of Federal Court Orders, and apparent lack of transparency and accountability of government personnel, as challenges to the US Constitution and the rule of law. She considers the robustness of the First Amendment (the right to freedom of expression, religion and assembly) in light of attacks on private universities and students engaged in campus protests. She also reflects on her personal experience as a legal alien in DC, attempting to conduct research on climate change and just transition, with a CV packed with trigger words unpalatable to the US government. Rachael observed the events and news coverage in real time, recording events in her handwritten journal, “100 Days of Batshittery.”

Rachael is Professor of Law at the University of Akureyri. She is also, for the time being at least, a Fulbright Arctic Initiative IV scholar. She is probably not a visiting scholar at the Polar Institute of the Wilson Center anymore, though no one has actually informed her about this and her profile still appears on their website. 

Sigurður Kristinsson, professor and Head of Faculty at the Faculty of Social Sciences will chair the meeting

Please note: this event will not be recorded

The presentation will be in English and Q&A both in Icelandic and English

All are welcome

Click here for zoom