I am a historian of American politics, focusing on the evolving connections between capitalism, racism, and government.

My first book, When Good Government Meant Big Government: The Quest to Expand Federal Power, 1913–1933, was published in February 2022 by Columbia University Press. “

You can read more about the book in my interview with The Docket.

I am currently working on two book projects:

• The Base and the Blob: Party Factions and the Bipartisan Roots of Trumpism in America uses the analytical framework from my first book to explain the development of the political forces that have created the present crisis for democracy in the United States.

• Useful to Their Nation: Choctaw Students and Families in the Removal Era, 1819–1834, is a history of how Choctaws attempted to resist pressure from the U.S. government to cede their traditional homelands in Mississippi and Alabama.

I received my PhD in history from Case Western Reserve University in 2016, and I taught at Loyola University Maryland in Baltimore from 2016 to 2019. Before beginning grad school in history in 2009, I was a journalist. See my CV here.

I grew up in Washington state. As an adult, I have lived in Washington, South Dakota, Ohio, Maryland, New Jersey, and (now) Washington, D.C. I am enrolled as a Tribal Member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma.