Timothy Lynch

Timothy J. Lynch is professor of political science at the University of Melbourne. He writes on contemporary America and its intersections with Australian life. An award-winning writer, Lynch’s latest book is In the Shadow of the Cold War: American Foreign Policy from George Bush Sr. to Donald Trump. He holds a PhD in political science from Boston College, US, and was twice awarded a Fulbright scholarship. In 2022, he lived in Wyoming, America’s reddest state. He is a citizen of Australia and Great Britain and lives in rural Victoria.

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(FILES) US Vice President Kamala Harris speaks during an Emily's List discussion on reproductive rights one year after the Dobbs decision, at The Mayflower Hotel in Washington, DC, on June 23, 2023. Joe Biden on July 21, 2024 dropped out of the US presidential election and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic Party's new nominee, in a stunning move that upends an already extraordinary 2024 race for the White House. Biden, 81, said he was acting in the "best interest of my party and the country" by bowing to weeks of pressure after a disastrous June debate against Donald Trump stoked worries about his age and mental fitness. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski / AFP)

Trump’s Vance pick means Harris can target the centre

I have argued before that Harris should be the Democratic nominee for president. No one believed I was serious. Now I’m having a laugh even louder than hers.

Timothy Lynch

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US Republican candidate Donald Trump is seen with blood on his face surrounded by secret service agents as he is taken off the stage at a campaign event at Butler Farm Show Inc. in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, 2024. Trump was hit in the ear in an apparent assassination attempt by a gunman at a campaign rally on Saturday, in a chaotic and shocking incident that will fuel fears of instability ahead of the 2024 US presidential election. The 78-year-old former president was rushed off stage with blood smeared across his face after the shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania, while the gunman and a bystander were killed and two spectators critically injured. (Photo by Rebecca DROKE / AFP) / QUALITY REPEAT

Assassin’s bullet shows why the left gets history all wrong

Trump’s narrow escape has no big structural explanation. To have world history turn on the turning of Trump’s head is impossible to model or predict. And it’s something the left simply don’t get.

Timothy Lynch

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MELBOURNE, MAY 20, 2024: Students and staff at Melbourne University continue to protest for Palestine at the Arts West building. Picture: Mark Stewart

Oh to be glamping in the quad now the ‘revolution’ is here

Why does identity politics remain so attractive, despite the moral contortions it obliges? Opposing Israel is a ‘luxury belief’ for which the protesters derive radical chic.

Timothy Lynch

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Lech Blaine’s punishing assessment of Peter Dutton in the Quarterly Essay is readable and revealing ... but not balanced.

How Dutton was hung, drawn and Quarterly-ed

Lech Blaine’s punishing assessment of Peter Dutton implies he is a race baiter, Pauline Hanson sympathiser, tax dodger, misogynist, climate denier, and a strategic homophobe. The 119-page Quarterly Essay is written for progressive elites – and herein lies part of the problem.

Timothy Lynch

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Claudine Gay, Edgerley Family Dean of Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, addresses an audience during commencement ceremonies, Thursday, May 25, 2023, on the schools campus, in Cambridge, Mass. Harvard has announced that Gay is to succeed Harvard University Lawrence Bacow, and is to become its new president beginning July 1, 2023. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

US campuses gave us the Great Awokening, now they give us the counter-revolution

The US offers our universities case studies of good and bad. The version of US campus imperialism Australia embraces will have profound consequences.

Timothy Lynch

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SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA - OCTOBER 14: A woman reacts during a speech by Campaign Director of Yes 23 Dean Parkin at the Inner West for 'Yes2023' official referendum function at Wests Ashfield Leagues Club on October 14, 2023 in Sydney, Australia. A referendum for Australians to decide on an indigenous voice to parliament was held on October 14, 2023 and compelled all Australians to vote by law. Early voting began on Oct. 2, and activity has been intensifying in both the YES and NO camps, with multiple polls showing the YES campaign headed for defeat nationally. Australia requires a "double majority" of both the states and voters across the country to trigger constitutional changes, with most referendums in the past having failed. (Photo by Jenny Evans/Getty Images)

Peak woke: Why the progressive left is losing referendum wars

From Brexit to the voice, to Ireland’s recent referendum, the progressive left is losing big battles in the culture war.

Timothy Lynch

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"The main quadrangle building of the University of Sydney, seen from the front lawns. Established in 1850, the university is the oldest in Australia and Oceania."

Politics of uni Accord could backfire on the left

If the higher education expansion leads to students with ATARs of 45 getting into university, they will demand a career return. I am sceptical that gender studies will give them that.

Timothy Lynch

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‘Wokester-in-chief’? Democrats need to reimagine Kamala

America’s most popular woman is in Australia. One of its least popular is contemplating how to become the next president. Assuming Taylor Swift cannot be persuaded to run, the first female president could still be Kamala Harris.

Timothy Lynch

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Across more than two decades of American foreign policy failure, from 2001 to the present, Trump represents something of an exception.

Why Trump wasn’t, and won’t be, a foreign policy disaster

I routinely set my students the following question: ‘Donald Trump has the most successful foreign policy record of any president since the end of the Cold War.’ Discuss.

Timothy Lynch

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The aim of the left is not to liberate the oppressed

Provocative US thinker’s manifesto leads ‘New Right’ way

A conservative activist may well have just changed the direction of US culture. He has been credited with bringing down the world’s most powerful academic: Claudine Gay, the president of Harvard University.

Timothy Lynch

Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/author/timothy-lynch/page/2