By examining Trump's verbal techniques, this book illuminates how he employs words to power his presidency whilst scandalizing the world.

The Washington Post’s Pulitzer Prize–winning book critic uses the books of the Trump era to argue that our response to this presidency reflects the same failures of imagination that made it possible. As a book critic for The Washington Post, Carlos Lozada has read some 150 volumes claiming to diagnose why Trump was elected and what his presidency reveals about our nation. Many of these, he’s found, are more defensive than incisive, more righteous than right. In What Were We Thinking, Lozada uses these books to tell the story of how we understand ourselves in the Trump era, using as his main characters the political ideas and debates at play in America today. He dissects works on the white working class like Hillbilly Elegy; manifestos from the anti-Trump resistance like On Tyranny and No Is Not Enough; books on race, gender, and identity like How to Be an Antiracist and Good and Mad; polemics on the future of the conservative movement like The Corrosion of Conservatism; and of course plenty of books about Trump himself. Lozada’s argument is provocative: that many of these books—whether written by liberals or conservatives, activists or academics, Trump’s true believers or his harshest critics—are vulnerable to the same blind spots, resentments, and failures that gave us his presidency. But Lozada also highlights the books that succeed in illuminating how America is changing in the 21st century. What Were We Thinking is an intellectual history of the Trump era in real time, helping us transcend the battles of the moment and see ourselves for who we really are.

Donald Trump access to the presidency qualifies as one of the most disconcerting political events of contemporary politics, not only by his personality but also by the will of change of a great mass of the North American town. Trump's electoral triumph was due to a triumph of technology; he was "inevitable" in 2016, and Republican and Democratic voters found that none of the other candidates could beat Trump in a one-on-one electoral duel. Donald Trump has shaken decades of USA diplomatic tradition, not just about the outgoing president, Democrat Barack Obama, but past administrations of his own party, the Republican. Donald Trump represent a seismic change in political relations with Asia, Latin America, Middle East and Europe where the "European elites" who had become accustomed to American "Wilsonian" leaders; and his programs involves steps that will change the political, the scientific, the technological, the economical and the commercial landscape of the entire world.

How Trump has used the federal government to promote conservative policies The presidency of Donald Trump has been unique in many respects—most obviously his flamboyant personal style and disregard for conventional niceties and factual information. But one area hasn't received as much attention as it deserves: Trump's use of the “administrative presidency,” including executive orders and regulatory changes, to reverse the policies of his predecessor and advance positions that lack widespread support in Congress. This book analyzes the dynamics and unique qualities of Trump's administrative presidency in the important policy areas of health care, education, and climate change. In each of these spheres, the arrival of the Trump administration represented a hostile takeover in which White House policy goals departed sharply from the more “liberal” ideologies and objectives of key agencies, which had been embraced by the Obama administration. Three expert authors show how Trump has continued, and even expanded, the rise of executive branch power since the Reagan years. The authors intertwine this focus with an in-depth examination of how the Trump administration's hostile takeover has drastically changed key federal policies—and reshaped who gets what from government—in the areas of health care, education, and climate change. Readers interested in the institutions of American democracy and the nation's progress (or lack thereof) in dealing with pressing policy problems will find deep insights in this book. Of particular interest is the book's examination of how the Trump administration's actions have long-term implications for American democracy.

This book catalogues and examines the various First Amendment free speech and press controversies that have roiled the Trump presidency. It highlights both what is unique about those controversies, and what is consistent with historical patterns. From past conflicts and eras, the book draws various First Amendment lessons that will help guide readers through the Trump Era.

This special issue book raises significant and sobering concerns about President Trump's impact on the welfare of the United States, especially in areas of gender, race, and human rights.

Why are Americans so angry with each other? The United States is caught in a partisan hyperconflict that divides politicians, communities--and even families. Politicians from the president to state and local office-holders play to strongly-held beliefs and sometimes even pour fuel on the resulting inferno. This polarization has become so intense that many people no longer trust anyone from a differing perspective. Drawing on his personal story of growing up as a fundamentalist Christian on a dairy farm in rural Ohio, then as an academic in the heart of the liberal East Coast establishment, Darrell West analyzes the economic, cultural, and political aspects of polarization. He takes advantage of his experiences inside both conservative and liberal camps to explain the views of each side and offer insights into why each is angry with the other. West argues that societal tensions have metastasized into a dangerous tribalism that seriously threatens U.S. democracy. Unless people can bridge these divisions and forge a new path forward, it will be impossible to work together, maintain a functioning democracy, and solve the country's pressing policy problems.

Horror films have traditionally sunk their teeth into straitened times, reflecting, expressing and validating the spirit of the epoch, and capitalising on the political and cultural climate in which they are made. This book shows how the horror genre has adapted itself to the transformation of contemporary American politics and the mutating role of traditional and new media in the era of Donald Trump’s Presidency of the United States. Exploring horror’s renewed potential for political engagement in a socio-political climate characterised by the angst of civil conflict, the deception of ‘alternative facts’ and the threat of nuclear or biological conflict and global warming, Make America Hate Again examines the intersection of film, politics, and American culture and society through a bold critical analysis of popular horror (films, television shows, podcasts and online parodies), such as 10 Cloverfield Lane, American Horror Story, Don’t Breathe, Get Out, Hotel Transylvania 2, Hush, It, It Comes at Night, South Park, The Babadook, The Walking Dead, The Woman, The Witch and Twin Peaks: The Return. The first major exploration of the horror genre through the lens of the Trump era, it investigates the correlations between recent, culturally meaningful horror texts, and the broader culture within which they have become gravely significant. Offering a rejuvenating, optimistic, and positive perspective on popular culture as a site of cultural politics, Make America Hate Again will appeal to scholars and students of American studies, film and media studies, and cultural studies.

Writing Democracy: The Political Turn in and Beyond the Trump Era calls on the field of writing studies to take up a necessary agenda of social and economic change in its classrooms, its scholarship, and its communities to challenge the rise of neoliberalism and right-wing nationalism. Grown out of an extended national dialogue among public intellectuals, academic scholars, and writing teachers, collectively known as the Writing Democracy project, the book creates a strategic roadmap for how to reclaim the progressive and political possibilities of our field in response to the "twilight of neoliberalism" (Cox and Nilsen), ascendant right-wing nationalism at home (Trump) and abroad (Le Pen, Golden Dawn, UKIP), and hopeful radical uprisings (Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street, Arab Spring). As such, the book tracks the emergence of a renewed left wing in rhetoric and activism post-2008, suggests how our work as teachers, scholars, and administrators can bring this new progressive framework into our institutions, and then moves outward to our role in activist campaigns that are reshaping public debate. Part history, part theory, this book will be an essential read for faculty, graduate students, and advanced undergraduate students in composition and rhetoric and related fields focused on progressive pedagogy, university-community partnerships, and politics.

In the wake of the 2016 U.S. presidential election, investors and the electorate alike are seeking clarity on a wide range of macro policy issues that will impact the economy and markets in the years ahead. The primary goal of this book is to provide an objective source for investors to learn about economic policy issues that surfaced. Topics include long-term growth, the federal budget deficit, healthcare reform, tax reform, regulatory policies affecting the financial system and environment, the nexus of monetary, exchange rate and trade policies, and globalization. The book explains how these issues have evolved, considers arguments from both sides of the political divide, and draws upon evidence from studies by experts in the respective areas. A related goal is to assess the likely impact of economic policies on financial markets. While the presidential election was close, the markets’ response was decisive: U.S. and global equity markets went on a tear as consumer and business confidence soared. This surprised many investors who believed a Trump victory would be bad for financial markets. It also caused many to question whether expectations embedded in markets were too optimistic. Sargen’s assessment is presented in the opening and concluding chapters.