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Marxism in the Age of Trump
Slavoj Žižek, Donald Trump, and the Left
2018 •
Leonie Ettinger
Post-Politics and Psychosis: The Crisis of American Liberalism
Olivier Jutel
The Lacanian Left critique of neoliberal post-politics, and its symptom populism, has been in equal parts prescient and indispensible for contextualizing the current crisis of liberal-democracy. From Mouffe's radical agonistic democracy (2005), Laclau's embrace of populism as politics tout court (2005) and Žižek's paeans to left universalism (2008) there is a foregrounding of the ontological necessity of antagonism and the libidinal in politics. The neoliberal triumphalism which consigned both the socialist left and the populist right to the margins as mere remnants of history, is now faced with Trump, Brexit and an international alliance of insurgent reaction. The evacuation of 'the political' (2005) from politics has allowed the far-right to mobilize alienated and individuated publics of jouissance. Unable to articulate an emancipatory and affirmative vision of politics liberalism has become libidinally dependent on the populist threat, negatively defining itself against the barbarians at the gate. And yet with each " final " act of anti-populist resistance liberalism finds itself beleaguered and ceding its universalist values. The grotesque and farcical character of Donald Trump is a precise rendering of the nightmare emerging from liberalism's libidinal investment in post-politics, rationalism and a technocratic habitus. This chapter will consider the current crisis of American liberalism as derived from post-politics and the disavowal of the lack inscribed in political identity. Where the logic of symbolic castration forces a confrontation with trauma, antagonism and enjoyment; liberalism replaces antagonism with a drive that disavows the lack. The liberalism of Hillary Clinton was defined by the supremacy of facts and concern for rational discourse in the pursuit of compromise, not as the basis for democratic participation and empowerment, but as ends in and of themselves. Contemporary American liberalism has elevated a technocratic habitus in the place of an antagonistic ethico-political identity. This habitus marks one as above-the-fray in command of the " facts " with privileged access to " the way things really work ". The existence of social problems does not indicate irreducible class and political conflict but simply the fact that the intellectual resources of the technocratic class have yet to be deployed. The promise, and subsequent failure, of Silicon Valley 'techno-solutionism' (Morozov, 2013) represents the apogee of this liberal post-politics as the most rapacious rent-seeking corporations manage to stand in for deliberative democratic ideals and community empowerment. In the face of the obscene revanchist populism of Trump the Clinton campaign clung to a tech and data fetishism that would supersede an absent political core while somehow managing the indeterminacy of the political. The scope and consequences of Clinton's failure simply cannot be accounted for in the liberal symbolic universe. Within a matter of months American liberalism has swung wildly from a data-informed surety to paranoia and psychosis in order to avoid a confrontation with the traumatic core of political identity. Trump cannot be explained as a symptom of popular alienation, Democratic party corruption or the fecklessness of the technocratic elite. Both Trump and the Bernie Sanders-left that would fight him in populist terms represent the intrusion of the remnants of history and foreign subversion orchestrated by 'the secret agent who is stealing social jouissance from us' (Žižek, 1997: 43); the Russians. " Russiagate " has become the means by which American liberals have attempted to preserve a technocratic authority
American Literary History
Presidential Campaign Autobiographies 2020
Stephen M. Fallon
A Mythologist Looks at the Election of 2020
Barry Spector
The war is not meant to be won; it is meant to be continuous.-George Orwell Watch what we do, not what we say.-John Mitchell, Attorney General under Richard Nixon Let me be perfectly clear (Nixon said that). I want Biden to win in a landslide, win back the Senate, pick the next few Supreme Court Justices and send Trumpus (Trump = us) out beyond the safety of presidential immunity, where he can get prosecuted for at least some of his crimes. However, for me (in California) and most of you who live in reliably red or blue states, our votes are meaningless. If your passion remains strong, then work for him in the small number of states other than your own that will actually be in play, or work for local progressive candidates.
Trump, Sanders, and the Crisis of Neoliberalism
Richard E Greenblatt
We continue to live in the shadow of the Great Recession of 2008. The protracted and partial economic recovery has lead to a political and ideological crisis of neoliberalism. Understanding the causes and scope of this crisis of neoliberalism can give us insight into US politics, both left, right, and center. I first consider the neoliberal role in reshaping the postwar US political economy, and then consider its current implications, as embodied especially in the politics of Trump and Sanders. along with the potential role that the Green Party might play. Neoliberalism is based on an ideological foundation for capitalist political economy that emphasizes to the central role of so-called free markets both within nations and across national boundaries (identied with free trade, globalization, and multinationalism), and the primacy of traditional morality (especially traditionally derived Christian morality), centered on individual and family values, while diminishing (or entirely denying) the role (and even the existence) of society
Le nouveau populisme américain : Résistances et alternatives face à Trump.
The New American Populism: Resistance and Alternatives. Oct 2017
2018 •
Dan La Botz
This is the English language version of my book Le nouveau populisme américain : Résistances et alternatives face à Trump. Paris: Syllepse, May 2018. The English language version differs somewhat from the French translation and it contains more complete footnotes.
Polity
Left Turn on a Red Light? Challenges and Decisions Facing Liberals and Progressives After 2016
Nicole Mellow
Mayor Pete, Obergefell Gays, and White Male Privilege
2021 •
Russell Robinson
Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, New York Office
Joe Biden: A Winner as Loser. On the outcome of the US Presidential Election 2020
2020 •
Ingar Solty
Capitalism Nature Socialism
Trump’s Electoral Triumph: Class, Race, Gender, and the Hegemony of the Polluter-Industrial Complex
Daniel Faber
