Tag: Donald Trump

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Book review: The Presidency of Donald J. Trump: A First Historical Assessment

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With The Presidency of Donald J. Trump (2022) a prominent group of historians take on the challenge of providing a first historical assessment of an administration which editor Julian Zelizer describes as ‘unlike anything else American democracy had experienced in recent decades, if ever’ Oscar Winberg, PhD, reviews new book where leading historians provide perspective Donald Trump’s four turbulent years in the White House. Continue reading

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Book Review: Phantoms of a Beleaguered Republic: The Deep State and the Unitary Executive by Stephen Skowronek, John A. Dearborn, and Desmond King

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The Trump presidency was a period of unrelenting drama. Trump was often joined at centre stage by members of his own administration, cast as his adversaries. He described these previously anonymous bureaucrats as members of a hidden ‘Deep State’ within the government scheming to undermine his control over the executive branch.[1] Trump viewed the Article II vesting clause, which states that ‘[t]he executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States’ as having lodged all executive power in the presidency and, under that unitary executive theory, considered any resistance to his will to be a constitutional offence. He moved to stamp out all opposition within the government; frequently, as if to confirm Trump’s allegations of a rogue bureaucracy, the bureaucracy fought back. Continue reading

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Book Review: Trump and Us: What He Says and Why People Listen by Roderick P. Hart

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Roderick P. Hart’s book was written in a time noisy with the sounds and echoes of Donald Trump’s Twitter feed.  The political world is quieter now.  Former President Trump can hardly be heard from his Florida base.  He has not disappeared, and his continuing influence on the Republican Party and on the practice of US politics is evidenced by the nervous cotillion being performed around him.  Witness Senator Mitch McConnell who, in rapid succession, voted to acquit Trump in the second impeachment trial, made a speech excoriating Trump for his role in prompting the January 6th 2021 attack on the US Capitol, and only days later affirmed that he would ‘absolutely’ support Trump’s return to the White House should the Donald gain the GOP nomination in 2024. Continue reading

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Book Review: What Were We Thinking: A Brief Intellectual History of the Trump Era By Carlos Lozada

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Carlos Lozada. What Were We Thinking: A Brief Intellectual History of the Trump Era. (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2020). pp. 272. £20.  Even before Donald Trump’s election as president in 2016, numerous books began to appear that attempted to diagnose the Trump phenomenon and situate it in relation to American… Continue reading

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The Alt Right: Trump and Terrorism in the Digital Age (Part One)

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In November 2016, former real-estate millionaire and reality television personality Donald J. Trump was announced as the 45th President of the United States. During the Presidential campaign, Trump faced off against Hillary Clinton, the intended Democrat successor to Barack Obama. However, Trump usurped Clinton after an unexpected surge of support… Continue reading

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BOOK REVIEW: HILLBILLY ELEGY: A MEMOIR OF A FAMILY AND CULTURE IN CRISIS, BY J.D. VANCE

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Joe Bageant’s Deer Hunting with Jesus (2007) drew a global readership’s attention to underprivileged Appalachian communities. J.D. Vance replicates this with his memori Hillbilly Elegy. Published, like Nancy Isenberg’s White Trash, in 2016, Vance and Isenberg agree that despite constitutionally enshrined freedom, social mobility remains unattainable for many disenfranchised white working-class US citizens. Continue reading

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Media Coverage and the Presidential Election of 2016: Introducing the Series

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Much has been written about media coverage in American society since the beginning of the twentieth century, and much of it has been critical. Arguably one of the most notable works is Noam Chomsky and Edward Hermann’s, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (1988), which outlines the power of corporate media on molding public opinion and enforcing national conformity. However, since its publication thirty years ago, there has emerged a new form that has the potential to influence and reshape the impact of the media. Continue reading

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100 Years of Writing against Complicity : A Woman’s Place is in the Resistance

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How can writing escape complicity? As the 21st century version of nationalist authoritarian politics has internalised the postmodern recognition that language constructs reality, and warped it for its own purposes in Donald Trump’s ‘tweet-politics,’ a literature-focused backlash is developing. Katharina Donn discusses modernist and contemporary practices of hybrid women’s writing, and explores their politics of form. Continue reading

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Just one day to go: primaries are nearly over

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California, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Dakota are still missing but today, 7 June, the Democratic and Republican primaries are finally going to be over (the former, in fact, will have to wait until 14 June for the result of the District of Columbia). Since the competition is almost over, the debate seems to be less focused on polling data and more concentrated on looking forward to the conventions, which await both parties in the next few weeks. Continue reading