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The Travails of Trumpification
by Timothy W. Luke
Release date: December 1, 2021
In this series of critical essays written over the course of Donald J. Trump’s presidency, from its chaotic early days to its calamitous end, Timothy W. Luke explores how the recent twists and turns in the civic life of the United States have precipitated a dangerous transformation of American political culture. Since 2016, Trump’s will to attain, and then retain, his office by whatever means necessary crossed red lines never before violated by any previous presidential administration. Even before his loss in the 2020 election, Trump sought to discredit America’s electoral process by challenging legal voting practices in key swing states on social media, in the courts, through executive agencies, and finally with violent riots, culminating in the disastrous attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Yet while Trump himself no longer remains president, the “Trumpification” of the American political system persists today, with the majority of Republican politicians as well as Trump’s millions of devoted followers still firmly in the grip of his influence. The goal of the critical probes collected in this volume is to evaluate the “travails,” or excessive tribulation, pain, hardship, anguish, and agony, that his dangerous demagoguery has inflicted—and continues to inflict—on the nation’s democratic institutions and processes.
Praise for Timothy W. Luke’s The Travails of Trumpification
“Democracy is in crisis in the United States, and under the Trump regime the crisis turned into an impending catastrophe. Timothy W. Luke’s The Travails of Trumpification provides a brilliant and much needed analysis of the forces that produced Trump and their dire consequences. It also provides an insightful and crucial rendering of the danger that Trumpism continues to pose to the nation. Luke provides both a language of critique and an urgent call to act quickly to prevent both the idea and the reality of democracy from coming to an end. This is a book that should be read by everyone concerned about the fate of the United States and the future itself.”
—Henry A. Giroux, McMaster University Professor for Scholarship in the Public Interest and Paulo Freire Distinguished Scholar in Critical Pedagogy
“Timothy W. Luke’s The Travails of Trumpification critically engages the rise, dangers, and continual threats to U.S. democracy generated by the Trump presidency. Luke documents that Trump was a malevolent figure even before his forays into politics, and took his arrogance, narcissistic self-interest, contempt for democracy and the public, and destructive tendencies into his presidency. This volume provides a comprehensive overview of the ‘Trumpification’ of America and how Trump, his prejudices, his policies, and his base continue to threaten U.S. democracy, the environment, and our health and well-being. Well documented and argued, this is a book every U.S. citizen should read who is concerned with the United States’ survival and the values and traditions that constitute the best aspects of U.S. democracy.”
—Douglas Kellner, author of The American Horror Show: Election 2016 and the Ascent of Donald J. Trump (2017) and American Nightmare: Donald Trump, Media Spectacle, and Authoritarian Populism (2016)
About the Author
Timothy W. Luke is University Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University. A longtime Telos editorial board member, he is the author, most recently, of Anthropocene Alerts: Critical Theory of the Contemporary as Ecocritique (Telos Press, 2019) and Screens of Power: Ideology, Domination, and Resistance in Informational Society, rev. ed. (Telos Press, 2020).
