The Travails of Trumpification

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.