The Trouble with Trumpism: The Culture Wars for U.S. American Identity and the Normalization of Hate

Abstract

Pankaj Mishra’s Age of Anger provides a historical context for understanding the recent, global rise of authoritarian populist movements – all of which ultimately turn on issues of national identity and are fueled by a language of hate that sanctions exclusion, violence, and social unrest. Mishra’s framework is useful for evaluating Trumpism: a U.S. sociocultural movement that is at once both a representative and a unique form of populism, and one already particularly disruptive to world order. And yet, Mishra’s paradigm only takes us so far. This paper contends that, in addition to tolerating or endorsing misogyny, racism, and xenophobia, the language of Trumpism emphasizes hatred of the factual truth, arguably the most dangerous form of hate speech. By employing a larger historical context, this analysis seeks to shed some light onto why – despite a bewildering series of political events – the U.S. faces a very real likelihood that Donald Trump, a convicted felon, could win the 2024 U.S. presidential election.