The Public in Peril
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The Public in Peril This is one of the first books to critique thoroughly the rise of Trumpism and its potential impact, nationally and globally. One of the world’s leading social critics, Giroux offers new critiques of Trump and his cabinet choices in the context of longer-term trends, including the rise of right-wing populism, the threat of planetary peril, anti-intellectual fervor, the war on youth, a narrowing political discourse, deepening inequality and disposability, authoritarianism, the crisis of civic culture, the rise of the mass incarceration state, and more. Giroux dissects the diverse forces that led to Trump’s rise and points to pathways for resisting his authoritarian instincts. Offering a new language of hope and possibility, Giroux’s optimism is rooted especially in the resurgence of progressive politics among youth. Giroux reclaims the centrality of education to politics and boldly articulates a vision in which the radical imagination merges with civic courage as part of a broad-based struggle for a radical democracy. Deep inquiries into fast-changing and pressing issues of our time make this book ‘the essential Giroux’ that citizens and students must read, debate, and act upon. Henry A. Giroux is currently the McMaster University Professor for Scholarship in the Public Interest and the Paulo Freire Distinguished Scholar in Critical Pedagogy. His most recent books include Dangerous Thinking in the Age of the New Authoritarianism (2015), co- authored with Brad Evans, Disposable Futures: The Seduction of Violence in the Age of Spectacle (2015), and America at War with Itself (2017). Critical Interventions: Politics, Culture, and the Promise of Democracy Edited by Henry A. Giroux, Susan Searls Giroux, and Kenneth J. Saltman Twilight of the Social Resurgent Publics in the Age of Disposability By Henry A. Giroux (2011) Youth in Revolt Reclaiming a Democratic Future By Henry A. Giroux (2012) The Failure of Corporate School Reform By Kenneth J. Saltman (2012) Toward a New Common School Movement By Noah De Lissovoy, Alexander J. Means, and Kenneth J. Saltman (2015) The Great Inequality By Michael D. Yates (2016) Elsewhere in America The Crisis of Belonging in Contemporary Culture By David Trend (2016) Scripted Bodies Corporate Power, Smart Technology, and the Undoing of Public Education By Kenneth J. Saltman (2016) Gender for the Warfare State Literature of Women in Combat By Robin Truth Goodman (2016) Disposable Americans Extreme Capitalism and the Case for a Guaranteed Income By Paul Buchheit (2017) The Public in Peril Trump and the Menace of American Authoritarianism By Henry A. Giroux (2017) The Public in Peril Trump and the Menace of American Authoritarianism Henry A. Giroux First published 2018 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2018 Henry A. Giroux The right of Henry A. Giroux to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-1-138-71905-7 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-138-71903-3 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-17323-8 (ebk) Typeset in Adobe Caslon Pro, Copperplate and Trade Gothic by Florence Production Ltd, Stoodleigh, Devon, UK For Muhammad Ali and James Baldwin who taught me how to flip the script and struggle with dignity, courage, and hope CONTENTS Acknowledgments Introduction: Militant Hope in the Age of American Authoritarianism 1 Part I Rethinking Politics and the Post Racial 19 Chapter 1 Anti-Politics and the Torturing of Democracy 21 With Debaditya Bhattacharya Chapter 2 White Supremacy and Racial Cleansing under the Regime of Donald Trump 51 Chapter 3 Authoritarianism in the Age of Manufactured Illiteracy 74 Part II Youth, Crisis, and the Politics of Domestic Terrorism 95 VII VIII CONTENTS Chapter 4 Terrorizing School Children in the American Police State 97 Chapter 5 Domestic Terrorism, Youth, and the Politics of Disposability 117 Chapter 6 Lyrical Fascism and Thinking Dangerously in a Time of Weaponized Ignorance 140 Part III Beyond Neoliberal Education 163 Chapter 7 Defending Educators in the Struggle for Democratic Renewal 165 Chapter 8 Towards a Politics of Courage in Dark Times 182 Part IV Resisting Neoliberalism’s Dystopian Future 207 Chapter 9 Isolation and Loss in Trump’s Dystopia 209 Chapter 10 Reclaiming the Radical Imagination under Neoliberal Authoritarianism 228 Chapter 11 Rethinking Resistance in the Second Gilded Age 259 Epilogue 291 Index 295 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Many of the ideas that inform this book first surfaced in articles I wrote for Truthout, CounterPunch, Knowledge Cultures, Monthly Review, Symploke, Tikkun, and Social Identities. Much of Chapter 1 draws upon “Anti-Politics and the Scourge of Authoritarianism,” co-authored with Debaditya Bhattacharya, which appeared in Social Identities (August 11, 2016). I am grateful to Maya Schenwar and Alana Price from Truthout for their continued support and copious editing talents. I am also indebted to Jeffrey St. Clair at CounterPunch and Michael Lerner at Tikkun for supporting my work. Thanks to Ken Saltman and Brad Evans for taking the time to engage my work and provide insightful recommendations. Leila Gaind was very helpful with her initial edit of the manuscript. My wife, Susan, has been an enormous help in pushing me to the edges of critique and informed analyses. It has become impossible for me to write anything without having the benefit of her brilliance, editing skills, and love and support. My assistant, Maya Sabados, read every page of this book more than once and was invaluable in her editing, listening, and support. I could not have finished this book without her research and editing skills. A number of people have supported my work over the last decade in spite of the lack of support I have received from institutions that should know better. Many thanks to Oscar Zambrano, Michael Yates, Michael Peters, Donaldo Macedo, IX X ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Peter McLaren, Brad Evans, Greg Ruggiero, Robin Goodman, and David Clark. My editor at Routledge, Dean Birkenkamp, has been a friend for longer than I can remember and this book would not have been written without his encouragement. I also want to thank the three unnamed individuals who reviewed this manuscript for their insights and help. I have been blessed with having a number of brilliant students in my classes at McMaster. They may have taught me a lot more than I taught them, and I am forever grateful for that gift. INTRODUCTION: MILITANT HOPE IN THE AGE OF AMERICAN AUTHORITARIANISM To be truly radical is to make hope possible rather than despair inevitable. (Raymond Williams) The United States stands at the endpoint of a long series of attacks on democracy, and the choices faced by the American public today point to the divide between those who are committed to democracy and those who are not. Debates over whether Donald Trump was a fascist or Hillary Clinton was a right-wing warmonger and tool of Wall Street were a tactical diversion. The real questions that should have been debated include: What measures could have been taken to prevent the United States from sliding further into a distinctive form of author- itarianism? And what could have been done to imagine a mode of civic courage and militant hope needed to enable the promise of a democracy as a governing principle? Such questions take on a significant urgency in light of the election of Donald Trump to the presidency. Under such circumstances, not only is the public in peril, it is on the brink of collapse as the economic, political, and cultural institutions necessary for democracy to survive are being aggressively undermined. As Robert Kuttner observes: 1 2 INTRODUCTION It is hard to contemplate the new administration without experiencing alarm bordering on despair: Alarm about the risks of war, the fate of constitutional democracy, the devastation of a century of social progress. Trump’s populism was a total fraud. Every single Trump appointment has come from the pool of far-right conservatives, crackpots, and billionaire kleptocrats. More alarming still is the man himself—his vanity, impulsivity, and willful ignorance, combined with an intuitive genius as a demagogue. A petulant fifth-grader with nuclear weapons will now control the awesome power of the U.S. government. One has to nourish the hope that Trump can yet be contained. Above all, that will take passionate and strategic engagement, not just to resist but to win, to discredit him and get him out of office while this is still a democracy. We can feel sick at heart—we would be fools not to—but despair is not an option.1 Kuttner rightly mitigates such despair with a call for resistance. Yet, such deep-seated anxiety is not unwarranted given the willingness of contemporary politicians and pundits during the 2016 presidential battle to use themes that echoed alarmingly fascist and totalitarian elements of the past. According to Drucilla Cornell and Stephen D. Seely, Trump’s campaign mobilized a movement that was “unambiguously fascist.”2 They write: We are not using the word “fascist” glibly here.