On the Question of Truth in the Era of Trump

On the Question of Truth in the Era of Trump
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 173
Release: 2020-04-28
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9004431608

Using a range of critical perspectives, On the Question of Truth in the Era of Trump closely examines notions of “truth in crisis” leading up to and after the election of Donald Trump. The authors explore how truth is constructed along the lines of race, social class, and gender as filtered through the self-referential characteristics of social media in particular. The authors assert that the US left has shown itself inadequate to the task of confronting right wing ideologies, which have only intensified since the 2016 election, resulting in increased mobilization of white supremacist and nationalist groups. Whether underestimating Trump by downplaying the threat of his candidacy during the primaries, trivializing the concerns of women and minorities as “identity politics,” or rushing to prioritize the free speech rights of the far-right, left academics and the media have found themselves unable to use their traditional arsenal of evidence, rational discourse, and appeals to diversity of viewpoints. The authors assert that political resistance to the right is not a matter of playful use of signs and symbols or discourse alone and has to be fought directly and in solidarity. At this point, it is clear that Trump and his supporters have not just deployed relativism as a form of strategy, but have fully weaponized it against their perceived enemies: women, immigrants, minorities, LGBTQ people along with educational, scientific, and journalistic institutions. It is hoped that this in-depth, critical dissection of truth in the current political reality will assist in the project of resistance. Contributors are: Faith Agostinone-Wilson, Mike Cole, Jeremy T. Godwin, Jones Irwin, Austin Pickup, Daniel Ian Rubin, and Eric C. Sheffield.

Never Enough

Never Enough
Author: Michael D'Antonio
Publisher: Macmillan
Total Pages: 400
Release: 2015-09-22
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1466840420

In the summer of 2015, as he vaulted to the lead among the many GOP candidates for president, Donald Trump was the only one dogged by questions about his true intentions. This most famous American businessman had played the role of provocateur so often that pundits, reporters, and voters struggled to believe that he was a serious contender. Trump stirred so much controversy that his candidacy puzzled anyone who applied ordinary political logic to the race. But as Michael D'Antonio shows in Never Enough, Trump has rarely been ordinary in his pursuit of success and his trademark method is based on a logic that begins with his firm belief that he is a singular and superior human being. As revealed in this landmark biography, Donald Trump is a man whose appetite for wealth, attention, power, and conquest is practically insatiable. Declaring that he is still the person he was as a rascally little boy, Trump confesses that he avoids reflecting on himself "because I might not like what I see" and he believes "most people aren't worthy of respect." A product of the media age and the Me Generation that emerged in the 1970s, Trump was a Broadway showman before he became a developer. Mentored by the scoundrel attorney Roy Cohn, Trump was a regular on the New York club scene and won press attention as a dashing young mogul before he had built his first major project. He leveraged his father's enormous fortune and political connections to get his business off the ground, and soon developed a larger-than-life persona. In time, and through many setbacks, he made himself into a living symbol of extravagance and achievement. Drawing upon extensive and exclusive interviews with Trump and many of his family members, including all his adult children, D'Antonio presents the full story of a truly American icon, from his beginnings as a businessman to his stormy romantic life and his pursuit of power in its many forms. For all those who wonder: Just who is Donald Trump?, Never Enough supplies the answer. He is a promoter, builder, performer and politician who pursues success with a drive that borders on obsession and yet, has given him, almost everything he ever wanted.

What Were We Thinking

What Were We Thinking
Author: Carlos Lozada
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2020-10-06
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1982145625

The Washington Post’s Pulitzer Prize–winning book critic uses the books of the Trump era to argue that our response to this presidency reflects the same failures of imagination that made it possible. As a book critic for The Washington Post, Carlos Lozada has read some 150 volumes claiming to diagnose why Trump was elected and what his presidency reveals about our nation. Many of these, he’s found, are more defensive than incisive, more righteous than right. In What Were We Thinking, Lozada uses these books to tell the story of how we understand ourselves in the Trump era, using as his main characters the political ideas and debates at play in America today. He dissects works on the white working class like Hillbilly Elegy; manifestos from the anti-Trump resistance like On Tyranny and No Is Not Enough; books on race, gender, and identity like How to Be an Antiracist and Good and Mad; polemics on the future of the conservative movement like The Corrosion of Conservatism; and of course plenty of books about Trump himself. Lozada’s argument is provocative: that many of these books—whether written by liberals or conservatives, activists or academics, Trump’s true believers or his harshest critics—are vulnerable to the same blind spots, resentments, and failures that gave us his presidency. But Lozada also highlights the books that succeed in illuminating how America is changing in the 21st century. What Were We Thinking is an intellectual history of the Trump era in real time, helping us transcend the battles of the moment and see ourselves for who we really are.

On Tyranny

On Tyranny
Author: Timothy Snyder
Publisher: Crown
Total Pages: 130
Release: 2017-02-28
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0804190119

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A “bracing” (Vox) guide for surviving and resisting America’s turn towards authoritarianism, from “a rising public intellectual unafraid to make bold connections between past and present” (The New York Times) “Timothy Snyder reasons with unparalleled clarity, throwing the past and future into sharp relief. He has written the rare kind of book that can be read in one sitting but will keep you coming back to help regain your bearings.”—Masha Gessen The Founding Fathers tried to protect us from the threat they knew, the tyranny that overcame ancient democracy. Today, our political order faces new threats, not unlike the totalitarianism of the twentieth century. We are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience. On Tyranny is a call to arms and a guide to resistance, with invaluable ideas for how we can preserve our freedoms in the uncertain years to come.

Preaching in the Era of Trump

Preaching in the Era of Trump
Author: O. Wesley Allen
Publisher: Chalice Press
Total Pages: 89
Release: 2017-03-28
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0827231490

Now more than ever, it's time to preach. The election of Donald Trump left countless faith leaders across the country speechless. Now that he is president, silence must give way to prophetic preaching. Christians have long debated whether politics should be addressed from the pulpit. Following Donald Trump's controversial, divisive rise to power and the sweeping changes his fledgling administration has already proposed, that's no longer a question -- political preaching will be the order of the day, even for pastors who try to steer clear of controversy. It's up to preachers to make the church great again by leading it to embrace and embody God's concern for those whose lives are at stake in a Trump administration. Veteran teacher, preacher, and author Wes Allen offers a blueprint for addressing current events through a Gospel lens, persuasively and pastorally-- without engaging in divisive, antagonistic rhetoric. Available in EPUB, EPDF, and paperback

After the Fact

After the Fact
Author: Nathan Bomey
Publisher: Prometheus Books
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2018
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1633883779

This trenchant analysis examines the many ways our society's increasingly tenuous commitment to facts laid the groundwork for Donald Trump's rise to power. Award-winning journalist Nathan Bomey argues that Trump did not usher the post-truth era into being. He was its inevitable outcome. Bomey points to recent trends that have created the perfect seedbed for spin, distortion, deception, and bald-faced lies: shifting news habits, the rise of social media, the spread of entrenched ideologies, and the failure of schools to teach basic critical-thinking skills The evidence supporting the author's argument is all around us: On Facebook, we present images of our lives that ignore the truth and intentionally deceive our friends and family. We consume fake news stories online and carelessly circulate false rumors. In politics, we vote for leaders who leverage political narratives that favor ideology over science. And in our schools, we fail to teach students how to authenticate information. After the Fact explores how the convergence of technology, politics, and media has ushered in the misinformation age, sidelining the truth and threatening our core principle of community.

Trump: The Art of the Deal

Trump: The Art of the Deal
Author: Donald J. Trump
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Total Pages: 401
Release: 2009-12-23
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0307575330

President Donald J. Trump lays out his professional and personal worldview in this classic work—a firsthand account of the rise of America’s foremost deal-maker. “I like thinking big. I always have. To me it’s very simple: If you’re going to be thinking anyway, you might as well think big.”—Donald J. Trump Here is Trump in action—how he runs his organization and how he runs his life—as he meets the people he needs to meet, chats with family and friends, clashes with enemies, and challenges conventional thinking. But even a maverick plays by rules, and Trump has formulated time-tested guidelines for success. He isolates the common elements in his greatest accomplishments; he shatters myths; he names names, spells out the zeros, and fully reveals the deal-maker’s art. And throughout, Trump talks—really talks—about how he does it. Trump: The Art of the Deal is an unguarded look at the mind of a brilliant entrepreneur—the ultimate read for anyone interested in the man behind the spotlight. Praise for Trump: The Art of the Deal “Trump makes one believe for a moment in the American dream again.”—The New York Times “Donald Trump is a deal maker. He is a deal maker the way lions are carnivores and water is wet.”—Chicago Tribune “Fascinating . . . wholly absorbing . . . conveys Trump’s larger-than-life demeanor so vibrantly that the reader’s attention is instantly and fully claimed.”—Boston Herald “A chatty, generous, chutzpa-filled autobiography.”—New York Post

Language in the Trump Era

Language in the Trump Era
Author: Janet McIntosh
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 323
Release: 2020-09-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 1108841147

By examining Trump's verbal techniques, this book illuminates how he employs words to power his presidency whilst scandalizing the world.

I'll Take Your Questions Now

I'll Take Your Questions Now
Author: Stephanie Grisham
Publisher: HarperCollins
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2021-10-05
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0063142953

The most frank and intimate portrait of the Trump White House yet Stephanie Grisham rose from being a junior press wrangler on the Trump campaign in 2016 to assuming top positions in the administration as White House press secretary and communications director, while at the same time acting as First Lady Melania Trump’s communications director and eventually chief of staff. Few members of the Trump inner circle served longer or were as close to the first family as Stephanie Grisham, and few had her unique insight into the turbulent four years of the administration, especially the personalities behind the headlines.

Democracy and Truth

Democracy and Truth
Author: Sophia Rosenfeld
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Total Pages: 221
Release: 2018-12-31
Genre: History
ISBN: 0812250842

"Fake news," wild conspiracy theories, misleading claims, doctored photos, lies peddled as facts, facts dismissed as lies—citizens of democracies increasingly inhabit a public sphere teeming with competing claims and counterclaims, with no institution or person possessing the authority to settle basic disputes in a definitive way. The problem may be novel in some of its details—including the role of today's political leaders, along with broadcast and digital media, in intensifying the epistemic anarchy—but the challenge of determining truth in a democratic world has a backstory. In this lively and illuminating book, historian Sophia Rosenfeld explores a longstanding and largely unspoken tension at the heart of democracy between the supposed wisdom of the crowd and the need for information to be vetted and evaluated by a learned elite made up of trusted experts. What we are witnessing now is the unraveling of the détente between these competing aspects of democratic culture. In four bracing chapters, Rosenfeld substantiates her claim by tracing the history of the vexed relationship between democracy and truth. She begins with an examination of the period prior to the eighteenth-century Age of Revolutions, where she uncovers the political and epistemological foundations of our democratic world. Subsequent chapters move from the Enlightenment to the rise of both populist and technocratic notions of democracy between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to the troubling trends—including the collapse of social trust—that have led to the rise of our "post-truth" public life. Rosenfeld concludes by offering suggestions for how to defend the idea of truth against the forces that would undermine it.