Introduction/ The meaning of Trump
1. Berardi, F. (2017). Futurability: the age of impotence and the horizon of possibility. Brooklyn: Verso Books. Kindle Edition, Location 2831.
2. Kelly, K. (2017). The inevitable: understanding the 12 technological forces that will shape our future. New York, NY: Penguin USA, pp. 7-8.
3. In the same place, pp. 87-88.
4. Dionne, E. J., Ornstein, N. J., and Mann, T. E. (2017). One nation after Trump: a guide for the perplexed, the disillusioned, the desperate, and the not-yet deported. New York: St. Martins Press. See chapter 5,”Phony Friend of the Working Class.”
5. Zizek, S. (2014). The universal exception. London: Bloomsbury, p. 197.
6. Kelly, K. (2017). The inevitable: understanding the 12 technological forces that will shape our future. New York, NY: Penguin USA, pp. 87-88.
7. Spence, L. (2015). Knocking the hustle: against the neoliberal turn in black politics. Brooklyn, NY: Punctum. Kindle Edition, p. 2.
8. Andersen, K. (2017). Fantasyland: how America went haywire: a 500-year history. New York: Random House, p.5. Andersen states here, “The American experiment, the original embodiment of the great Enlightenment ideas of intellectual freedom, every individual free to believe anything she wishes, has metastasized out of control. From the start, our ultra individualism was attached to epic dreams, sometimes epic fantasies – every American one of God’s chosen people building a custom made utopia, each of us free to reinvent himself by imagination and will. In America, those more exciting parts of the Enlightenment idea have swamped the sober, rational, and empirical parts.”
9. See, Berardi, F., Genosko, G., and Thoburn, N. (2011). After the future. Edinburgh: AK Press.
10. Chomsky, N. (2016). Who rules the world? New York: Metropolitan Books. See chapter 23,”Masters of Mankind.”
11. For instance see, Spencer, H., and Stolberg, S. G. (2017, August 11). White Nationalists March on University of Virginia. Retrieved October 29, 2017, from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/11/us/white-nationalists-rally-charlottes-ville-virginia.html
12. See, Zizek, S. (2008). For they know not what they do: enjoyment as a political factor. London: Verso.
13. Trejos, N. (2017, June 07). Trump Hotels to start new mid-scale brand. Retrieved October 26, 2017, from https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/roadwarriorvoices/2017/06/06/trump-hotels-start-new-mid-scale-brand/102559286/
14. Gandel, S. (2016, September 27). Trump Says NAFTA Was the Worst Trade Deal the U.S. Ever Signed (n.d.). Retrieved August 3, 2017, from http://fortune.com/2016/09/27/presidential-debate-nafta-agreement/
15. For instance, see Walmart Closes Stores, Leaving Small Towns with No Groceries (n.d.). Retrieved October 26, 2017, from http://time.com/money/4192512/walmart-stores-closing-small-towns/
16. Berry, W. (2016). Our only world: ten essays. Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint. Kindle Edition, pp. 55-56. Berry speaks at length about how one’s “job” in an industrialized economy is spoken about in a completely abstract, near mathematical way – completely divorced from the actual work, or quality, of a human being’s daily labor. He states, “This word, as we now use it in political cliches such as ‘job creation,’ entirely dissociates the idea of work from any idea of calling or vocation or vocational choice. A ‘job’ exists without reference to anybody in particular or any place in particular. If a person loses a ‘job’ in Eastern Kentucky and finds a ‘job’ in Alabama, then he has ceased to be ‘unemployed’ and has become ‘employed,’ it does not matter who the person is or what or where the ‘job’ is. ‘Employment’ in a ‘job’ completely satisfies the social aim of the industrial economy and its industrial government.”
17. Berry, W. (2016). Our only world: ten essays. Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint. Kindle Edition, See chapter 6, “Caught in the Middle”, pp. 73-96.
18. Zizek, S. (2016). Against the double blackmail: refugees, terror and other troubles with the neighbours. London: Penguin Books, pp. 1-9.
19. Fisher, E. (2013). Media and new capitalism in the digital age: the spirit of networks. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. See chapter 3, “Network Market.”
20. Berardi, F. (2017). Futurability: the age of impotence and the horizon of possibility. Brooklyn: Verso Books. Kindle Edition, Locations 253-392.
21. Frances, A. (2017). Twilight of American sanity: a psychiatrist analyzes the age of Trump. New York: HarperCollins, pp. 1-7.
22. Atkins, D. (2017, July 7). It Was Prejudice. It Was Economics. It Was Both. Retrieved September 3, 2017, from http://prospect.org/article/it-was-prejudice-it-was-economics-it-was-both
23. For instance, see Sykes, C. (2017, October 16). How the right lost its mind, sold its soul and embraced Donald Trump. Retrieved December 29, 2017, from http://www.news-week.com/2017/09/29/right-lost-mind-embraced-donald-trump-668180.html
24. Berardi, F. (2017). Futurability: the age of impotence and the horizon of possibility. Brooklyn: Verso Books. Kindle Edition, Location 632.
Chapter 1
25. Berry, W. (2010). What are people for?: essays. Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint. Kindle Edition, p. 133.
26. Berry, W. (2016). Our only world: Ten Essays. Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint. Kindle Edition, p. 10.
27. Badiou, A., Gauchet, M., Duru, M., Legros, M., and Spitzer, S. (2016). What is to be done?: a dialogue on communism, capitalism, and the future of democracy. Cambridge: Polity. Kindle Edition, p. 82.
28. In the same place.
29. American Capitalism’s Great Crisis and How to Fix It. (n.d.). Retrieved January 1, 2017, from http://time.com/4327419/american-capitalisms-great-crisis/
30. Harvey, D. (2005). A brief history of neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition, pp. 2-4.
31. Fisher, M. (2010). Capitalist realism: is there no alternative? Winchester, UK: Zero Books. Kindle Edition. See chapter 5, October 6, 1979: “Don’t let yourself get attached to anything.”
32. Rotella, C. (2004). Good with their hands: boxers, bluesmen, and other characters from the Rust Belt. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, pp. 6-7, 23-25.
33. We should also remember that America, with its Jeffersonian origins, was also an economy that was centered around local economies and local farming. This rural mode of economic production differentiates itself from both industrial and postindustrial capitalism.
34. Deleuze, G. (1990). Postscript on Societies of Control. L’Autre Journal, no. 1 (May 1990).
35. Aranda, J., and Diederichsen, D. (2011). Are you working too much?: post-Fordism, precarity, and the labor of art. Berlin: Sternberg Press. Kindle Edition, Location 1774-1801.
36. Berardi, F. (2009). The soul at work. South Pasadena: Semiotext(e), pp. 76-77.
37. In the same place.
38. Exemplary here is the fact that neoliberal globalization has not only turned our bodies into organs of capital circulation, but also the fact that it is colonizing what we could call our spiritual experience through neoliberal ideologues such as Tony Robbins, Gary Vee, and Brendon Burchard. The point here is not to criticize these people as malicious individuals (which I don’t believe they are by any stretch) but rather to see their presence as softening the blow of neoliberal ideology. For instance, see, Burchard, B. (2017). High performance habits: how extraordinary people become that way. Carlsbad: Hay House, Inc.
39. This is not to say that labor does not still run, at least hypothetically, along “shifts” today. The point is rather the fact that in the contemporary environment of “immaterial” labor that performs its work online – where industrial, clocked time is entirely irrelevant – work happens in a much more fluid, mentally centered, non-temporal way.
40. Williams, A., and Snricek, N. (2015). Inventing the future: postcapitalism and a world without work. Brooklyn: Verso, Location 1225-1232.
41. Fisher, E. (2013). Media and new capitalism in the digital age: the spirit of networks. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, p. 6.
42. Fisher, M. (2016, January 27). Donald Trump ignored his agent and did reality TV. It changed everything. Retrieved March 1, 2017, from http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2016/01/27/deciders-trump/?utm_term=.346f3f803fc5
43. Ebert, J. D. (2011). The new media invasion: digital technologies and the world they unmake. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., Inc.
44. Srnicek, N. (2017). Platform capitalism. Cambridge, UK: Polity. Kindle Edition. Location 469-477.
Chapter 2
45. The Inaugural Address (n.d.). Retrieved August 1, 2017, from https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/the-inaugural-address/
46. He technically made these remarks in 2015 just after he had announced he would be running in the 2016 election.
47. Posted by Ian Schwartz on June 16, 2015. Trump: Mexico Not Sending Us Their Best; Criminals, Drug Dealers And Rapists Are Crossing Border. Retrieved January 11, 2017, from https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/06/16/trump_mexico_not_sending_us_their_best_criminals_drug_dealers_and_rapists_are_crossing_border.html
48. For example, see Galeano, E. (2009). Open veins of Latin America: five centuries of the pillage of a continent. London: Profile Books, pp. 205-208.
49. Linskey, A. (2016, September 10) Being white, and a minority, in Georgia – The Boston Globe. Retrieved September 10, 2016, from https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2016/09/10/being-white-and-minority-georgia/PpBh-8303fUVlfkYUDgQeuN/story.html
50. Culkin, B. (2017). There is no such thing as Boston: gentrification and the disappearance of a city. Charleston: Create Space. See chapter 4,”From Oxycontin to Heroin.”
51. Bauman, Z. (2007). Liquid times: living in an age of uncertainty. Cambridge: Polity Press, p. 1. Bauman states here, summarizing the general conditions of contemporary globalization: “First of all, the passage from the ‘solid’ to a ‘liquid’ phase of modernity: that is, into a condition in which social forms … can no longer (and are not expected) to keep their shape for long, because they decompose and melt faster than the time it takes to cast them, and once they are cast for them to set. Forms, whether already present, or only adumbrated, are unlikely to be given enough time to solidify, and cannot serve as frames of reference for human actions and long term strategies.”
52. Badiou, A. (2012). The rebirth of history. London: Verso, pp. 9-10.
53. Hoxie, J. (2017, November 3). Trump’s Tax Cuts Are the Biggest Wealth Grab in Modern History. Retrieved November 3, 2017, from http://fortune.com/2017/11/03/trump-gop-tax-plan-cuts-2017/
54. Bradshaw, P. (2017, December 07). Human Flow review – Ai Weiwei surveys shocking plight of migrants on the move | Peter Bradshaw’s film of the week. Retrieved December 9, 2017, from https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/dec/07/human-flow-review-ai-weiwei-migration-documentary
55. Badiou, A. (2016). Our wound is not so recent: thinking the Paris killings of 13 November. Malden, MA: Polity Press. Kindle Edition, Location 743.
56. See, Brooklyn, Jim Sheridan. BBC Films, 2016.
57. The White Working Class. (2017, June 01). Retrieved June 01, 2017, from http://prospect.org/article/white-working-class
58. Myerson, H. (2017, June 22). Place Matters. Retrieved June 22, 2017, from http://prospect.org/article/place-matters
59. Tibbets, J. (2016, November 20) This Is How The Democrats Betrayed The Working Class. Retrieved December 6, 2017, from https://thepavlovictoday.com/naked-opinion/democrats-betrayed-working-class/
60. Thompson, D. (2017, March 23). Trump’s Populist Mirage. Retrieved June 04, 2017, from https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/03/trumps-populist-mirage/520599/
61. Badiou, A. (2017). The true life. Cambridge: Polity, p. 38. Badiou states here, “The second alternative is the reactive desire for a return to traditional – that is, hierarchical – symbolization. The desire is often concealed in the guise of some religious narrative or other, whether it’s a question of Protestant sects in the US, reactionary Islam in the Middle East, or the return to ritualistic Judaism in Europe. But it can also live in nationalistic hierarchies … pure and simple racism.”
62. In the same place, p. 37. Badiou states here, “The first is the never-ending defense of capitalism and its empty freedoms,” undermined as they are by the sterile neutrality of market determination alone. Let’s call this alternative the appeal to what I call “the desire for the West.”
63. Brown, W. (2010). Walled states, waining sovereignty. New York: Zone Books, p. 24.
64. For a thorough analysis of neoliberalism see, Harvey, D. (2005). A brief history of neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.
65. Badiou, A. (2017). The true life. Cambridge: Polity. See chapter 1, “To be young, today: sense and nonsense.”
66. Swanson, A. (2017, October 11). Trump’s Tough Talk on Nafta Raises Prospects of Pact’s Demise. Retrieved October 11, 2017, from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/11/business/economy/nafta-trump.html
67. Zizek, S. (n.d.). How to Read Lacan | SLAVOJ ZIZEK. Retrieved January 2, 2018, from http://www.lacan.com/essays/?page_id=261
68. There was, of course, white-collar office work during the period of industrialized capitalism. But this kind of cognitive labor was still run along a “9–5” shift and was markedly different to the cognitive labor that now appears in our postindustrial economy. And, in rural America, there was the reality of local farm communities and agricultural labor.
69. Berardi, F. (2009). The soul at work: From alienation to autonomy. Los Angeles, CA: Semiotext(e), pp. 115-117.
70. In the same place.
71. Berry, W. (2010). What are people for?: essays. Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint. Kindle Edition, pp. 130-132.
72. In the same place.
73. Brittan, S. (2013, April 18). Thatcher was right - there is no ‘society.’ Retrieved October 2, 2017, from https://www.ft.com/content/d1387b70-a5d5-11e2-9b77-00144feabdc0
74. Bateman, O. (2016, October 05). Why the “Safe-Space” Debate Is a Problem for Adjuncts. Retrieved October 5, 2016, from https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/10/a-power-struggle-inside-safe-spaces/502859/
75. Buchanan, M. (2002). Nexus: small worlds and the groundbreaking theory of networks. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, pp. 41-46.
76. Culkin, B. (2017). There is no such thing as Boston: gentrification and the disappearance of a city. Charleston: Create Space. See chapter 3, “Gate of Heaven and the Religion of Yuppies.”
77. Vitali, A. (2017, November 27). Trump calls Warren “Pocahontas” at event honoring Native Americans. Retrieved November 27, 2017, from https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-calls-warren-pocahontas-event-honoring-native-americans-n824266
78. Zizek, S. (2014). The universal exception. London: Bloomsbury. p. xv (from Preface to the paperback edition) Zizek states here, in reference to the importance of civility as “the social substance” of autonomous individuals, that “If this substance disintegrates, then the social space of the individual is foreclosed.” The point is that, whether it be from overly monitored PC language or Trump’s style of brashness, we are in either case witnessing a collapse of our shared social space.
79. Beckwith, R. (2017, October 24). Donald Trump’s Twitter Attacks on Bob Corker, Fact Checked. Retrieved October 24, 2017, from http://time.com/4994789/donald-trump-twitter-bob-corker/
80. Berardi, F., Genosko, G., and Thoburn, N. (2011). After the future. Edinburgh: AK Press, p. 55.
81. Kevin Kelly (1993). Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, and the Economic World, p. 33. Quoted from Berardi, F. (2017). Futurability: the age of impotence and the horizon of possibility. Brooklyn: Verso Books. Kindle Edition, Locations 2990-2991.
82. Flood, A. (2017, November 01). Fake news is “very real” word of the year for 2017. Retrieved November 1, 2017, from https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/nov/02/fake-news-is-very-real-word-of-the-year-for-2017
83. Stolberg, S. G. (2017, October 24). Jeff Flake, a Fierce Trump Critic, Will Not Seek Re-election for Senate. Retrieved October 24, 2017, from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/24/us/politics/jeff-flake-arizona.html
Chapter 3
84. Baudrillard, J., Smith, R. G., and Clarke, D. B. (2015). Jean Baudrillard from hyperreality to disappearance: uncollected interviews. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Kindle Edition, Location 3642.
85. Goldman, A., and Rappeport, A. (2016, October 28). Emails in Anthony Weiner Inquiry Jolt Hillary Clinton’s Campaign. Retrieved October 31, 2017, from https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/29/us/politics/fbi-hillary-clinton-email.html
86. Parks, M., Farrington, D., and Taylor, J. (2017, May 15). The James Comey Saga, In Timeline Form. Retrieved December 1, 2017, from https://www.npr.org/2017/05/15/527773206/what-just-happened-the-james-comey-saga-in-timeline-form
87. Holmes, B. (2009). Escape the overcode: activist art in the control society. Eindhoven: Van Abbemuseum.
88. Zizek, S. (2012, August 28). Slavoj Zizek: Don’t Act. Just Think. Retrieved December 5, 2017, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgR6uaVqWsQ
89. Zizek, S. (2008). Violence. New York: Picador, p. 7.
90. Zizek, S. (2012, August 28). Slavoj Zizek: Don’t Act. Just Think. Retrieved December 5, 2017, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgR6uaVqWsQ
91. See, Howard, P. K. (2011). The death of common sense: how law is suffocating America. New York: Random House, pp. 50-53. Howard states here, “Rationalism, the bright dream of figuring out everything in advance and setting it forth in a centralized regulatory system, has made us blind. Obsessed with certainty, we see almost nothing … Rationalism looms before us with more logic than we can possibly respond to, demanding almost all our energy, but ultimately not making any sense. In other words, too much “rationality” — as in trying to portray human life as a mirror of digital, binary logic — forecloses the very possibility of common sense and public space.
92. Trump, D. (2015). Time to Get Tough: Making America Great Again! Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, a division of Salem Media Group, p. 8.
Epilogue
93. Ebert, J. D. (2011). The new media invasion: digital technologies and the world they unmake. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., Inc, pp. 23-24.
94. Zizek, S. (2014). The universal exception. London: Bloomsbury. See chapter 9, “Multiculturalism, or, the cultural logic of multinational capitalism.”
95. Fisher, M. (2010). Capitalist realism: is there no alternative? Winchester, UK: Zero Books. Kindle Edition, p. 4.