Trumpism: a disfigured Americanism

Mimi Yang ()
Additional contact information
Mimi Yang: Carthage College, Modern Languages

Palgrave Communications, 2018, vol. 4, issue 1, 1-13

Abstract: Abstract The current cultural turmoil in the U.S. is much associated with Trumpism. This article asserts that Trumpism has its ideological root in nativism, a cultural tradition perpetuated by John Higham. To point out the disfigured Americanism in Trumpism, this paper theorizes the vertical America and the horizontal America, and dissects their complex interplay and symbiosis in an evolving American culture. The vertical Americanism sets hierarchies to secure power and control as well as maintain racial and cultural “purity;” the horizontal Americanism, epitomized by Martin Luther King and Barack Obama, equalizes and connects across races, creeds, and social classes. The color line (in Dubois’ term) thus becomes a converging and diverging boundary between the two Americas; it harbors and delineates Trumpism. It is argued that disfigurement of Americanism comes from a disruptive and destructive interplay of the vertical and the horizontal in Trump’s America.

Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s41599-018-0170-0 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palcom:v:4:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1057_s41599-018-0170-0

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/palcomms/about

DOI: 10.1057/s41599-018-0170-0

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Palgrave Communications from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().