The legacy of Weimar?: Trump as Schmittean sovereign & Taubesean katechon

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University of Canterbury
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2020
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Grimshaw, Mike
Abstract

The Republican strategist Rick Wilson, a vocal opponent of Trump, concluded his indictment of Trump and Trumpism by recognizing that there are wider, long term effects even if Trump only survives one term of office. He observes: Trump is a problem we�ll be a long-time in solving. The damage to our institutions, our hopes, and our reputation in the world won�t be undone overnight or with a few sweet words.1 This essay seeks to use a particular, non-American perspective and history to make sense of what we can call the problem of Trump. There is an ever-expanding accumulation of books, articles, podcasts and documentaries that engage with what can be termed the problem of Trump (the man, the movement, the idea) as a political, social and cultural problem. This chapter (and the wider edited project) does something different, by deliberately engaging with the problem of Trump from the perspectives of radical theology and philosophy. To do so situates Trump as first and foremost both a problem of thinking and a problem for thinking. If the first problem is interrogating what thinking gave rise to Trump, then the second problem is how to think about Trump. So, our question � and problem � is how might we think Trump, think the rise and momentum of Trump, think what Trump symbolizes and expresses drawing on the insights and possibilities offered from radical theological and philosophical thought?

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.