Getting Beyond Trump: It’s Well Past Time We Start Dealing with the Larger Picture
Publication date: August 15, 2026
Publisher : Real Clear Philosophy
Available in Hardcover, paperback, e-book, and audiobook
Someone suggested to me that I write a follow-up to my book Why Trump?. I never stopped publishing articles online about the right wing and how to respond to it, but that someone was correct; I needed to do more. It is now two years after Why Trump? Some things have changed, but the underlying situation remains the same. The right wing is still turning the United States into a two-tiered society, and worse, there is no effective opposition to the right wing.
America isn’t the way it is because Trump is president. Trump is president because America is the way it is. Trump became president within a system. He’s responsible for his actions, but it is a system that allowed, if not enabled, him to gain power. Trump is a symptom. If he is wrong, then something is also wrong with the American system that is enabling his wrongdoing.
What is an effective opposition to Trump’s and the right wing’s extremism? It’s certainly not simplistic sloganeering, name-calling, and memes. I don’t suggest that we not oppose his excesses, but unless you are also willing to oppose the wrongs that are historically entrenched in the United States’ political and legal systems that enable Trump and the right wing, you are, in the end, also enabling Trump — and future Trumps — who just might be worse.
Thinking Trump was the problem has led to bigger problems. We need to get beyond Trump. We need to deal with causes more than with symptoms. Addressing the root causes of problems is the road to solving them. To recognize root causes, we need a clearer understanding of US society and its history. On the question of why people support Trump, the answer requires some understanding of American history and much understanding of the dynamics of politics.
This book is presented in three parts after a brief introduction.
- Part One discusses some of the main factors that led to Trump’s 2024 election victory. It’s important to realize that it wasn’t just MAGA and people worried about inflation that brought Trump back to the White House.
- Part Two looks at the current situation in the United States. What is motivating the actions of the current Project 2025-Trump regime, and why is it getting away with so much? It’s about far more than Trump and his tantrums.
- Part Three then takes the lessons learned from the first two parts and considers the very important question of what we can do to counter the right wing. We need to build an effective opposition to the entire right wing as we prepare for a post-Trump world.
I don’t provide easy answers because there are none. Avoiding the temptation of easy answers is one of the guiding principles of this book. We don’t need labels, slogans, and memes; we need to be open-minded and clear-eyed about what we are dealing with and why. Only then will we be able to start extricating ourselves from the current morass of echo chambers and start building a better politics.
Table of Contents
Part One: Why Did Trump Win in 2024?
1. The Lessons of the Power Spectrum
2. Why MAGA Voted for Trump
3. “Christian” Nationalism
4. The Lazy Electorate
5. The Forces That Primed the Pump
6. Leveraging History
7. Returning to the Question
Part Two: Where Are We Now?
8. How Bad Is It and What Is Actually Happening?
9. Why Trump Is Not a Fascist
10. The Fart of the Deal
11. The Brotopia
12. The Homoeroticism of Pete Hegseth
13. The Cowardice of Charlie Kirk and the War on Woke
14. Resegregation
15. America Has Always Been on ICE
16. The Ineffectual Opposition
17. Putting the Pieces Together
Part Three: Where Do We Go from Here?
18. An Effective Opposition
19. A Post-Trump World
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