2025/6 - PPLX6108B MAGA: Donald Trump and Twenty-First Century America

Spring Semester, Level 6 module, Credits: 20 UCU, Politics and International Relations

Organiser: Professor Malcolm McLaughlin

Assessment Type: Coursework

What do you think of Donald Trump? He’s a figure who has inspired fervent loyalty and caustic criticism in equal measure. To his followers, he is an avatar of the nation. To his opponents, he is an authoritarian threat to democracy. To outside observers, he symbolises the polarisation and hardening partisanship that have defined political life in the USA in recent times. The popularity of his America First rhetoric has been taken as a signal that the Pax Americana is waning. In truth, it can seem nothing has been the same since he famously came down the golden escalator of Trump Tower in June 2015 to announce he was running for president. His stepping onto the stage coincided with a time of turmoil and strife. From BLM to QAnon, the George Floyd protests to January 6, #MeToo to Dobbs, through the culture wars to dark fantasies of civil war, the momentous events of these times have upended the expectations of the past while leading off into an uncertain future. This module is an opportunity to understand US politics in the context of the turbulent past decade.