Abstract
ABSTRACTThis article explores the appeal of President Donald Trump’s persona in North American society, appeal that enabled the formation of a fan-base-like loyal and passionate constituency. The analysis centres on two radical social changes that created the conditions of possibility for Trump’s emergence as a prominent political figure. First, it discusses a shift from a society of discipline to one driven by enjoyment. Here it looks into the consequent alterations of symbolic authority figures and their relationship to morality, further enabling a perverse structure of fantasy to increasingly orient and organise our contemporary society. In this context, Trump is associated with the father of enjoyment and the archetypal trickster. Second, the article brings into focus a shift from the symbolic to the imaginary, investigating the various conditions enabling Trump to strive in a society of spectacle. In what follows I contextualise how Trump’s campaign and presidency took advantage of these two radical social changes.
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