Abstract

The article addresses the phenomenon of megalothymic subjectivity as an indirect effect of the systemic weakness of modern liberal democracy. By using Donald Trump’s narrative strategies as an example, the author shows how populism creates in voters’ minds an imagined reality of conspiracy, danger, and loss of human decency. The process of populist communication takes the form of a story with an upcoming decisive moment, the victory of good or evil. A voter being shaped in such manner sees himself both as a part of a significant and strong community and as a victim of hostile actions of politicians on the national and international scene. The voter in such a position begins to manifest attitudes indicating a desire to regain his supposedly lost subjectivity, the extreme manifestation of which was the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

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