The Electoral College’s selection of Donald Trump as 45th president of the United States continues to shock on many levels. A transition from the first African American president to someone who made racism a cornerstone of his campaign is one element. Another is that Trump triumphed against what appeared to be a solid “popular front” of most of American business, the media, the political establishment, and liberal activists lined up behind Democrat Hillary Clinton. Despite all of these factors—or perhaps, more accurately, because of them—the dysfunctional U.S. political system delivered the world’s most powerful office to the loser of the national popular vote for the second time in sixteen years.

US Politics in the Age of Uncertainty is a smart and compelling reader, written by socialists, that delves into different aspects of US politics in this era of transition from Obama to Trump. These essays are offered with the knowledge that the social forces that drove the 2016 election remain with us today, and thus helps set a course for the left to project its true power in a way that can offer a real alternative for the working-class majority.

Contents

Introduction

Lance Selfa

Chickens Coming Home to Roost for the Democratic Party? How Neoliberalism Quietly Devastated the US Working Class

Sharon Smith

We Got Trumped!

Charlie Post

Who Put Donald Trump in the White House?

Kim Moody

The Great God Trump and the White Working Class

Mike Davis

Choosing or Refusing to Take Sides in an Era of Right-Wing Populism

Neil Davidson

From Hope to Despair: How the Obama Years Gave Us Trump

Lance Selfa

Black Politics in the Trump Era

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor

The Misogynist-in-Chief: The Stakes for Women’s Rights in the Trump Era

Elizabeth Schulte

Trump, Islamophobia, and US Politics

An Interview with Deepa Kumar

From “Deporter-in-Chief ” to Xenophobia Unleashed: Immigration Policy under Trump

An Interview with Justin Akers Chacón

The End of Progressive Neoliberalism

Nancy Fraser