Abstract
The writer presents an autoethnographic account of the night of the 2016 presidential election and the days and months that followed. Tormented by the prospect of Donald Trump’s election, he expresses the feelings of gloom and doom that permeate the academic convention he is attending as he and colleagues from around the country respond to the menacing prospect of a Donald Trump presidency. Invited to speak at a postelection riff, he contemplates the ways in which Trump served as an ideal transference object for many White working-class people, providing a kind of heroic self-validation they lack. In the concluding sections of the article, he focuses on the question of Trump’s heralded “authenticity” during the campaign and the tyrannical threat posed by Trump’s failure to care about truth.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Adamy
J.
Overberg
A.
(2017 , May 26 ). Rural America is the new “inner city.” The Wall Street Journal . Retrieved from www.wsj.com/articles/rural-america-is-the-new-inner-city-1495817008
2.
Adler
A.
(1924 ). The practice and theory of individual psychology . London, England : Kegan Paul .
3.
Becker
E.
(1973 ). The denial of death . New York, NY : Free Press .
4.
Blow
C.
(2016 ). Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/10/opinion/america-elects-a-bigot.html
5.
Bochner
A.
Ellis
C.
(2016 ). Evocative autoethnography: Writing lives and telling stories . New York, NY : Routledge .
6.
Brooks
D.
(2016 ). Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/08/opinion/lets-not-do-this-again.html
7.
Brownstein
R.
(2016 ). Is Donald Trump outflanking Hillary Clinton? Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/11/trump-clinton-electoral-college/506306/
8.
Buber
M.
(1996 ). I and Thou (
Kaufmann
W.
Trans.). New York, NY : Touchstone .
9.CBS News . (2016 ). Retrieved from http://www.cbsnews.com/news/live-updates-voting-issues-reported-at-polling-places-on-election-day/
10.
Clinton
H.
(2016 , November 9 ). Concession speech . Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khK9fIgoNjQ
11.Exit polls . (2016 , November 8 ). New York Times . Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/11/08/us/politics/election-exit-polls.html
12.
Feigelson
J.
(2016 ). Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-josh-feigelson/a-letter-to-my-children-n_b_12879912.html
13.
Frankfurt
H.
(2005 ). On bullshit . Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press .
14.
Frankfurt
H.
(2006 ). On truth . New York, NY : Alfred A. Knopf .
15.
Frankl
V.
(2006 ). Man’s search for meaning . Boston, MA : Beacon Press .
16.
17.
Guignon
C.
(2004 ). On being authentic . New York, NY : Routledge .
18.
Hatch
J.
(2016 ). Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/its-not-melodramatic-to-fear-for-our-safety-after-this-election_us_5823831ce4b0d9ce6fc08f1c
19.
Khazan
O.
(2016 , November 9 ). Why Christians overwhelmingly backed Trump . The Atlantic . Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/11/why-women-and-christians-backed-trump/507176/
20.
Lakoff
G.
(2016 , July 22 ). Understanding Trump . Huffington Post . Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/george-lakoff/understanding-trump_b_11144938.html
21.
Lensmire
T.
(2017 ). White folks: Race and identity in rural America . New York, NY : Routledge .
22.
Leonhardt
D.
Thompson
S.
(2017 , June 23 ). Trump’s lies . The New York Times . Retrieved from www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/23/opinion/trumps-lies.html
23.
MacIntyre
A.
(1984 ). After virtue: A study in moral theory . Notre Dame, IN : University of Notre Dame Press .
24.
Moore
M.
(2016 ). Retrieved from http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meet-press-october-2-2016-n658191
25.Morning consult/Politico . (2016 ). Retrieved from https://morningconsult.com/2016/11/08/voters-want-strong-leader-anything-else-exit-poll-shows/
26.
27.
Sheridan
R.
(1989 ). The School for Scandal and other plays . London, England : Penguin Classics .
28.
29.
Singer
M.
(2011 , April 26 ). Best wishes, Donald . The New Yorker .
30.
Slater
D.
(2001 ). Lying: A metaphorical memoir . New York, NY : Penguin Books .
31.
Snyder
T.
(2017 a, May 15 ). The daily show with Trevor Noah . Retrieved from http://www.cc.com/video-clips/4nc2so/the-daily-show-with-trevor-noah-timothy-snyder—a-guide-to-maintaining-democracy-in–on-tyranny-
32.
Snyder
T.
(2017 b). On tyranny: Twenty lessons from the twentieth century . New York, NY : Tim Duggan Books .
33.Target Smart/William & Mary . (2016 ). Retrieved from http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/poll-florida-republicans-vote-for-hillary-clinton
34.
Taub
A.
(2017 ). Retrieved from www.nytimes.com/2017/04/12/upshot/why-americans-vote-against-their-interest-partisanship.html
35.
Tolstoy
I.
(1981 ). The death of Ivan Ilyich (
Solotaroff
L.
Blyth
R.
, Trans.). New York, NY : Bantam Dell Classics .
36.
Wang
S.
(2016 , November 4 ). Sound bites and bug bites . Retrieved from http://election.princeton.edu/2016/11/04/sound-bites-and-bug-bites/