Trump As Heteropolitical Obsessional Neurosis: Presidential Politics After the Death of God

Abstract

If one blows away all the toxic miasma of American partisan politics, it becomes apparent that Donald Trump is not so much a �problem� as a symptom. Of course, the term �problem� in the context of this collection itself implies an unabashed partisan position, comparable to the present tendency for conservative talk radio hosts to decry the �problem� of the millennial generation enthusiastically embracing socialism, or the constant harping by young people, who have turned away from their evangelical upbringing, about their elders� unflagging support both for Trump himself and their condemnation of gay marriage � unless what we consider truly �problematic� is that half of a certain population sees the issue entirely different from the other. �Problematizing� Trump should run more along the lines of a physician problematizing a fever, which does not mean the kind old doctor takes the patient to task for falling ill, but rather seeks to diagnose, or trace the etiology of, the disorder itself.