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

Open Access

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.