Sep 01, 2023
Why was (and is) Donald Trump so successful? The TUDiSC publication “The Great Disruptor” reaches more than 100,000 views
The 45th US president is now facing his fourth indictment - and there is still no end in sight. Donald Trump’s appearance was (and still is) characterized by vituperations of his political competitors, targeted disruption of political operations and deliberate provocations of the public. How exactly does Trump, with his disruptive political style, achieve such popularity that a considerable part of the U.S. Electorate can still imaging voting for him again in 2024?
Lars Koch, media studies and modern German literature professor at TU Dresden, alongside his two co-editors Tobias Nanz and Christina Rogers, examine Trump’s politics in their book “The Great Disruptor. On Trump, the Media and the Politics of Disparagement,” (German: The Great Disruptor. Über Trump, die Medien und die Politik der Herabsetzung) with a particular focus on the ways in which he skillfully harnesses strong emotions of approval or disapproval; which polarizing narratives of the disintegration and salvation of US society he uses, and what role the online and offline media play in this process. Their analysis of Trump as the “Great Disruptor” makes clear that he represents the prototype of a political actor who poses major challenges to democracy, not only in the United States.
The book “The Great Disruptor” was published in August 2023 for the second time as an expanded and updated version by the publishing house J.B. Metzler (https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-662-66308-0). The publication is part of a comprehensive and interdisciplinary initiative at TU Dresden to establish “disruption” as a new, fundamental category of social and cultural science research. The Excellence measure “TU Disruption and Societal Change Center” (TUDiSC), which has been financed via Excellence funds at TU Dresden since 2021, shines a spotlight on disruptions in various problematic societal constellations - from AI and other disruptive technologies to global warming and crises of democracy. TUDiSC co-speaker Lars Koch is focusing on the pop culture of disruption as well as on the affective resonance - in the form of fear, hate, hope - of a present that seems to be falling apart at the seams.
More information:
- https://tu-dresden.de/gsw/forschung/exzellenzmassnahmen/tudisc
- https://tu-dresden.de/gsw/slk/germanistik/mwndl
Contact:
Lars Koch
Disruption and Societal Change Center (TUDiSC)
Tel.: +49 351 463-43236