This lecture situates Donald Trump as the embodiment of fifty years of institutional change. Neoliberal failure, the entrepreneurial state, and assaults on democratic institutions shape the United States and the global political landscape. Trump is their most visible exemplar. His comeback marks a reactionary wave intensifying the dialectic of progress and regression, rooted in the afterlives of the Civil War, segregationist resistance, and backlash against civil rights. As a consummate performer, Trump constructs a retrotopia that propels an ultra-right revolution marked by fascist features.

Maria Pia Lara Zavala is Professor of Philosophy at UNAM (Mexico City). Her research brings together feminist political philosophy and moral philosophy. She has published books on feminism, the problem of evil, and secular models of the political. Her most recent work focuses on social imagination, authoritarianism, and populism.