Tag Archives: Trump

Columns

The Death Rattle of Democracy in the Age of Trumpism

Some Dare Call It Fascism

Peter McLaren

Donald Trump is the symbolic figurehead of the MAGA cult who has achieved a towering stature in the popular imagination because of his defiant behaviour after an assassin’s bullet came within an inch of its mark, leaving blood streaming across Trump’s face. Not only should Democrats be gearing up for overcoming a much more confident, […]

Full Citation Information:
McLaren, P. (2024). The Death Rattle of Democracy in the Age of Trumpism: Some Dare Call It Fascism. PESA Agora. https://pesaagora.com/columns/the-death-rattle-of-democracy-in-the-age-of-trumpism/

Peter McLaren

Peter McLaren is Emeritus Professor at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles. From 2013-2023 he served as Distinguished Professor in Critical Studies, Co-Director and International Ambassador for Global Ethics and Social Justice, The Paulo Freire Democratic Project, Attallah College of Educational Studies, Chapman University, USA.

Article Feature Image Acknowledgement: Elvert Barnes, https://www.flickr.com/photos/perspective/53492101666
Columns

Steve Bannon’s Ideological Juggernaut

Overlord of the Dark Enlightenment

Peter McLaren

Zachary B. Wolf described a recent conservative gathering featuring Steve Bannon as speaker. ‘Are we at war?’ Bannon demanded of the crowd, his voice slicing through the air. ‘Is this a political war to the knife?’ The phrase, steeped in historical resonance, harks back to a pro-slavery newspaper from the era preceding the American Civil […]

Full Citation Information:
McLaren, P. (2024). Steve Bannon’s Ideological Juggernaut: Overlord of the Dark Enlightenment. PESA Agora. https://pesaagora.com/columns/steve-bannons-ideological-juggernaut/

Peter McLaren

Peter McLaren is Emeritus Professor at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles. From 2013-2023 he served as Distinguished Professor in Critical Studies, Co-Director and International Ambassador for Global Ethics and Social Justice, The Paulo Freire Democratic Project, Attallah College of Educational Studies, Chapman University, USA.

Article Feature Image Acknowledgement: https://www.flickr.com/photos/donkeyhotey/
Columns

The Pentecostalisation of Donald Trump

A Tale of Two Saviours

Peter McLaren

The former president, defiant and unyielding, his signature bronzed face turning red before the cameras at Trump Tower, dismissed the legal process that made him a felon with a wave of his tiny hand. ‘Rigged,’ he repeated, his voice echoing through the room, a declaration of his studied refusal to accept the verdict handed down […]

Full Citation Information:
McLaren, P. (2024). The Pentecostalisation of Donald Trump: A Tale of Two Saviours. PESA Agora. https://pesaagora.com/columns/the-penecostalisation-of-donald-trump/

Peter McLaren

Peter McLaren is Emeritus Professor at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles. From 2013-2023 he served as Distinguished Professor in Critical Studies, Co-Director and International Ambassador for Global Ethics and Social Justice, The Paulo Freire Democratic Project, Attallah College of Educational Studies, Chapman University, USA.

Columns

Surviving the Age of Gloom

Reflections on Hannah Arendt, Totalitarianism, Trumpism and the War in Ukraine

Peter McLaren

The post-truth zeitgeist relentlessly haunts us as meaning becomes ever more detached from representation, as signs now refer not to conceptually settled ‘signified’ meanings but only to other signs, vanishing in an endless chain of time-worn signifiers devoid of inherent intelligibility. Such languishing fragmentation profoundly weakens the unity of signs and their capacity to anchor […]

Full Citation Information:
McLaren, P. (2024). Surviving the Age of Gloom: Reflections on Hannah Arendt, Totalitarianism, Trumpism and the War in Ukraine. PESA Agora. https://pesaagora.com/columns/surviving-the-age-of-gloom/

Peter McLaren

Peter McLaren is Emeritus Professor at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles. From 2013-2023 he served as Distinguished Professor in Critical Studies, Co-Director and International Ambassador for Global Ethics and Social Justice, The Paulo Freire Democratic Project, Attallah College of Educational Studies, Chapman University, USA.

Columns

The Politic Rhetoric of Bloodbath Politics

Freire, Trump and the Challenge of Meaning

Peter McLaren

In 2020, during a remarkable display of spiritual hysteria, Paula White, the wackadoodle spiritual advisor to former President Trump, embarked on a proclamation that reverberated both with a maddening celestial invocation and unhinged theological assertion influenced by a ‘Moonies cult’ revelation operating under the banner of the New Apostolic Reformation. Utilising a staccato rhythm reminiscent […]

Full Citation Information:
McLaren, P. (2024). The Politic Rhetoric of Bloodbath Politics: Freire, Trump and the Challenge of Meaning. PESA Agora. https://pesaagora.com/columns/the-politic-rhetoric-of-bloodbath-politics/

Peter McLaren

Peter McLaren is Emeritus Professor at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles. From 2013-2023 he served as Distinguished Professor in Critical Studies, Co-Director and International Ambassador for Global Ethics and Social Justice, The Paulo Freire Democratic Project, Attallah College of Educational Studies, Chapman University, USA.

Columns

Nuclear Daze

Waking up to the War on Nukes and the War on Woke

Peter McLaren

J. Andrés Gannon has formulated a nuanced geopolitical model of the war in Ukraine regarding the spectre of nuclear conflagration. Within the tempestuous realm of Russo-Ukrainian relations, Gannon warns that the lurching discourse surrounding the potential deployment of nuclear armaments by Russia has unveiled a variegated display of strategic posturing and rhetorical ambivalence. From the […]

Full Citation Information:
McLaren, P. (2024). Nuclear Daze: Waking up to the War on Nukes and the War on Woke. PESA Agora. https://pesaagora.com/columns/nuclear-daze/

Peter McLaren

Peter McLaren is Emeritus Professor at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles. From 2013-2023 he served as Distinguished Professor in Critical Studies, Co-Director and International Ambassador for Global Ethics and Social Justice, The Paulo Freire Democratic Project, Attallah College of Educational Studies, Chapman University, USA.

Columns

Trump’s Torching of America

Some Reflections on the Demolition of Democracy

Peter McLaren

In the looming spectre of a Trump triumph in November 2024, democracy finds itself ensnared in a dark and foreboding web. Much like Grendel, the malevolent creature of ancient myth whose lineage traces back to the Biblical figure Cain, Trump prowls the political landscape tormented by a relentless hunger for power and dominance. Like Grendel, who […]

Full Citation Information:
McLaren, P. (2024). Trump’s Torching of America: Some Reflections on the Demolition of Democracy. PESA Agora. https://pesaagora.com/columns/trumps-torching-of-america/

Peter McLaren

Peter McLaren is Emeritus Professor at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles. From 2013-2023 he served as Distinguished Professor in Critical Studies, Co-Director and International Ambassador for Global Ethics and Social Justice, The Paulo Freire Democratic Project, Attallah College of Educational Studies, Chapman University, USA.

Article Feature Image Acknowledgement: Creator: Ted Eytan Copyright: This material is licensed to the public under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
Columns

Romancing the Apocalypse

Christopher Rufo’s Self-Righteous Crusade to Destroy America

Peter McLaren

Rejecting a world of communal solidarity and love that values affirmation, respect and reciprocal relations among diverse groups of human beings is irredeemably antagonistic to the purported values we associate with American citizenship. Yet such a rejection seems today to be in lockstep with the privatising and utilitarian logic of exchange value – in other […]

Full Citation Information:
McLaren, P. (2024). Romancing the Apocalypse: Christopher Rufo’s Self-Righteous Crusade to Destroy America. PESA Agora. https://pesaagora.com/columns/romancing-the-apocalypse/

Peter McLaren

Peter McLaren is Emeritus Professor at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles. From 2013-2023 he served as Distinguished Professor in Critical Studies, Co-Director and International Ambassador for Global Ethics and Social Justice, The Paulo Freire Democratic Project, Attallah College of Educational Studies, Chapman University, USA.

Columns

Spiritual and Material Antisemitism, Julius Evola and the Threat of Contemporary Fascism

Peter McLaren

Kaushik Jayaram has written a cautionary essay on why fascism is on the rise the world over that should provoke angry remonstrances from the public but will likely be met with a withering indifference if not insipient and callous antipathy. Much has been written about fascism and the proliferation of fascist governments – including their connection […]

Full Citation Information:
McLaren, P. (2023). Spiritual and Material Antisemitism, Julius Evola and the Threat of Contemporary Fascism. PESA Agora. https://pesaagora.com/columns/spiritual-and-material-antisemitism-julius-evola-and-the-threat-of-contemporary-fascism/

Peter McLaren

Peter McLaren is Emeritus Professor at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles. From 2013-2023 he served as Distinguished Professor in Critical Studies, Co-Director and International Ambassador for Global Ethics and Social Justice, The Paulo Freire Democratic Project, Attallah College of Educational Studies, Chapman University, USA.

Columns

The Cosmic Mountain

A Modern-Day Parable Marking the Day the Supreme Court of the United States Outlawed Affirmative Action in College Admissions

Peter McLaren

Cosmic mountains are places where human beings can retreat in order to face the ghosts of the past and ask for forgiveness. In France, there exists a cosmic mountain where the ghosts of the victims of the Deutsches Ahnenerbe-Studiengesellschaft fur Geistesurgeschichte in Natzweiler Struthoff (a Nazi camp where inmates were subjected to obscene medical experiments […]

Peter McLaren

Peter McLaren is Emeritus Professor at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles. From 2013-2023 he served as Distinguished Professor in Critical Studies, Co-Director and International Ambassador for Global Ethics and Social Justice, The Paulo Freire Democratic Project, Attallah College of Educational Studies, Chapman University, USA.

Columns

By Our Acts, Ye Shall Know Us

Peter McLaren

We’ll play a melody and turn the lights down low so that none can see. We gotta do that. We gotta do that. We gotta do that. We gotta do that. And there’ll be no one else alive’ cept you and me. – George Fame and the Blue Flames Caught Between the Tectonic Plates of […]

Full Citation Information:
McLaren, P. (2023). By Our Acts, Ye Shall Know Us. PESA Agora. https://pesaagora.com/columns/by-our-acts-ye-shall-know-us/

Peter McLaren

Peter McLaren is Emeritus Professor at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles. From 2013-2023 he served as Distinguished Professor in Critical Studies, Co-Director and International Ambassador for Global Ethics and Social Justice, The Paulo Freire Democratic Project, Attallah College of Educational Studies, Chapman University, USA.

Columns

The Torment of Capitalism

The Hidden and Not-So-Hidden Causes of the War in Ukraine

Peter McLaren

Napoleon Putin (image created using Craiyon AI) They shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nations shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore; but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them […]

Peter McLaren

Peter McLaren is Emeritus Professor at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles. From 2013-2023 he served as Distinguished Professor in Critical Studies, Co-Director and International Ambassador for Global Ethics and Social Justice, The Paulo Freire Democratic Project, Attallah College of Educational Studies, Chapman University, USA.

Columns

The War in Ukraine, Marxism, Education and the Decay in American Politics

Luis Huerta-Charles interviews Peter McLaren

Peter McLaren and Luis Huerta-Charles

Sergio Quiroz Miranda, Director of Instituto McLaren, and Peter McLaren in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, protesting the disappearance of forty-three male students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers’ College after being forcibly abducted in Iguala, Guerrero. Peter McLaren is one of the educators who has worked on the development and consolidation of critical pedagogy […]

Full Citation Information:
McLaren, P., & Huerta-Charles, L. (2023). The War in Ukraine, Marxism, Education and the Decay in American Politics: Luis Huerta-Charles interviews Peter McLaren. PESA Agora. https://pesaagora.com/columns/the-war-in-ukraine-marxism-education-and-the-decay-in-american-politics/

Peter McLaren

Peter McLaren is Emeritus Professor at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles. From 2013-2023 he served as Distinguished Professor in Critical Studies, Co-Director and International Ambassador for Global Ethics and Social Justice, The Paulo Freire Democratic Project, Attallah College of Educational Studies, Chapman University, USA.

Luis Huerta-Charles

Luis Huerta-Charles is an associate professor of critical pedagogies and multicultural education in the School of Teacher Preparation, Administration and Leadership in the College of Health, Education and Social Transformation at New Mexico State University, in Las Cruces, on the edge of the Chihuahuan Desert.

Article Feature Image Acknowledgement: Sergio Quiroz Miranda, Director of Instituto McLaren, and Peter McLaren in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas, protesting the disappearance of forty-three male students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers' College after being forcibly abducted in Iguala, Guerrero.
Columns

How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Beast Inside

Peter McLaren

How is it possible for a wide swath of the (white) American public to literally ignore its country’s founding original sin – the extermination of indigenous peoples and the enslavement of African Americans while celebrating brutal leaders such as Donald Trump? Slavoj Žižek helps us to answer questions such as this by recalling the story about the […]

Full Citation Information:
McLaren, P. (2023). How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Beast Inside. PESA Agora. https://pesaagora.com/columns/how-we-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-beast-inside/

Peter McLaren

Peter McLaren is Emeritus Professor at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles. From 2013-2023 he served as Distinguished Professor in Critical Studies, Co-Director and International Ambassador for Global Ethics and Social Justice, The Paulo Freire Democratic Project, Attallah College of Educational Studies, Chapman University, USA.

Article Feature Image Acknowledgement: (Washington, DC - EUA 19/03/2019) Presidente da República Jair Bolsonaro responde perguntas da imprensa durante o encontro..Foto: Isac Nóbrega/PR
Columns

Fascism on trial

Rethinking education in an age of conspiracy theories and election deniers

Henry A. Giroux

Reprinted from Educational Philosophy & Theory (https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2022.2151895) In the current political landscape, fascism is on the rise and the threat to democracy is imperilled both as an ideal and a promise. A number of Republican politicians who ran for a variety of political offices in the US embrace elements of white supremacy, support white Christian […]

Full Citation Information:
Giroux, H. A. (2022). Fascism on trial: Rethinking education in an age of conspiracy theories and election deniers. PESA Agora. https://pesaagora.com/columns/fascism-on-trial/

Henry A. Giroux

Henry A. Giroux is Professor of English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University, Canada. Henry is one of the founding theorists of critical pedagogy in the United States, and has written extensively on public pedagogy, cultural studies, youth studies, higher education, media studies, and critical theory, winning many awards. His interviews on neoliberalism appear in Truthout.  Henry is past co-Editor-in-chief of the Review of Education, Pedagogy and Cultural Studies.  In 2002 Routledge named him as one of the top fifty educational thinkers of the modern period.

 

Article Feature Image Acknowledgement: US Capitol - Washington, DC https://www.flickr.com/photos/ep_jhu/32477423791