Scholars respond to the Trump regime: varieties of critique, resistance, and community

When we at QSE (our commonly used nickname) put out a call for folks to write short articles for our Trump special issue, the response was strong, immediate, and emotional. We told the potential authors that they could say whatever they wanted, that we would not judge their politics or stances, that we would only review for readability. Almost everyone agreed to write; indeed, almost everyone seemed to need to write about their thoughts and feelings. Folks were excited to have a venue where they could express themselves.

Anger, pain, fear, rage, withdrawal into one’s own community, critique, reignited resistance, calls for action, a search for communion and solidarity. All of these and more poured out of hearts and minds and spleens and guts.

In my read of them there were three main themes: critique, resistance, and community.

Almost all of the pieces had some critique or mainly were a critique of Trump, his ultra-right appointed regime¹, and/or of the country, particularly white people. Trump is the ‘embodiment of white supremacy, capitalism, racism, neoliberalism, patriarchy, xenophobia, Islamophobia, homophobia, and more’ (Castrellón, Rivarola, & López, 2017).² Trump is the destruction of democracy (Dantley, 2017). Trump is ‘an embrace of unilateralism, imperialism and authoritarianism, supported by White Nationalism and audacious lying’ (Lugg, 2017). Trump is ‘brutal violence visited upon the immigrant community’ (Valenzuela, 2017). Trump opened up ‘the anti-Black racism within the Latino community’ (Haywood, 2017). Trump has ‘demonized’ ‘public schools and immigrants’ (Merchant, 2017). Trump was ‘the election of an openly racist, sexist, misogynistic individual to the office of President’ (Dillard, 2017). Trump is the source of ‘an increasingly powerful post-truth regime’ (Samayoa & Nicolazzo, 2017). Trump ‘has amplified divisive anti-immigrant sentiment and has further positioned “Mexicans as enemy”’ (Santamaria Graff, 2017). Trump ‘represents less a break from the Bush and Obama administration education reforms than an expansion of those reforms’ (Anderson, 2017). Trump is ‘White nationalism [taking] center political stage in the White House and with Congressional leadership’ (Rodriquez & Khalil, 2017). Trump is ‘seeking to discipline students as docile bodies cooperative with a white supremacist status quo’ (Stewart, 2017). Trump furthers ‘emboldened en/whitening epistemology that is characterized by the perverse re-appropriation of civil rights and socially just terminologies and concepts–once used to support the rights of People of Color–to instead strengthen white nationalism’ (Matias & Newlove, 2017). And, Trump ‘is mainly the “liberal” or “conservative” mask torn off of who we White people have been and what we have allowed in our name’ (Scheurich, 2017).

Resistance was the center of focus for several authors, but the orientation of the resistance was very different. One wanted resistance through coursework. Bogotch (2017) wanted the promotion of reflective dialogs. King (2017) wants to build ‘Black consciousness.’ Lather (2017) said we need to fight ‘from the ground up.’ Jackson and Flowers (2017) called for interrupting ‘dangerous stereotypes that often go unchallenged because they are the unspoken norm for mainstream America.’ Green and Castro (2017) suggested we commit ‘to sustaining an anti-racist, anti-oppressive, and a critical social justice agenda in education across the P-20 spectrum.’ Annamma (2017) called for all of us ‘to address the underlying ideology that difference is deficit and naming the need for an intersectional approach to justice.’ Though we might have guessed that resistance would be a major theme in almost every piece, it was not. Certainly some focused strongly on it, but not most.

What was somewhat surprising was the focus on community, i.e. building community, communion, and/or solidarity. Castrellón, Rivarola, and López (2017) see community as a way to cope with the impact of Trump and his regime. Anderson (2017) called ‘for education professionals in universities and schools to build alliances to co-generate knowledge, find ways to place it at the service of the common good and advocate for more equitable public schools,’ another way of building community. In addition, some scholars of color emphasized a focus on their own communities. Mobley (2017) provided ‘a call and challenge to HBCUs to capitalize on their unique abilities to serve as spaces of refuge for Black students, so long as they embrace the full spectrum of Blackness present.’ Williams (2017) highlighted needed discussions at the Black kitchen table. Dillard (2017) emphasized this is ‘a moment to stand in steadfastness about Blackness and Black identity globally, as an affirming and loving counter-narrative and way of being.’ Valenzuela (2017) emphasized ‘the establishment of Academia Cuauhtli, a language and culture revitalization project in Austin, Texas,’ which has ‘implications for community empowerment, culturally relevant social justice pedagogy, and spirituality, it illustrates what is possible when individual biography or circumstance intersects with caring friendships, politically astute community members, social justice initiatives, and a candid expression of need by community-anchored teachers. This timely and crooked path to social justice has situated those whose lives we touch with the kind of sustenance we all need to face the most significant political and policy challenge of our lives.’ Samayoa and Nicolazzo (2017) suggested ‘We turn toward animating possibilities for what we are calling an affect of collectivity, or communal feelings of solidarity through which we can create microclimates of love and support and, as a result, find the strength and space to persist, thrive, and live amidst the rubble of the current post-truth regime.’

Perhaps in the face of the ultra-right Trump regime, or in the face of any oppressive regime, we need to think of critical, emancipatory work in these three areas. We need strong, thoughtful, passionate, and insightful critique. This helps us see and understand oppression. We need strong, thoughtful, passionate, and insightful resistance. This is our fight against oppression. We need strong, thoughtful, passionate, and insightful work on building communities. We need to build oppression free-spaces and places, towns, cities, and countries.

What we do not need is liberal reform that leaves the larger oppressive system in place. What we do not need is to go back to the way it was pre-Trump. We know that racism and White supremacy were strong in this country before Trump. We know that sexism and misogyny were strong in this country before Trump. We know class exploitation and poverty creation were strong in this country before Trump. We know that heteronormativity was strong in this country before Trump. We know that Christian-dominance was strong in this country before Trump. We know that ableism was strong in this country before Trump. We know that intersectionality was largely disregarded before Trump. We know that this society has always been, root to branch, built on oppression from its beginnings till Trump. Thus, while Trump is certainly hideous, vile, ignorant, and despicable (evil might work here), as are those he has chosen to work with him, we know that oppression has always been endemic to this society. None of what Trump is, is new to us; he is just a more blatant, brazen version.

Consequently, perhaps we need to use our experience, our horror, of Trump as the unmasking of the true nature of our society. Perhaps our critique can reverberate throughout the land. Perhaps our resistance will be picked up and magnified throughout the land. Perhaps we will commit to building oppression-free communities throughout the land. Even though we do not now know how to be those oppression free people, even though we do not now know what an oppression free community looks like, feels like, lives like, maybe we need to take one step, then another, then another, learning, inventing, caring, valuing each other as we go forward, building communities that appreciate, value, and love everyone. It will not be easy. It will be conflict, destruction, and even death. It will likely be harder than anything we have ever done. But maybe we just start, one step, then another, then another. Maybe that is how a real revolution happens. Maybe not. Maybe.

James Joseph Scheurich
Editor, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education
[email protected]

Notes

1. 'Regime' is a word that has many different meanings in many different contexts—different national contexts, different academic contexts, and even different cultural contexts. Merriam-Webster online (n.d.) defines it as '2 a: mode of rule or management, b: a form of government, c: a government in power, [or] d: a period of rule'. However, google.com’s (n.d.) own dictionary defines it as 'a government, especially an authoritarian one', thus raising the possible issue of a potentially negative connotation. In contrast, many scholars use it in a more neutral, descriptive sense. Stone’s work (1989) on 'regime theory' might be the classic example of this. In his well known and widely respected book, Regime politics: Governing Atlanta, 'regime' has no negative connotation; it is just descriptive, much like the Merriam-Webster definition. Thus, to understand the meaning the author intends, the context must be examined.

2. All citations are from articles within this special issue.