Confronting Political Intimidation and Public Bullying

Since the kickoff of the 2016 presidential campaign, a climate of fear and intimidation has dominated national life in the United States to a degree rarely seen before, poisoning our politics and reaching into our very relationships with friends, co-workers, and neighbors.

Confronting Political Intimidation and Public Bullying is about how this came to be and enabled the rise of authoritarian rule, and how we can find our way through it.

At the core of this political history is a larger US public culture of intimidation and bullying in the workplace, media, and political arena that has been building for thirty-five years. The current harsh environment is a direct challenge to citizens and residents, especially those seeking to engage in civic activism and public life now and in the years to come.
The book's hope is to provide a kind of clarity that helps us get a handle on events and diminish the terror of the current moment by providing some shared protective mental armor.

It offers a unique guide to the strategies and dynamics of contemporary political intimidation and public bullying: the dangers they present, the snares and traps that envelope their targets, and the lessons to be learned.

In the end, it's about shedding light on the dark side of contemporary national life in order to see beyond it.

For this new edition I have thoroughly revised and updated the original text and added 70% more material in the way of new research and many current examples. The first five chapters lay the groundwork for the lessons offered in Chapters Six and Seven and the Conclusion.

Praise for Confronting Political Intimidation and Public Bullying

"Roddey Reid's latest volume shows that Trump mastered, but did not originate, the hyper-tough entrepreneurial bully and autocratic chief executive we see today. His book offers a refreshingly original and convincing study of public bullying as the link between budget austerity, hyper-wealth, and reactionary populism..... To begin to imagine a different kind of politics, to conceive of a more compassionate and knowledgeable society, and to put these goals in practice before it is too late, we need this book."
-Jody Berland, author of North of Empire: Essays on the Cultural Technologies of Space

"Deeply researched, conceptually sophisticated, and engagingly written, Roddey Reid's excellent book makes an indispensable contribution. If you want to understand Trump's return to power and the forces in the wider culture that made it possible in historical perspective--and if, indeed, you care about the future of the USA--you will find Reid's work of great value. His outlook is always realistic, and often soberly so, but never without hope."
-Carl Freedman, author of The Age of Nixon

"If you have found yourself wondering how the President morphed from the commander-in-chief to the bully-in-chief, not once but twice, this is the book for you. The short answer: it didn't happen all at once. Reid expertly shows how the Trump phenomenon is the culmination of a decades-long history of transformations.... rooted in workplace culture, the neoliberal spirit of capitalism, and the culture of insecurity in the age of limitless war...."
-Brian Massumi, author of Ontopower: War, Powers, and the State of Perception and The Personality of Power

"Donald Trump's second term as President is even worse than his first.... Roddey Reid succeeds in finding words that capture the terrifying and disorienting daily experience of what Trump is actually doing and how we got here. He offers some important protective intellectual armor to readers and proposes a series of suggestions for how to counter the assault upon everything that makes life worth living."
-Steven Shaviro, author of No Speed Limit: Three Essays on Accelerationism and Fluid Futures

Roddey Reid is Professor Emeritus, University of California, San Diego, where he taught classes on the modern cultures and societies of the US, France, and Japan. Since 2008 his research and writing have focused on trauma, daily life, and the culture of intimidation and bullying in the US and Europe.