Distributed for Intellect Ltd
A Phenomenology of Trumpism
America Talks with the Origins of the West
In a moment when both Republicans and Democrats stand accused of eroding democracy, this book delivers a startling argument: the political crisis tearing America and the West apart is not partisan, but civilizational. At its core lies a catastrophic failure of education. By comparing the Greek origins of Western civilization with modern American democracy, this book examines the enduring significance of classical humanistic education and critically reflects on the challenges confronting the United States today. Michael Arvanitopoulos argues that in America, market ideologies from Karl Marx to Adam Smith have gained unchecked dominance, presenting market logic as the only viable way of life, while blind faith in progress and the rise of authoritarian tech oligarchs pose additional dangers.
From what universal constancy, and from what kind of education, can anthropic measure show beyond doubt that there is an alternative solution? This is the riddle of the Age of Trumpism, the book argues, and forces the Statue of Liberty into a discussion with the Greek statue through a critical phenomenological return to the things themselves that bridge Heidegger’s thought to Greek tragic art.
293 pages | 2 halftones | 6.69 x 9.61 | © 2026
Philosophy: General Philosophy
Political Science: Political and Social Theory
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: ART AND DEMOCRACY
The Absurdity of Defending One’s Own Demise
The Grassroots Movement: Not How Democracy Works
The Electoral Body and the Body of the Statue
‘Who Is Talking?’
The Grassroots Movement: Not How Democracy Works
The Electoral Body and the Body of the Statue
Chapter 2: THE ORIGIN OF THE WEST
The Western Embodiment of Spatiality
The Western Embodiment of Temporality
The Embodiment of Western Logic
The Embodiment of the Metaphysical Foundations of Logic
Chapter 3: REALIST MYSTIQUE
Where Culture and Nature Never Meet
The ‘West’ Is Not in Decline
Is Laokoön Either a Representation or an Idealization?
The Statue of Liberty and Last Man’s Dream
Chapter 4: AMERICAN NIGHTMARE
E Pluribus Unum or Homo Homini Lupus?
The Grassroots-Light Movement as Social Immobilizer
Armpit Aromatherapy and the Pilgrim Polis-on-the-Run
The American Constitution’s Germinal Arrogating of Reason
Marketing the Idiot: The Art of the Deal
Chapter 5: THINKING OURSELVES OUT OF BUSINESS
The Strategic Backlash and its Four-Pronged Tactics
Deep Grassrooting: The Use and Abuse of People’s Religiosity
Deep Grassrooting and the Exchange of Owning the ‘Elites’
The Deepest Most Grassrooting: Uprooting Reason
Chapter 6: THINKING OURSELVES OUT OF EDUCATION
The Kind of Thinking that ‘Educates’
The Call for More Welders and Less Philosophers
How to Educate People out of Thinking: ‘Just Think Big’
Does Tyranny Necessarily Follow the Failure of Education?
Chapter 7: LEARNING NOTHING
“Phronesis” and the Sources of Danger for Humanity
Music and Leftish Economic Theory
It’s About Time Again: America Must Have another Talk with Greece
Towards a Dow Jones Index Trading Nothing