A Post-Hoc Causal-Layered Analysis of American Trumpism

This piece is comprised of a causal layered analysis to accommodate elements of world-view and myth/ metaphor specific to the United States and more universal themes. This is post-hoc causal layered analysis that acknowledges rationalization after-the-fact as a human need to construct justifying narratives of decisions that were not at all rational (Kahneman & Tversky, 1986; Sen, 1986; Quattrone & Tversky, 1988; Jost, Hennes, & Lavine, H., 2013). The emerging consensus on the 2016 presidential el election was that rational choice was overridden by feelings of injustice and internalized resentment by a heretofore quiescent and passive working class who preferred pursuing a “golden age” expressed and amplified by Mr. Trump. The political forecasters were of a class expert at surfing the waves of social and political change while a significant number of Trump voters were long caught in the wash. With changing demographics, erosion of faith in institutions of all sorts and the ambiguous futures of work as we know it is small wonder then that many wanted to return to what they perceived as the terra firma of “Great America”. (Taylor, 2016)…

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