Skip to main content
Book cover

Reading Donald Trump pp 149–181Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Inside the Trumpian Geopolitical Imagination

Part of the The Evolving American Presidency book series (EAP)

Abstract

In this chapter, Jeremy Kowalski provides an evaluation of the geopolitical imagination of Donald Trump. Through conducting an analysis of the cultural industries of terrorism and Islamophobia in the United States, Kowalski demonstrates how these industries and the state violence they support inform the Trumpian geopolitical imagination. Furthermore, Kowalski discusses the international and domestic implications of the geopolitical worldview of Donald Trump.

Keywords

  • Geopolitical Imagination
  • Donald Trump
  • Islamic Terrorist Groups
  • Council On American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)
  • Trump Regime

These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution.

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-93179-1_8
  • Chapter length: 33 pages
  • Instant PDF download
  • Readable on all devices
  • Own it forever
  • Exclusive offer for individuals only
  • Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout
eBook
USD   79.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • ISBN: 978-3-319-93179-1
  • Instant PDF download
  • Readable on all devices
  • Own it forever
  • Exclusive offer for individuals only
  • Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout
Softcover Book
USD   99.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
Hardcover Book
USD   139.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
Learn about institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/06/16/full-text-donald-trump-announces-a-presidential-bid/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.3350936509a3.

  2. 2.

    http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/04/18/trump-on-north-korea-from-rocket-man-to-fire-and-fury.html.

  3. 3.

    Whitehouse, “Remarks by President Trump on Iran Strategy,” 2017a October 13.

  4. 4.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/06/16/full-text-donald-trump-announces-a-presidential-bid/?utm_term=.375460bc56ec.

  5. 5.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/08/22/donald-trump-to-african-american-and-hispanic-voters-what-do-you-have-to-lose/?utm_term=.7c8f06b4ca87.

  6. 6.

    http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/presidential-campaign/291498-full-transcript-donald-trump-addresses-radical.

  7. 7.

    Jason Dittmer Defines the geopolitical imagination in the following terms: “A person’s (or society’s) constellation of taken-for-granted truths about the world and the way in which power should be utilized in that world” (2010, 19). These assumptions about the world and the related projection of power apply both externally and internally.

  8. 8.

    http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=58057.

  9. 9.

    See https://news.brown.edu/articles/2016/09/costsofwar2 and https://news.brown.edu/articles/2017/11/costssummary [last accessed on 10 January 2018].

  10. 10.

    For a comprehensive analysis of the role of think thanks in the American political system, see: Medvetz, Thomas. 2012. Think Tanks in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

  11. 11.

    For a comprehensive list and description of governmental institutes and think tanks and state intellectuals (terrorism experts) that form and support the cultural industry of terrorism see the “terrorism industry” and “terrorologist” categories at www.powerbase.info (last accessed 11 January 2018).

  12. 12.

    See Laqueur, Walter. The New Terrorism. Fanaticism and the Arms of Mass Destruction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999, for an example of an influential terrorism studies “expert” that advances this thesis.

  13. 13.

    The sociologist Paddy Hillyard developed the concept of the “suspect community” to discuss the racist anti-terrorism policies utilized in Britain to target the Irish community. For a discussion that applies this concept to contemporary anti-terrorism policies targeted at Muslim communities, see: Breen-Smyth, Marie. 2014. “Theorizing the “suspect community”: counterterrorism, security practices, and the public imagination.” Critical Studies on Terrorism 7 (2): 223–240.

  14. 14.

    See Apuzzo, Matt and Goldman, Adam. (2013). Enemies Within. Inside the NYPD’s Secret Spying Unit and Bin Laden’s Final Plot Against America. New York: Touchstone, for an example of counter-terrorism practices that targeted Muslim communities in the United States because of these types of fallacious beliefs.

  15. 15.

    https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/09/politics/donald-trump-islam-hates-us/index.html.

  16. 16.

    http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/presidential-campaign/291498-full-transcript-donald-trump-addresses-radical.

  17. 17.

    Ibid.

  18. 18.

    https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/president-trumps-speech-arab-islamic-american-summit/.

  19. 19.

    https://www.cnn.com/2017/07/06/politics/trump-speech-poland-transcript/index.html.

  20. 20.

    Ibid.

  21. 21.

    Ibid.

  22. 22.

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/donald-trump-has-big-plans-1303117537878070.html.

  23. 23.

    http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/presidential-campaign/291498-full-transcript-donald-trump-addresses-radical.

  24. 24.

    https://www.cnn.com/2015/12/02/politics/donald-trump-terrorists-families/index.html.

  25. 25.

    https://www.c-span.org/video/?401762-1/presidential-candidate-donald-trump-rally-mount-pleasant-south-carolina.

  26. 26.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/donald-trump/12011616/Donald-Trump-I-want-surveillance-of-certain-mosques.html.

  27. 27.

    https://www.cnn.com/2016/06/15/politics/donald-trump-muslims-mosque-surveillance/index.html.

  28. 28.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/05/us/politics/rules-of-engagement-military-force-mattis.html.

  29. 29.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/19/us-role-in-syria-alarms-turkey-risk-prospect-of-peace-deal-kurds.

  30. 30.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/19/us-role-in-syria-alarms-turkey-risk-prospect-of-peace-deal-kurds.

  31. 31.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/15/us-mother-of-all-bombs-moab-afghanistan-donald-trump-death-toll.

  32. 32.

    https://theintercept.com/2018/02/22/civilian-casualties-soared-in-iraq-and-syria-in-2017-was-trumps-bloodthirsty-rhetoric-to-blame/.

  33. 33.

    http://www.newsweek.com/somalia-war-us-military-president-trump-al-shabab-714622.

  34. 34.

    https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2017/12/01/566798632/under-trump-u-s-troops-in-war-zones-are-on-the-rise.

  35. 35.

    http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/presidential-campaign/291498-full-transcript-donald-trump-addresses-radical.

  36. 36.

    http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/356131-homeland-security-sees-power-grow-under-trump and https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/true-crime/wp/2017/08/27/trump-restores-program-sending-surplus-military-weapons-equipment-to-police/?utm_term=.a4a47dd71b67.

  37. 37.

    See, for example, Balko, Radley. Rise of the Warrior Cop. The Militarization of America’s Police Forces. New York: Public Affairs.

  38. 38.

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-islam-muslim-islamophobia-worse-911-says-leader-a8113686.html.

  39. 39.

    Ibid.

  40. 40.

    https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/02/21/muslims-face-increasing-discrimination-state-surveillance-under-trump/.

  41. 41.

    https://www.newamerica.org/in-depth/anti-muslim-activity/.

References

  • Althusser, Louis. 2007. Politics and History. Montesquieu, Rousseau, Marx. Trans. Ben Brewster. London: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bernays, Edward. 2004. Propaganda. New York: Ig Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boukalas, Christos. 2014. No Exceptions: Authoritarian Statism. Agamben, Poulantzas and Homeland Security. Critical Studies on Terrorism 7 (1): 112–130.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • CAIR & UC Berkeley Center for Race and Gender. 2016. Confronting Fear: Islamophobia and Its Impact in the United States. Washington, DC. https://www.cairoklahoma.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Confronting-Fear-Report-2016.pdf.

  • Cavanaugh, William. 2009. The Myth of Religious Violence: Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Ciftci, Sabri. 2012. Islamophobia and Threat Perceptions: Explaining Anti-Muslim Sentiment in the West. Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 32 (3): 293–309.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Dittmer, Jason. 2010. Popular Culture, Geopolitics & Identity. New York: Rowan & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dodds, Klaus. 2008. Screening Terror: Hollywood, the United States, and the Construction of Danger. Critical Studies on Terrorism 1 (2): 227–243.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Duss, Matthew, et al. 2015. Fear. Inc. 2.0. The Islamophobia Network’s Efforts to Manufacture Hate in America. Center for American Progress. https://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/FearInc-report2.11.pdf.

  • Gabriel, Brigitte. 2006. Because They Hate. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2008. They Must be Stopped: Why We Must Defeat Radical Islam and How We Can Do It. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Giroux, Henry. 2006. Beyond the Spectacle of Terrorism. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gottschalk, Peter, and Gabriel Greenberg. 2008. Islamophobia. Making Muslims the Enemy. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gournelos, Ted, and Vivica Greene. 2011. A Decade of Dark Humor: How Comedy, Irony, and Satire Shaped Post 9/11 America. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Graham, Stephen. 2011. Cities Under Siege. The New Military Urbanism. Verso: London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gramsci, Antonio. 2005. The Prison Notebooks. New York: International Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gunning, Jeroen. 2007. A Case for Critical Terrorism Studies. Government and Opposition 42 (3): 363–393.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Gunning, Jeroen, and Richard Jackson. 2011. What’s so ‘Religious’ About ‘Religious Terrorism’? Critical Studies on Terrorism 4 (3): 369–388.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Herman, Edward, and Gerry O’Sullivan. 1991. ‘Terrorism’ as Ideology and Cultural Industry. In Western State Terrorism, ed. Alexander George, Chapter 3. Cambridge: Polity Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hillyard, Paddy. 1993. Suspect Community. London: Pluto Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Huntington, Samuel. 1996. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. New York: Simon & Schuster.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jackson, Richard. 2005. Writing the War on Terrorism. Language, Politics and Counter-Terrorism. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kaplan, Jeffrey. 2006. Islamophobia in America?: September 11 and Islamophobic Hate Crime. Terrorism and Political Violence 18 (1): 1–33.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Kowalski, Jeremy. 2016. Domestic Extremism and the Case of the Toronto 18. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Kundnani, Arun. 2014. The Muslims Are Coming! Islamophobia, Extremism, and the Domestic War on Terrorism. London: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lewis, Bernard. 1990. The Roots of Muslim Rage. September: The Atlantic.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2002. The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lippman, Walter. 1997. Public Opinion. New York: Free Press Paperbacks.

    Google Scholar 

  • Little, Douglas. 2002. American Orientialism. The United States and the Middle East Since 1945. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Moore, Barrington Jr. 1967. Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. Boston: Beacon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • New America. 2018. Muslim Diaspora Initiative. https://www.newamerica.org/in-depth/anti-muslim-activity/.

  • Pain, Rachel, and Smith Susan. 2008. Fear: Critical Geopolitics and Everyday Life. In Fear: Critical Geopolitics and Everyday Life, ed. Rachel Pain and Susan Smith, Chapter 1. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Poulantzas, Nikos. 2014. State, Power, Socialism. London: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Poynting, Scott, and Victoria Mason. 2006. ‘Tolerance, Freedom, Justice and Peace’?: Britain, Australia and Anti-Muslim Racism Since 11 September 2001. Journal of Intercultural Studies 27 (4): 365–391.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Rodinson, Maxime. 2006. Europe and the Mystique of Islam. Trans. Roger Veinus. London: I.B. Tauris.

    Google Scholar 

  • Said, Edward. 1979. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Salter, Mark. 2011. The Geographical Imaginations of Video Games: Diplomacy, Civilization, America’s Army, and Grand Theft Auto IV. Geopolitics 16 (2): 359–388.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Scott, Kevin Michael, ed. 2015. Marvel Comics’ Civil War and the Age of Terror. North Carolina: McFarland & Company.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shakespeare, William. 1964. Romeo and Juliet. New York: Signet Classics.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sheehi, Stephen. 2011. Islamophobia. The Ideological Campaign Against Muslims. Atlanta, Georgia: Clarity Press, Inc..

    Google Scholar 

  • Stahl, Roger. 2005. Have You Played the War on Terror? Critical Studies in Media Communication 23 (2): 112–130.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stampnitzky, Lisa. 2013. Disciplining Terror. How Experts Invented “Terrorism”. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Stohl, Michael. 2008. Old Myths, New Fantasies, and Enduring Realities of Terrorism. Critical Studies on Terrorism 1 (1): 5–16.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Takacs, Stacy. 2012. Terrorism TV. Popular Entertainment in Post-9/11 America. Kansas: University Press of Kansas.

    Google Scholar 

  • Turner, Bryan. 1994. Orientalism, Postmodernism & Globalism. New York: Routledge.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Tyrer, David. 2013. The Politics of Islamophobia. London: Pluto Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wajahat, Ali, et al. 2011. Fear, Inc. The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America. Center for American Progress. https://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/issues/2011/08/pdf/islamophobia.pdf.

  • Whitehouse. 2017a. Remarks by Donald Trump on Iran Strategy. October 13. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-iran-strategy/.

  • ———. 2017b. Remarks by President Trump to the 72nd Session of the United Nations General Assembly. September 19. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-72nd-session-united-nations-general-assembly/.

  • ———. 2017c. President Trump’s Speech to the Arab Islamic American Summit. May 21. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/president-trumps-speech-arab-islamic-american-summit/.

  • ———. 2018. Statement of the President on the Iran Nuclear Deal. January 12. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-president-iran-nuclear-deal/.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, ON, Canada

    Jeremy Kowalski

Authors
  1. Jeremy Kowalski
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, ON, Canada

    Dr. Jeremy Kowalski

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

Copyright information

© 2019 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Kowalski, J. (2019). Inside the Trumpian Geopolitical Imagination. In: Kowalski, J. (eds) Reading Donald Trump. The Evolving American Presidency. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93179-1_8

Download citation