An extract from Raimond Gaita’s major essay in the September edition of Meanjin:

‘The phrase ‘the Age of Trump’ will strike some readers as mere hyperbole that, if taken seriously would undermine sober enquiry into the conditions of Trump’s rise to power. He did not come from nowhere, they will point out: Brexit, a general rise in right-wing populism, the Tea Party and the financial interests that back it and associated think tanks either preceded or were contemporaneous with his rise to power. They facilitated it and, in the case of some business interests, may even have engineered it. Other people, while fully acknowledging this, believe that he took the degradation of political conduct and discourse to a new level. Even now, more than two years since he announced he would run for president and nine months since he was elected, many people rub their eyes in disbelief when they see him on television or read his tweets.