American Nightmare: Facing the Challenge of Fascism

by Henry A. Giroux

Are we in the beginning of a new fascist era? As white supremacy, ultra-nationalism, rabid misogyny and anti-immigrant fervor coalesce, a new and uniquely American form of fascism looms. Could our current moment actually bring about the end of democracy in the United States? Are Americans willing to surrender their freedom and dignity, along with their ongoing struggle for equality, justice and mutual respect in the face of the rising tide of political and ideological extremism? In this provocative collection of essays, Henry Giroux warns of the consequences of doing too little as Trump and the so-called alt-right relentlessly attack critics, journalists, and target the hard-earned civil rights of women, people of color, immigrants, the working class, and low-income Americans. As we face down the frightening reality of living under a system that serves only the interests of the wealthy few, Giroux makes a passionate call for ordinary citizens to organize, educate, and resist by all available means. Praise for  American Nightmare : "In this current era of corporate media misdirection and misinformation . . . Henry Giroux is one of the few great political voices of today, with powerful insight into the truth. Dr. Giroux is defiantly explaining, against the grain, what's REALLY going on right now, and doing so quite undeniably. Simply put, the ideas he brings forth are a beacon that need to be seen and heard and understood in order for the world to progress."— Julian Casablancas, lead vocalist for The Strokes "In frightening times like these, what is desperately needed is an informed and wise voice that speaks clearly and with conviction about the situation we are in, and what can be done. Henry Giroux is one of the great public intellectuals of our times, and  American Nightmare  is exactly the book for people grappling with how to understand the Trump era and how to proceed. This is precisely the book that needs to be shared with friends and acquaintances. It will provoke hard thinking, bring clarity, and stimulate much needed conversation and action."— Robert W. McChesney , co-author of  People Get The Fight Against a Jobless Economy and a Citizenless Democracy "We have no greater chronicler of these dystopian times. Giroux's critique cuts to the crux of today’s authoritarian crisis, yet his voice remains of one hope that the people may collectively regain control. Even while living though systemic efforts to privatize hope, Giroux’s critique enacts the sort of shared resistance that can effectively challenge authoritarianism.  American Nightmare  demonstrates how we can resist the normalization of hate, authoritarianism and alienation in Trump’s America. He shows us that not only are we not alone, but we are among a majority who oppose the cruelties of American social policies."— David H. Price , author of  Cold War The CIA and the Growth of Dual Use Anthropology "At a moment when the news cycle presents the dangers of Trumpian authoritarianism through disjointed and discrete hottakes, Giroux's wide-reaching analysis accounts for our current American nightmare with necessary historical context, and in so doing creates an aperture for resistance more meaningful than a hashtag."— Natasha Lennard , contributing writer for  The Intercept , co-editor of  Humans in Dark Times

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, History, Sociology

384 pages, Paperback

First published July 3, 2018

About the author

American cultural critic. One of the founding theorists of critical pedagogy in the United States, he is best known for his pioneering work in public pedagogy, cultural studies, youth studies, higher education, media studies, and critical theory.

A high-school social studies teacher in Barrington, Rhode Island for six years, Giroux has held positions at Boston University, Miami University, and Penn State University. In 2005, Giroux began serving as the Global TV Network Chair in English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.

Giroux has published more than 35 books and 300 academic articles, and is published widely throughout education and cultural studies literature. Since arriving at McMaster, Giroux has been a featured faculty lecturer, and has published nine books, including his most recent work, The University in Chains: Confronting the Military-Industrial-Academic Complex.

Routledge named Giroux as one of the top fifty educational thinkers of the modern period in 2002.

Reviews

[Tonstant Weader · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was looking forward to reading this book but was disgusted by the poor scholarship in the first chapter. This writer took whataboutism to a new level claiming Hillary Clinton was as dishonest as Trump because of the fake email scandal citing an op-ed by Shaun King, hardly a credible source. He then said she never talked about economic injustice, corporate power, mass incarceration, institutional racism, the school-to-prison pipeline and widespread poverty which means he did not even look at her web site list of policies. This is false.

The most common words in her campaign were jobs, economy, and workers. She started a program to interrupt the school-to-prison pipeline before that term was invented. She talked about institutional racism more than any other candidate and some say that was one reason she lost. Giroux is simply a lousy and lazy writer who did no research because obviously any ambitious woman is a dishonest.

I received a copy from the publisher through Edelweiss, but I did not finish. I was too disgusted.

[Noah Skocilich · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just finished Henry Giroux’s fabulous ‘American Nightmare, Facing the Challenge of Fascism’.

And I think I would say it’s required reading for all those who would seriously engage in meaningful resistance to Trumpism.

The book is a catalog of the detailed reasons we should be outraged and worried, but it is also much more than that. Breaks a sort of sonic barrier in going beyond just outrage and fear to an understanding that is comprehensive and sober.

Zen calm wouldn’t be the right term exactly, but there is something like a peace of mind in the way the book goes all the way through the overwhelming and the horrible, goes all the way through it without flinching, and shows us that we are still alive, and able to face this head on.

I’m being a bit dramatic, but the final chapters were quite energizing.

If Neoliberalism is like the evil kind of walking dead, the consciousness that Giroux inspires in this book is of a million Obi-Wan Kenobes.

You cannot kill us. We are absolutely clear on what we must do and how it must be done.

And now, like Yoda, do it we must.

[DRugh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Referring to Trump’s first administration, this book reminds me of what was outrageous and now accepted.

[Rowan · Rating 5 out of 5]

"American Nightmare” should be near the top of your reading list. Giroux deciphers the mechanisms and impacts of the destruction that is occurring. There are details and insights in American Nightmare that make my blood run cold.

Henry A. Giroux is one of the best minds of our era. He brings a keen insight to cut through the current insanity. He provides a cohesive analysis that assists us in identifying the key components of decline and rally to both resist those forces and construct a better society. There is nothing simplistic about the work of Henry A. Giroux – including this book – but there is also nothing simple about the morass into which our culture and our nation has fallen (jumped?). Even more problematic is it seems much of the world is being drawn in as well. While Giroux is analyzing the “American” nightmare, it is of equal value to those in other nations sliding into nationalism and fascism.

American Nightmare is a critical book that has arrived at a critical time. I feel that it helps us build a comprehensive understanding of the drivers and mechanisms of the destructive and fascist tendencies with which we are currently confronted.

Please spread the word about this excellent book and leave a review at Goodreads, Amazon, etc.

[Shepherd · Rating 4 out of 5]

“All forms of fascism aim at destroying standards of truth, openness, accountability, empathy, informed reason, and the institutions that make them possible. The current struggle against a nascent fascism in the United States is not only a struggle over economic structures or the commanding heights of corporate power. It is also a struggle over visions, ideas, consciousness, and the power to shift the culture itself.”

— Henry A. Giroux, American Nightmare, Chapter Nine: Towards a Politics of Ungovernability, pg. 302

[Scott Holstad · Rating 4 out of 5]

Crucial topic, important topic, essential topic, timely topic. And per usual, the author does a good job in the writing. My only major complaint is a logic flaw that seemed to capture the author at times and force him to write bizarre crap that makes no sense and thus dilutes the message the book should be presenting. Hillary? The Donald? Sure, criticisms can be leveled at the former and more have than I can remember any Democratic candidate having to endure in decades. But an email "scandal" on the same level as a Hitler loving fascist dictator wannabe??? What the? Are you outta your friggin mind? Fascists always follow the same tactics, rely on the same theories, typically share similar goals, and if left unaddressed, they ALWAYS resort to and result in lethal violence, up to genocide -- and don't think I'm talking just WW2. Recall the Balkins of the 1990s for a total repeat of the early 1940s. Hillary may have many flaws -- most candidates these days do -- but she's not a psychotic genocidal fascist Putin lover out to sell the country to Russia. Trump is actually not the truly disturbing issue, although he's way up there. The fact that 70 million Americans apparently don't give a shit about our democracy so much to the point of actively seeking and voting for a fascist mass murderer (COVID in the US everyone?) and fucking trying to violently -- including damned MURDER! -- overthrow a democratically, fairly elected government they don't like. Apparently they prefer concentration camps, cause that's what they're voting for. They're so stupid. "Trump's a great businessman and will fix America!" Um, no. Trump has failed in virtually every business venture he's ever had. He's a total fraud, has gone through five major bankruptcies, the only thing keeping him and any businesses of his afloat were/are his father and his influence and money. And no banks will deal with him and haven't for awhile and the only one that has -- Deutsche Bank -- is through with him and they're calling in their note so that he owes them a shitload of money he doesn't remotely have and can't legally get. Prison? Coffin? Who knows? There are people out there who don't like it when others default on loans that are in the hundreds of millions. And the christian white nationalists have finally shown their true colors, which are red and white with a damn swastika on them, which boggles the mind because my evangelical mother's older brother was there on D-Day, got shot twice, bayoneted four times and she and the rest of America endured hardships, millions of people lost their lives, all to fight to free a continent and millions of people getting the standard fascist "final solution" as well as to keep the rest of the world safe from such. And now people are itching to have fucking swastikas on US federal buildings? How have we gotten to the point of half the country WANTING a Hitler??? Nah, fascism is indeed the challenge, Mr Giroux, but the problem is the country has gone toxic, is rotten to the core, and frankly the rabid, forever angry and threatening gun loving (Russian) "patriots" who've been dying for a civil war so they can "exterminate" Democrats and liberals (as well as minorities, immigrants and everyone not like them), as I literally heard several yell last year when they went crazy (I'm so sick of these forever entitled "pissed off" assholes -- wtf do they have to be ticked about? they're in control! I'm pissed off about THEM and nearly as eager for them to get their deserved spanking than they are to dole it out, frankly), might be advised to learn that fewer than 10% of US gun owners are NRA members, over 25% deeply dislike the NRA, and yes, while the progressives tend to be a bunch of idealistic doves with no grasp of reality in their gun control minds, there are plenty of liberal gun loving collectors and users and maybe some may be thinking it's time for that civil war the US fascists are always raving about. That they just might end up a little surprised. Fascism is never to be debated; it is to be SMASHED!

[Jerry Wall · Rating 3 out of 5]

View that where we are heading is into fascism, society where the power is in a few who have no regard for democratic rules and push toward all the power in the executive.
Under Trump we have a pervasive contempt for reason. p. 18 !!!!!!
. . . the Trump presidency has unleashed a type of anti-politics that unburdens people of any responsibility to challenge -- let alone change -- the fundamental precepts of a society torn asunder by open bigotry, blatant misogyny, massive inequality, and violence against immigrants, Muslims, the economically disadvantaged, and communities of color. p. 23
. . . the degree to which acute political illiteracy, corruption, and contempt for reason have become defining features of present-day U. S. culture. p. 24
quote Donald Trump has an instinct for doing . . . violence to language. p. 26
trump supporters don't care about his lies or that his economic moves are designed to make the rich even richer. p 38

. . . explain Trump's tax reform bill, which ofers a $1.5 trillion tax cut that largely favors the ultra-rich and major corporations and would eventually7 leave 83 million middle-class and poor families paying more in taxes? * * *
. . . an act of war on the planet and the health of millions of adults and children. p. 41
. . . he (Trump) has a need for immediate gratification. p. 42
Carnegie-Knight News21 "For every U. S. soldier killed in Afghanistan during 11 years of war, at least 13 children were shot and killed in America. More than 450 kids didn't make it to kindergarten. Another 2700 or more were killed by a firearm before they could sit behind the wheel of a car. Every day, on average, seven children were shot dead. A News21 investigation of child and youth deaths in America between 2002 and 2012 found that lat least 28, 000 children and teens 19 years old and younger were killed with guns. Teenagers between the ages of 15 and 19 made up over two-thirds of all youth gun deaths in America. p. 44-5
. . . view everything in terms of money, no matter what the consequences for other people, the nation or the environment. p. 50
. . . mocker of truth not put on display by Trumpists. . . . p. 52
Trump's constant use of lies, fear, belittlement, and humiliation wages war on the ideals, values, and practices of a viable democracy. p. 60
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi . . . but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists. Hannah Arendt p. 63
Trump's endless proliferation of lies, including claims that China is responsible for climate change; former President Obama was not born in the United States; the murder rate in the United States is at its highest in forty-seven years; former President Obama wiretapped Trump Tower; and voter fraud prevented Trump from winning the popular vote for the presidency. Such lies, bi and small, don't function simply as mystification: they offer justification for aggressive immigration crackdowns, for effectively silencing the Environmental Protection Agency, and for upending Obamacare. Too often the relentless fabrications serve to distract the press. p. 71
[ listed leaders] harbor a great deal of contempt for the rule of law, the courts, or any other check on their power. p. 130
. . . the present-day confluence of political authoritarianism, white supremacy, corporate power, and creeping fascism. p. 136
Trump's rhetorical cluster bombs, " in which he states publicly that he would like to punch protesters in the face, punish women who have abortions, have police beat up suspects, and execute terrorists before their guilt has even been established by a fair trial. p. 149
. . . politics of the personal grudge. p. 152
Everyone has someone, or something, to resent. p. 153
. . . a country that seems to know of no remedy for social ills but punishment. p. 169
Trump has also called for the elimination of the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the Institute of Museum of Library Services, making clear that his contempt for education, science, and the arts is part of an aggressive project to eliminate the institutions and public spheres that extend the capacity of people to be imaginative, think critically, and be well informed. p. 172-3
We spend more on the military than the next eight countries combined (China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, India, France, United Kingdom, Japan, and Germany. p. 176
. . . politics of exclusion. . . . about not allowing some people to participate in public life. p. 181
. . . the age of disposability, what was once considered extreme and unfortunate has now become a matter of common sense, whether we are talking about policies that actually kill people or those that strip away the humanity and dignity of millions. p. 184
Oxfam reports that "eight men own as much as the poorest half of the world," and that "the wealth of 3.5 billion people is the equivalent to the combined net worth" of eight businessmen, six of whom are from the United States. Such gaps in wealth and power turn politics into acts of war and repression. p. 190
The idea that the Justice Department should be protecting him and not the country goes to the essence of abuse of power. p. 219

[Shane · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a book by a very competent writer saying almost nothing controversial, insightful, or anything that hasn't been said before. The crux of the book is that the Trump is creating authoritarian fascism, neoliberalism in the path for that fascism, the Democrats are complicit, and we need mass action to the left of that. None of this is particularly new or interesting on its own, and frankly it reads like the clarion call from someone reviving pretty tepid analysis and calls to action. It is filled with quotes, but mainly from mainstream people saying mainstream things, there is just not much here to really add to the conversation or even to make you think. I would love to say nice things about this book, Henry A. Giroux is a great writer and wonderful person, but this is just not worth reading.

[D. Gardner · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first heard this guy on the radio where the best books are often discussed, and listened to his remarks for several minutes until the interview was over. I placed an order through B&N, and within a little over a week, I set about reading it.

As a person who reads books for recreation, I can't say that I recommend it. But if you want a broad conceptual and hard look at American society today then I would invite you to read Giroux and let him carry you into a vortex of concern.