The epilogue to this book is a brief reflection on the relevance of Arendt’s moral philosophy to the current slide toward autocracy in many countries, including my own. Unlike the other chapters of this book, the epilogue is “time-stamped” to the moment of its writing: the first year of a US administration that openly aims to dismantle liberal institutions and inflate the president’s prerogative powers. It describes a set of events that poses moral problems resembling those that preoccupied Arendt in her “emergency ethics.”

The book opens with an overview of the tensions that increasingly define hip-hop’s role in contemporary culture, namely the way that the music continually shifts between complicity and critique in its assessment of capitalism and racialized inequality. This ambivalence is related back to the currents of pleasure and pain that run through the work of such rappers as Nicki Minaj and Megan Thee Stallion, and to the usage of hip-hop in a recent film soundtrack. After briefly discussing the editor’s own position in relation to the culture, the introduction moves on to an overview of the collection’s general aims. These include the attempt to reflect both the diverse styles and regions of contemporary hip-hop, and the political commitments of the contributors. A short discussion of editorial conventions follows, as well as an account of the book’s approach to hate speech. The section ends with a brief overview of each of the nineteen chapters.

The rise of community capitalism since the mid-2010s is reflected in the return of protectionism, authoritarianism, nativism, and violent conflict. European capitalism was forced to adapt by being more assertive. Europeans have embraced solutions that were previously refused as too protectionist, such as European preference, free trade contingent on adhering to social and environmental norms, subsidies to industry for strategic reasons, and competition policy decisions based on reciprocity. Some of these ideas were long defended by France. Germany previously criticised them, but has embraced some in trade since 2016, and others in foreign policy since 2022. The management of Brexit has reaffirmed the basis of European soft power, which depends on the unity of the Single Market. The Covid-19 pandemic (2020–21) forced the Union to adopt protectionist and interventionist measures. The Russo-Ukrainian War has led to very strong sanctions packages, as well as the Union’s foray into military matters. But the Europeans still remain heavily dependent on the US for defence. Donald Trump’s return to power in 2025 has forced Europe to think harder about organising community capitalism.

At first glance, Hans Kelsen (1881–1973) remains a marginal figure within US political discourse. However, this chapter argues that revisiting Kelsen is crucial if we are to understand present-day intellectual tendencies supportive of autocratic threats to US democracy. A neglected, yet pivotal, anti-Kelsenian moment proves decisive among influential right wing intellectuals, so-called ‘west coast’ Straussians based at California’s Claremont Institute, who enthusiastically supported Donald Trump and embraced his authoritarianism. The lawyer and Claremont affiliate John Eastman, for example, worked to prevent a peaceful transfer of power to then President-elect Joe Biden in 2020 to keep Trump in power. Trump’s Claremont Institute defenders have absorbed crucial facets of Leo Strauss’s critical rejoinder to Kelsen: Strauss’ longstanding anti-Kelsenianism has morphed into their subterranean anti-Kelsenianism. To validate this claim, the chapter revisits Strauss’ complicated theoretical dialogue with Kelsen, while also highlighting crucial moments in the arcane history of postwar American Straussianism. What is gained theoretically, and not just historically or politically, by doing so? The Claremont Institute’s apologetics for Trump corroborate Kelsen’s worries that attempts to revive natural law under contemporary conditions invite autocracy.

This chapter examines early decisions made by the Trump Administration that could have an impact on the financing of terrorism. The chapter also ties together the previous chapters – specifically looking at overlaps, regulatory, technological, or other in the area of terrorist financing and the countering of it.

Chapter 4 shifts the focus from why the US fears the ICC to when it opposes the ICC. The basic idea underpinning this portion of the book is that even though America’s fear that the ICC might someday target its troops is a constant, US policy toward the Court is a variable. I start by generating a typology of three broad strategies that the US might pursue in response to ICC investigations: opposition, assistance, and neglect. I describe what makes each strategy conceptually distinct and highlight the specific tactics associated with them. I then explain why the US might pick one strategy over the others. My theoretical framework calls attention to the interaction of two key variables: (a) whether the ICC investigation threatens US troops and (b) whether the ICC investigation advances broader American foreign policy goals. An analysis of each US presidential administration’s policies toward the ICC provides strong support for the theoretical framework.

Chapter 1 introduces President Donald Trump’s all-out assaults on the validity of the law of war. It argues that his behavior differs from other Western leaders in that Trump has been willing to openly challenge international humanitarian law (IHL) not “in the shadows” but “in the daylight.” Section 1.1 explains why the topic matters for political scientists and legal scholars. Section 1.2 discusses the significance of Trump’s impunity agenda for policy and governance. Section 1.3 argues that, regardless of whether Trump has technically violated the law of war in the past, his brazen attacks on the need for IHL distinguish him from other Western leaders. Section 1.4 claims that the constraints in Western democracies that largely prevent democratic leaders from publicly flouting IHL may be more perceived than actual. Section 1.5 justifies the case selection of Trump, explaining how Trump was presented with the “means, motive, and opportunity” to overtly defy the law of war. Section 1.6 previews the puzzles and arguments that guide the rest of the book.

Chapter 10 explores three competing visions of American national religious identity: Christian nationalism, strict secularism, and pluralist civil religion. After identifying problems with Christian nationalism and strict secularism, the chapter argues that an inclusive, dynamic, and pluralist civil religion offers the best way forward for continuing the American experiment.

For its first eighteen months, the Trump administration steered a surprisingly defensible course in Afghanistan, thanks to many of Trump’s appointees who worked to preserve something of America’s interests intact within the confines of Trump’s desire to reduce American commitments overseas. They were squeezed from two sides: on the one hand, the frustrating results of the Obama administration’s various strategies – surge, drawdown, and negotiations – seemed (wrongly) to prove their futility. On the other hand, virtually no one was convinced that Trump’s demand to get out fully and immediately was a good idea. They wanted to stay, but it was unclear what kind of posture, mission, or strategy would be more effective than what Obama had tried.

Trump’s newly empowered foreign policy led to the Doha agreement with the Taliban and America’s final defeat in Afghanistan. The Taliban’s principal demand and the central element of the eventual Doha agreement was the full withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan. It was hardly something the Taliban needed to demand because Trump was demanding it too. Trump was not inclined to enforce the agreement anyway. Trump campaigned on getting out of Afghanistan and repeatedly and publicly announced his intent to withdraw, which undermined negotiations just as much as Obama’s timetable had done.

Political scientists largely agree that, today, the modern presidential nomination process favors the rise of ideologically extreme candidates who contribute to the ideological polarization that the country is experiencing. Political scientists, however, disagree about the direction in which reform should move. Most political scientists believe that the process has become too democratic and that the cure for the current ideological polarization is to return the nomination process to the control of party leaders. This prescription for reform, however, ignores the fact that, when party leaders did control the process in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, they too often chose ideological extremists or populist demagogues. Rather, as the Conclusion elucidates, the problem with the current process is that it is insufficiently democratic: the rules governing the process exclude too many ideologically moderate voters, thereby encouraging the selection of more ideologically extreme candidates. The Conclusion closes with several suggestions for how the nomination process could be opened more fully in the future so as to remedy this ideological polarization.

This is the first of three biographical chapters, concentrating on one powerful politician and their record of manipulating statistics. This chapter deals with Donald Trump, who is sometimes called the ‘master manipulator’. His manipulative skills are not those of manipulating statistics, but the very different skills of manipulating people. In this chapter we deal principally with two areas: Trump’s treatment of unemployment figures and his treatment of voting figures, both of which he claims have been subject to bias. We question whether he is simply lying, because of evidence that he may be deceiving himself. We also look at his tendency for self-praise. We analyse his claims that the official unemployment figures were too low under Obama’s presidency but under his own presidency similar figures were correct. We also examine his claims that the 2020 presidential voting figures, especially for the State of Georgia, were too low. We note that he takes these claims from extremist and conspiracy sources. We also examine his threatening language when he attempted to persuade election officials to changes the votes in Georgia. Above all, Trump’s claims show his disdain for statistics.