An End to Loneliness: The Politics of Grievance and the Rise of Neomedievalism

ABSTRACT

I juxtapose two narratives concerning the politics of grief to reflect on loneliness in the US. I describe how Americans attempted to grieve the loss of the first 400,000 Americans to die from COVID-19. I then discuss how Donald Trump, often described as a sociopath, may better be understood as a person unaffected by modernity one who reflects and amplifies a growing inability in American political culture to properly grieve without turning to grievance. I argue that the key to understanding Trump is to see him and the movement he leads as a product of the American public who no longer have the capacity to experience loneliness.