Trump 2.0 and Questions of the Political: Introduction to the Roundtable on the Trumpian Imaginary

Abstract This introduction to the Roundtable frames three reflections on the significance of Trump’s ascendancy to a second Presidency. To begin, there are general remarks on the pace and significance of the transformation in the US polity in 2025, which are, second, followed by comments on the global consequences of whirlwind changes in foreign policy and disorienting shifts around tariff negotiations, and third, consideration of Trump’s aggressive stance towards sovereign states in the Western Hemisphere. The contributors to the Roundtable write from varied experiences in different national and intellectual traditions: one a North American who is also active in French intellectual life (Dick Howard), one active in the Argentinian intelligentsia who has taught aesthetics and political theory in the US (Martín Plot), and the third, Mexican, who engages political philosophy and critical theory on the European continent (María Pía Lara). The contributors interrogate short-term developments while analyzing long-term patterns instituted by social and political imaginaries to present perspectives on the Trump phenomenon with depth and precision.