Are there no more real alternatives to neo-liberal globalisation? Is there no authentic left-wing model that can counteract the despicable wave of populism and its simplistic conservative leaders with their fundamental neo-national thinking?

Taking Trump’s election with all of its negative aspects, side and after-effects of personal lies, fake news and their nasty consequences as her starting point, the philosopher Susan Neiman analyses the ways of thinking that have led to Brexit and the Trump election, and continue to threaten us throughout Europe. She shows how decades of falsehoods in traditional media have led us to cast ideas of truth and justice in doubt. Under the guise of subverting established tradition, the very concepts that are needed to establish progressive politics were undermined. Neiman urges a renewed attention to the language in which political demands are made.

A committed and intellectual plea, a warning that comes at just the right time, an appeal for courage and clarity of thought against any kind of populism and conservative nationalism: If we do not develop political alternatives now, populists will come to power everywhere. If we do not publicly advocate for truth and morality now, our values and the politics based on them will be trampled to the ground. If we do not think and live out the alternatives now, we will sooner or later all become victims.

»Neiman’s essay is an appeal to reason that must give us moral and political orientation. And a call to resistance, for it is now more important than ever to formulate objective truth claims.«
Philosophie Magazin

»You can only put down this essay after reading it to the last line. The sweeping blow on these few pages is enormous«
Süddeutsche Zeitung