Reaganism became our American vernacular.

The Age of Reagan goes from 1980 to 2016. The Trumpocene is like the Age of Reagan. And for them, it's more obvious because they lost their whole social world. I think the Never Trumpers have a much clearer sense of this reality than a lot of liberals and even leftists. Too many people want a happy ending.Īfter Trump comes others. 'It is not the Trumpocene that is unending but the struggle that is ongoing.' Belafonte, he would address Martin Luther King, in the present tense, like a ghost that was with him.

He would tell me that we dreamed of some things, we fought, and they killed a lot of us. He hated the Hollywoodization of the movement. Harry Belafonte knew and understood that more than most people, he was a man who was so essential to the Civil Rights Movement. Harry Belafonte, 96 years old, on his death day, knew that he got defeated. That is not how the real world works the struggle is going to be long. We are not going to beat Trumpism at some appointed time that is close in the future. The hope that Belafonte gives is not some type of cheap grace. We needed to explore the beauty of the man and the beauty of his anger -and that endures. Harry Belafonte? To start a book on the Trumpocene? Huh? I needed to start the book with some beauty and some hope. I opened the book with him, even knowing that it would cost me readers and sales.

'The Undertow' opens with Harry Belafonte, we learned of his death at age 96. Where are we in the story that is the Age of Trump, what you call the 'Trumpocene'? Some days it feels like an endless book where one chapter just leads to another.Ī book without an end? I do think that's the case – but not in the way you may be thinking of. It is not the Trumpocene that is unending but the struggle that is ongoing. This conversation has been edited for clarity and length. Sharlet also shares what he learned from his time with the late Harry Belafonte about righteous anger and how to transform such energy into art, activism, sacrifice, and radical democratic freedom dreaming and positive social change work. He warns that the country is still very much in crisis – despite what many Americans, both elites and everyday people would like to believe - and that a collapse into a fascist regime appears to be imminent. In a wide-ranging conversation, Sharlet explains how American neofascism in its various forms seduced wide swaths of (White) American society through permission to engage in violence, sexism, misogyny, white supremacy, and other antisocial and evil behavior.

Whispered Promises by Red Phoenix