Trump and Autobiography

The 1970s and 1980s heralded the rise of neoliberalism in United States culture, fundamentally reshaping life and work in the United States. Corporate culture increasingly penetrated other aspects of American life through popular press CEO autobiographies and management books that encouraged individuals to understand their lives in corporate terms. Propelled into the public eye by the publication of 1989s The Art of the Deal, ostensibly a CEO autobiography, Donald Trump has made a career out of reversing the autobiographical impulse, presenting an image of his life that meets his narrative needs. While many scholars have sought a political precedent for Trumps rise to power, this book argues that Trumps aesthetics and life production uniquely primed him for populist political success through their reliance on the tropes of popular corporate culture. Trump and Autobiography contextualizes Trumps autobiographical works as an extension of the popular corporate culture of the 1980s in order to examine how Trump constructs an image of himself that is indebted to the forms, genres, and mechanisms of corporate speech and narrative. Ultimately, this book suggests that Trumps appeal and resilience rest in his ability to signify as though he is a corporation, revealing the degree to which corporate culture has reshaped American societys interpretive processes.