The Personality of Power: A Theory of Fascism for Anti-fascist Life [Paperback]

“I am the Chosen One!” With this exclamation Donald Trump crowns the national exceptionalism his base upholds with a claim of personal exceptionalism. He leaves no doubt as to the emotional note: “I am your vengeance!” He personifies reaction for the masses. Except, in today’s microsegmented social media environment the “masses” no longer exist. Fascism’s cultural conditions have shifted. InThe Personality of Power, Brian Massumi retheorizes the conditions of contemporary fascism through the prism of Trump’s persona. Older theories based on identification of the masses with a charismatic leader no longer hold. Rather, an affective regime of reaction agitates bodies and orients lives at the molecular level. Massumi examines this agitation in relation to race, gender, personhood, and conspiracy thinking.The Personality of Poweris a political treatise on fascism and its precursor movements, coupled with a philosophical inquiry into becoming reactionary as a collective process. Massumi calls the very concept of the person into question, asking what collective personhood means concretely. Nothing less than an alternative political logic is needed, turned to the task of thinking collective individuation.USBrian Massumi retheorizes the conditions of contemporary fascism through the prism of Donald Trump’s persona.Brian Massumi is a Canadian philosopher and social theorist, and, until recently, Professor of Communication at the University of Montreal. He is the author of many books, includingCouplets,Ontopower,The Power at the End of the Economy, andParables for the Virtual, all also published by Duke University Press.“By mobilizing and building creatively on Deleuze and Guattari’s conceptual arsenal, Brian Massumi provides a new and convincing analysis of the political and affective logics of Trump and his followers, treating Trump as not an exception but a syml3