Frankfurt School Critical Theory and the Persistence of Authoritarian Populism in the United States

The first part of the essay provides a brief overview of the Frankfurt School Critical Theorists’ studies of authoritarianism and right-wing populism. The second part examines the emergence of the Tea Party and Donald Trump’s success in expanding and intensifying this right-wing populist movement by harnessing it to his own authoritarian leadership. Drawing on the conceptual resources I outlined in the first section, I seek to demonstrate in the second section how the Critical Theorists’ analyses of right-wing populism and authoritarianism can still explain key aspects of the Tea Party and Trump. Throughout this essay Critical Theory and right-wing populism is situated within two levels of historical periodization: first, the modern bourgeois epoch as whole and, second, specific periods within that epoch. The aim of the latter periodization is to illuminate the specific historical and social conditions that have inhibited or favoured the emergence of right-wing populist and authoritarian movements.