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Lookup NU author(s): Professor Peter HopkinsORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
In this introductory essay, we reflect on the significance of the re-election of Donald Trump to the presidency in the United States, and we provide some context for interpreting Trump’s second term. Two of Trump’s early policy moves—the release of billions of gallons of water from reservoirs in California and granting of refugee status to Afrikaners—portend four years of politics based on alternative facts, conspiracy theories, and racial grievances. Trump’s political agenda has received a significant boost from Silicon Valley billionaires, who are keen to eliminate regulatory bureaucracy. Paradoxically, while allied with high-tech futurists, Trump’s policies hearken to an earlier era of imperialism and settler-colonialism. After outlining the basic contours of Trump’s agenda, we provide an overview of this special section on the second Trump presidency as viewed by geographers. We conclude by giving attention to themes not covered in this collection, including the Trump administration’s attacks on US universities. In this tumultuous time, geographers must communicate their research to a skeptical and distrustful public that has grown weary of liberal policies.
Author(s): Nagel C, Hopkins P
Publication type: Editorial
Publication status: Published
Journal: The Geographical Journal
Year: 2025
Volume: 191
Issue: 4
Print publication date: 01/12/2025
Online publication date: 25/05/2025
Acceptance date: 14/04/2025
ISSN (print): 0016-7398
ISSN (electronic): 1475-4959
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/geoj.70020
DOI: 10.1111/geoj.70020
Data Access Statement: Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.
