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Lookup NU author(s): Emerita Professor Karen Ross
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).
© The Author(s) 2025. This Special Issue was conceived in an important year for democracy – 2024 – when an estimated 1.5bn people headed to the polls. What we now know, and indeed could have predicted because of the way in which national elections held in the first half of the 2020s were already showing an alarming lurch to the right, was that the super-election year resulted in another significant triumph for populism which was too often accompanied by overtly anti-feminist positions (Korolczuk et al., 2025). The European elections did indeed deliver this outcome across a number of countries, often overturning a solid left-leaning polity; Donald Trump's win in the US Presidential election in November 2024 further consolidated the trend, not just in terms of populist politics but also demonstrating a racist kickback, re-traditionalisation of gender norms and a backlash against feminism and feminists. In Trump's inauguration speech, he said, ‘This week, I will [also] end the government policy of trying to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life’ and subsequently repealed 78 executive orders signed by Joe Biden, including measures which supported racial equity and which combatted discrimination against gay and transgender people (https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-sign-orders-ending-diversity-programs-proclaiming-there-are-only-two-sexes-2025-01-20/). As a key player on the global and media stage, Trump's regressive views on women and diversity contribute a powerful voice to the wider populist discourse and constitute a significant backlash against gender justice. As this Special Issue goes to press, Trump and his allies have double-downed on their anti-ED&I stance, including bullying American universities into abandoning their ED&I policies under threat of funding cuts.
Author(s): Ross K, Padovani C
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: European Journal of Communication
Year: 2025
Pages: Epub ahead of print
Online publication date: 09/06/2025
Acceptance date: 02/04/2018
Date deposited: 24/06/2025
ISSN (print): 0267-3231
ISSN (electronic): 1460-3705
Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
URL: https://doi.org/10.1177/02673231251349013
DOI: 10.1177/02673231251349013
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