Chaos Comes Calling

Please join two scholars of America's right-wing and politically extremist movements in conversation at Clio's on October 8. This crucial discussion will unfold less than a month before a Presidential election that could fundamentally and permanently impact American democracy and return a twice-impeached convicted felon (who has built a national movement that in many ways resembles a personality cult) to power.

Chaos Comes Calling (2024), by Sasha Abramsky, is a harrowing tale of the polarization that threatened to break apart two American communities (Shasta County, California and Sequim, Washington)—and how one found a way back while the other splintered. His book shows how such communities are affected locally and on the ground when hard-right movements and political figures gain power. And it shows just what is at stake in the 2024 elections and beyond.

Sasha will be joined in conversation by Lawrence Rosenthal, whose Empire of Resentment (2020) chronicled the transformation of the American far right that made the Trump presidency possible in the first place—and what that transformation portends for the future.

Sasha Abramsky is a long-time political journalist and author who has spent the last thirty years exploring the American political and social justice landscape. He has written extensively on poverty, criminal justice, immigration, and the rise of hard-right and alt-right political movements.

Dr. Lawrence Rosenthal is chair and lead researcher of the Berkeley Center for Right-Wing Studies. He has taught at the University of California, Berkeley, in the sociology and Italian studies departments, and was a Fulbright Professor at the University of Naples in Italy. He lives in Berkeley.

Host or Publisher Clio's Books