Travels in the Time of Trump
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It is better to travel than to arrive. So the saying goes. And Paula DiPerna is a seasoned traveller. Been there. Done that. A modern Marco Polo. But suddenly in 2017 she finds herself in unknown territory. Uncharted waters. Floundering without a map. And where no digital technology can help her. Where is she? She is in flight from her beloved New York. In flight from America. In flight from the chaos of the Presidency of Donald Trump. DiPerna’s is the tale of how a nation sleepwalked into what to many people around the world now see as a political nightmare, starting first in the broken town of Scranton, Pennsylvania, where DiPerna campaigned for Hillary Clinton, hoping against hope. It is a tale of incredulity seen not only through the eyes of an educated, American professional but also through the eyes of taxi drivers, hotel clerks, waitresses and shopkeepers, all wondering what could have happened to the USA. In Cape Town. In Beijing. In Berlin. It is a tale of a world gone crazy. And it begs the question: what do we do now? DiPerna does indeed arrive – with a bump. ‘My journey had played fast and loose with time zones and lounges as I ice-skated along on the surface of each day, dabbling in silly luxuries, all transient. And yet, on the road, I could see even more clearly that resistance to mediocrity and rebuilding of the idea of common good is urgent.’ Paula DiPerna’s incisive Travels in the Time of Trump puts much-needed distance and time between cataclysmic events to gain a perspective on the dystopian political landscape we all now inhabit.
