ABSTRACT
Donald Trump’s inauguration as the 45th President of the United States engendered the largest single-day and sustained protest movement in U.S. history. On January 21, 2017, the Women’s March, along with organizers of the most-recent #MeToo movement, illuminated global digital visibility to the intersectional multidimensionality of misogyny. Four years later, Trump’s reelection defeat and voter fraud “Big Lies” instigated a violent insurrection and sparked a movement to restrict voting access across the country. This chapter examines the shifting of the media frame and the escalation of cultural warfare following the defeat of Trump and explores polarization amidst the effort toward transformative social change. The chapter concludes within the context of a case study, using the U.S. state of Iowa – a centerpiece of U.S. media and political rhetoric as a major player in the election of a U.S. president – as a microcosm of cultural war escalation in the U.S. today.
