ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates a case of transnational heroization, focusing on the ways in which US president Donald Trump is heroized in both the United States and Europe. Analysing texts, memes, and online videos, it argues that the heroic narratives that are circulated in popular culture on both sides of the Atlantic have increasingly become intertwined with politics and are used to make sense of it. The ‘strongman’ populism that Donald Trump espouses appears to be reassuring to those Americans and Europeans who are concerned about immigration and multiculturalism. Although Trump means different things to different admirers (or fans), they share an international language of Western heroism, and their heroizations of Trump depend on, and are enabled by, a globally circulating popular culture that provides both the templates and tropes for the heroic narratives they create.
