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This is a troubled age for democracy, but the nature of that trouble and why it is a problem for democracy is an open question, not easy to answer. Widespread wishing for responsible leaders who respect democratic norms and pursue policies to benefit people and protect the vulnerable don’t help much. The issue goes well beyond library contexts, but it is important that those in libraries think through our role in democracy as well. Micro-targeting library-centric problems won’t be effective and don’t address the key issue of this volume. The author can only address the future if we recover an understanding of the present by building up an understanding of actually-existing democracy: (1) the scope must be narrowed to accomplish the task; (2) the characteristics of the retreat from democracy should be established; (3) core working assumptions and values – what libraries are about in this context – must be established; (4) actually-existing democracy should then be characterized; (5) the role of libraries in actually-existing democracy is then explored; (6) the source and character of the threat that is driving the retreat from democracy and cutting away at the core of library assumptions and values is analyzed; (7) the chapter concludes by forming a basis of supporting libraries by unpacking their contribution to building and rebuilding democratic culture: libraries are simultaneously less and more important than is understood.

In this chapter, I analyze the decision calculus of President Donald Trump, using the Applied Decision Analysis (ADA) method (Mintz, 2005, Mintz & DeRouen, 2010). I analyze seven foreign policy decisions taken in the first six months of Trump’s presidency. I find that in his decision-making process, President Trump applies six dimensions. My analysis reveals that the imagery dimension has affected President Trump’s decisions across the board, and led to the rejection of non-compensatory alternatives. Based on my research, I conclude that President Trump demonstrated a poliheuristic decision code. Furthermore, from my analysis derives that President Trump’s decision-making process is mostly intuitive. Moreover, this chapter reveals a polythink syndrome in Trump’s decision unit, manifested in the battle between his two groups of advisors, known as the nationalists and globalists.

Officially, of course, the world is now post-imperial. The Q’ing and Ottoman empires fell on the eve of World War I, and the last Leviathans of Europe's imperial past, the Austro-Hungarian and Tsarist empires, lumbered into the grave soon after. Tocsins of liberation were sounded on all sides, in the name of democracy (Wilson) and socialism (Lenin). Later attempts to remake and proclaim empires – above all, Hitler's annunciation of a “Third Reich” – now seem surreal, aberrant, and dystopian. The Soviet Union, the heir to the Tsarist empire, found it prudent to call itself a “federation of socialist republics.” Mao's China followed suit. Now, only a truly perverse, contrarian regime would fail to deploy the rhetoric of democracy.

This thirty-second volume in the REA series represents a joint effort between two former students of Norbert Dannhaeuser, who edited REA together with his colleague Cynthia Werner from 2001 to 2005, and who served as the chair of both Donald's and Ty's M.A. thesis committees at Texas A&M University. Norbert also was chair of Ty's Ph.D. committee. Donald was just settling on Japan as his geographic focus in anthropology around 1993, and although this was not Norbert's specialty he was very familiar with the canon of postwar Japanese village studies. Introducing Donald to this body of work had a tremendous influence on his academic development and his future path. Prior to this more intensive and focused guidance, however, it was taking Norbert's core Anthropological Theory (ANTH 410) course at Texas A&M in the autumn term of 1992 – exactly 20 years ago – that convinced Donald to commit himself to a career in anthropology in the first place. Similarly, Ty's career development as an anthropologist owes a considerable debt to Norbert. The knowledge acquired from him both in the field (the Philippines) and classroom (Texas A&M University) has proven indispensable in influencing Ty's geographical and topical focus. Both of us would like to take this opportunity to thank Norbert for all of his guidance and encouragement. We humbly dedicate this volume of REA to him in honor of all of his contributions to the field of anthropology, and also out of gratitude for his support when we were just starting out.