Welcome back to Global Takes on Trump, a podcast from Global Studies at the University of Sussex in Brighton, UK. This time, regular host Synne Dyvik is joined by PhD researcher Tanja Weis for a conversation with Melanie Richter-Montpetit about some of the key members of Trump’s coalition: Tradwives and Techbros.

In this wide-ranging conversation, our experts discuss how gender is constructed, how it relates to race, empire, power, and crisis, and how Trump and his tech bro and trad wife supporters stoke these anxieties to fuel their reactionary project.

This episode’s guest host is Tanja Weis, a PhD researcher in International Relations at the University of Sussex. Tanja’s doctoral research examines the attacks on LGBTQIA+ rights across Europe by drawing on critiques of family, empire, and liberalism.

Our expert in this episode is Dr. Melanie Richter-Montpetit, Associate Professor in International Security. Much of her research examines how gender, sexual and racial formations are fundamental to global politics in ‘the colonial present’ with a focus on liberal war and security regimes.

Melanie teaches modules on Sex, Race and Violence as well as the Liberal World Order across our undergraduate degrees programmes in International Relations.

During today’s conversation on the role of gender, sex, race and power, Synne, Tanja and Melanie drew on a wide range of scholarship, reporting and, yes, other podcasts. You can keep this conversation going by reading, watching and listening to some of those resources.

Further reporting:

• Trad Values Meets Tech, from Gaby Del Valle
• The False Escapism of Soft Girls and Tradwives, in Time Magazine
• Kiera Butler’s deeper dive into JD Vance and the 'TheoBros'
• Tradwife Content Offers Fundamentalism Fit for Instagram, by Kelsey Kramer McGinnis

Books and Articles:

• Anne McClintock’s Imperial leather: Race, gender, and sexuality in the colonial contest.
• Gagan Kaur’s Master Thesis from City University, New York (CUNY), Tradwives: The Housewifization of the Girl Boss
• A Well-Trained, by Tia Levings
• Aurelien Mondon and Aaron Winter’s Reactionary Democracy: How Racism and the Populist Far Right Became Mainstream

Podcasts:

• A Bit Fruity, on Spotify