Journalist and political analyst Andrew Spannaus—author of Why Trump Wins (2016) and The Revolt of the Voters (2017)—will be the keynote guest at an event hosted by the University of Trento. Invited by the Department of Sociology and Social Research, Spannaus will welcome first-year students on September 17 with a lecture titled “Understanding America to Build the Future.” Rector Flavio Deflorian and department director Marco Brunazzo will also take part.
Spannaus will examine the populist wave in the United States and Europe, highlighting its deep historical roots. He argues that recent upheavals in the U.S. trace back to transformations that began in the 1970s, which paved the way for figures like Donald Trump to reach the presidency. His talk will also address the broader shifts reshaping Western societies and the challenges they pose to the principles on which the West is built.
Founder of the newsletter Transatlantico.info, Spannaus writes for Consortium News and Aspenia and regularly comments on U.S. politics for Rai News 24 and RSI (Swiss Broadcasting Corporation). From 2018 to 2020, he served as Executive Delegate of the Foreign Press Association in Milan. He also teaches in the Master’s program in International Economics and Policy at ASERI, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan.