The Necro-President: How Death Became the Defining Metaphor of American Politics

When Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis took the stage at the 2024 Republican National Convention and compared President Joe Biden to the corpse from "Weekend at Bernie's," the crowd erupted in laughter. But for Dean Caivano, the joke exposed something far more disturbing than Biden's age or cognitive decline — it revealed that death itself had infiltrated the symbolic center of American governance.

"Really he was touching upon something that lies at the very heart of all political systems, but particularly a republican regime like ours," says Caivano, assistant professor of political science. "And that is the question of what comes next."

In "The Necro-President: Trump, MAGA, and the Decline of the American Republic," Caivano introduces a provocative framework for understanding the 2024 presidential election. He posits the election was not a typical contest between candidates, but as a referendum on whether the American republic retains any vitality at all. His central concept — the "necro-president" — operates as both figure and condition, describing how mortality and decay have become embedded in the language, symbols, and psychology of contemporary American politics.

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