FROM HAYEK TO TRUMP: THE LOGIC OF NEOLIBERAL DEMOCRACY MARTIJN KONINGS T he motivating force, ethical appeal, and emotional purchase of the neoliberal image of the market have all too often eluded progressive critics. To the extent that they have recognized the afective aspects of neoliberal politics, they have tended to focus on its alliances with neoconservative philosophies and to view these as instrumental and external. According to such accounts, neoconservatives have legitimated laissez-faire economics and private enrichment through appeals to conservative religious values, and large sections of the American public have been curiously unable to see through this obvious hypocrisy – giving rise to the kind of despair at the people’s irrationality that is expressed in the title of Thomas Frank’s book What’s the Matter with Kansas? 1 Such approaches conceive of the legitimating spirit of neoliberalism as an external ideological moment, portraying populists’ loyalty to neoliberal discourses as a kind of cognitive impairment or moral failure. This style of explanation has been stretched to new limits with the rise of Trump, a phenomenon that has become truly incomprehensible, operating in ways that are beyond the perceptual register of the progressive worldview. Throughout the two-year election process itself, many dismissed his strong showings in early polls and conidently asserted that he would drop out of the primary race soon enough. As Trump’s candidacy proved more resilient than expected, such predictions gave way to grudging acknowledgements that Trump enjoyed more appeal than initially expected but the latter were quickly replaced with predictions that he would never be able to capture the nomination. After Trump did win the nomination by a wide margin, the second half of 2016 was dominated by claims that he had done so much to alienate key constituencies that his election had become a mathematical impossibility. For much of the campaign, the New York Times webpage showed an electoral barometer indicating a very high likelihood that Clinton