“Was Trump Necessary?”
Continuing the Conversation About Our Current Authoritarian Crisis

With Joel Blau, D.S.W.

“Why Trump? Why have political and economic elites had to resort to reliance on a president who ignores Congress, sends ICE into hospitals, and deports immigrants to foreign prisons? Managing the U.S. government to benefit elites did not used to require such extraordinary behavior. What is different now that makes such policies acceptable?”

Presenter:

Joel Blau is Professor Emeritus of Social Policy at Stony Brook University School of Social Welfare, where from 1996-2017, he was also Director of the Ph.D. program. He is the author of The Visible Poor: Homelessness in the United States (Oxford University Press, 1992), which won the World Hunger Year Designation as one of the 100 most significant books on homelessness and poverty, as well as with Mimi Abramovitz, the well-known Oxford University Press policy textbook, The Dynamics of Social Welfare Policy. For the last seven years, he has taught the doctoral social policy seminar in the City University Graduate School for the Hunter [Silberman] School of Social Work Ph.D. program. Blau was a founding member of the Bertha Capen Reynolds Society, which is now SWAA.

Moderator:

Stephen Monroe Tomczak, Ph.D., L.M.S.W., Professor of Social Welfare Policy & Community Organization, Southern Connecticut State University and member of the SWAA National Steering Committee.

This event is an opportunity to continue the conversation about our current authoritarian crisis which was initiated on December 2, 2025.

SWAA is funded only through memberships. These help us to maintain our website and Zoom accounts and offer honorariums to webinar hosts.