Sovereignty, Identity and Populism: Critiques of Brexit and Trump in My Country and Building the Wall

Year 2025, Issue: 40, 90 - 101, 27.06.2025

Hakan Gültekin

https://doi.org/10.26650/jtcd.2025.1654631

Abstract

This article examines the impact of populist narratives on post-Brexit UK society and how they shape the political climate in the Trump era in the United States through the plays My Country-A Work in Progress and Building the Wall. My Country explores how individuals in the UK, a multicultural and economically dynamic society, confront identity, economic conditions and nationalism in the post-Brexit era and how they redefine these concepts in a changing socio-political context. Building the Wall reflects the stage explorations of populist discourses through the radicalised border policies of the Trump administration. These plays reveal how people who feel excluded by the traditional political landscape and policy elites mobilise around populist narratives. In this study, the tensions between economic crisis, nationalism and xenophobia that shape contemporary political movements are discussed through dramatic texts.

Keywords

Populism , Brexit , Trump , American Theatre , British Theatre

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