Being Cruel and Pretending You’re Not

Adam Serwer’s ‘The Cruelty is the Point’

Tucker Lieberman
7 min readJun 17, 2022

--

A collage suggesting a bullfight. A matador walks and spreads his arms near a bull. Pink thumbprints of what may be blood.
Image by efes from Pixabay

In 2018, Adam Serwer wrote an essay in The Atlantic called “The Cruelty is the Point.” It explained Trumpism. The title carries the point. It was hugely popular, and in 2021, he released a good essay collection: The Cruelty is the Point.

--

--

Tucker Lieberman

Editor for Prism & Pen. Author of the novel "Most Famous Short Film of All Time." https://tuckerlieberman.com/