American men are remaking individual freedom in an unprecedented experiment. In the wreckage of neoliberal globalization and dedemocratization, individual citizens -- from "forgotten men" to lawmakers to tech moguls -- are rejecting the liberal bonds of the social contract and reclaiming the power to violently control other people. They are crafting new mutations of sovereign power that were previously the prerogative of the nation-state, wielding individual freedom like a weapon to overawe and dominate the lives of others, from family members to neighbors to distant populations across the globe. This paper asks how and why––in an interdependent world facing enormous planetary-sized problems from climate destruction to mass poverty to rising authoritarianism––people turn to individual sovereignty rather than democracy as a solution to disempowerment and despair.
