Former Police Officer and Criminology Professor Applies Moral Psychology to Public Decision-Making in New Book

Dr. Terry C. Cox draws on a law enforcement career and four decades of teaching to explore how people reconcile personal values with public choices.

LOUISVILLE, KY, UNITED STATES, October 31, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Dr. Terry C. Cox, Emeritus Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Eastern Kentucky University and a former municipal and railroad police officer, is the author of The Election of President Donald J. Trump: A Faustian Bargain and Morality Crisis. The 260-page book applies established theories from social psychology to a central question in civic life: how individuals weigh their own moral standards when making decisions about public leadership.

The book is available in print and ebook editions at Barnes & Noble, Rakuten Kobo, Bookshop.org, and Orell Füssli.

Cox builds his analysis on two frameworks he used throughout his academic career. The first is Albert Bandura’s theory of moral disengagement, which explains how people with firm personal values can set those values aside in particular situations. The second is Leon Festinger’s theory of cognitive dissonance. Cox walks readers through the specific mechanisms Bandura identified, including euphemistic labeling, advantageous comparison, displacement and diffusion of responsibility, attribution of blame, and minimizing consequences.

His perspective comes from years inside the justice system. Police candidates at accredited agencies go through background investigations, psychological screening, and polygraph examinations. Cox uses those screening standards as a point of comparison to examine the standards the public applies in other areas of life.

“I spent my career teaching students that people have moral agency and are accountable for their choices,” Cox said. “In this book I use the tools of criminology and social psychology to look at one of the most widely discussed public decisions of my lifetime.”

Cox served as a Baltimore and Ohio Railroad police officer in Akron, Ohio, and then as a patrol officer with the Marietta, Ohio Police Department. He spent thirty-nine years on the faculty of the School of Justice Studies at Eastern Kentucky University, where his research focused on homicide, violent predatory crime, and police use of force. He was qualified as an expert witness in federal civil rights litigation and taught in the Kentucky Department of Criminal Justice Training and the Ohio Peace Officers Training Academy.

The book also looks at broader social trends, including shifts in religious affiliation, economic pressures on working families, and demographic change. It closes with a discussion of child poverty and health in Kentucky and West Virginia, the Appalachian communities where Cox has spent most of his life.

The book takes its epigraph from John Prine’s 1972 song “The Great Compromise,” which Cox returns to in his closing pages.

Dr. Cox is available for interviews, podcast appearances, campus lectures, and commentary on criminology, policing, violent crime, and moral psychology.

Book Details

Title: The Election of President Donald J. Trump: A Faustian Bargain and Morality Crisis
Author: Terry C. Cox, Ph.D.
Publication Date: March 11, 2026
Pages: 260
ISBN-13: 9780636446465
Categories: Criminology, Social Psychology, Current Affairs
Website: https://moralitycrisis.com

Purchase Links

Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-election-of-president-donald-j-trump-terry-c-cox-phd/1149672543?ean=9780636446465

Rakuten Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-election-of-president-donald-j-trump

Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-election-of-president-donald-j-trump-a-faustian-bargain-and-morality-crisis/a6ffb8714573053f?ean=9798295725050

Orell Füssli: https://www.orellfuessli.ch/shop/home/artikeldetails/A1079757074

About the Author

Dr. Terry C. Cox earned a multidisciplinary Ph.D. from the University of Akron with concentrations in criminology, social psychology, and criminal justice. He served thirty-nine years on the faculty of the School of Justice Studies at Eastern Kentucky University and retired as Emeritus Professor. He later taught as an adjunct professor in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Western Carolina University.

Before entering academia, Cox served as a police officer with the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and with the Marietta, Ohio Police Department. He was drafted into the United States Army during the Vietnam War and graduated from the drill instructor academy at Fort Lewis, Washington. His father and three brothers were combat veterans.

His academic work concentrated on homicide and violent predatory criminality, police administration, and police related violence. He has published in academic journals and served as co-researcher and coauthor on two major ethnographic field research projects examining homicides in the Appalachian region of Eastern Kentucky.

Review copies, high-resolution author photographs, and cover art are available on request.

Website: https://moralitycrisis.com/

Dr. Terry C. Cox
Dr. Cox
beechlickhill18@gmail.com