Review by Bill Savage – The selection for the first review was a simple one. In 2015, when Donald J Trump came down the elevator inside the Trump Tower, American politics changed forever. Rural America has embraced him, working class Americans love him, and the establishment swamp on both sides of the aisle loathe him.
The Trump era came in without warning. Apart from a few astute observers, no one saw it coming. Wisconsin went for Cruz; I have no problem telling you that I was a Cruz supporter. My only reservation about Trump was that he was untested. Electing untested candidates usually doesn’t work out so well. However, there is no such thing as a “tested” outsider, hence the term outsider. But sometimes the outsider is the best choice. The question to be answered is how did the outsider Donald J Trump get to the White House? I encourage all readers to read –
The Great Revolt (Inside the Populist Coalition Reshaping American Politics): Salena Zito and Brad Todd
In 2016, presidential candidate Donald Trump shocked the world with soaring popularity during the primary and eventually won the White House. Almost everyone reading this review could personally come up with 15 reasons why Trump won in 2016. Mine are straightforward. Securing the border, common sense trade policies, and his America first agenda all resonated with the American people.
The Great Revolt takes an in-depth look at why the nation went from 8 years of Obama to Trump. The authors take an in-depth look at counties in swing states that went from Obama in 2012 to Trump in 2016. Kenosha county and Veron County in Wisconsin being two of them. The authors also looked at other counties in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Iowa, and Michigan. The authors interviewed voters that switched their votes in 2016 to the republican candidate. The authors discovered a common theme. Voters who switched to Trump were either (1) personally affected by economic hardships or (2) because they live in small communities, and therefore, they knew friends and neighbors who were suffering from the bad economic climate even though they themselves were personally in good financial shape. The takeaway is that in well-to-do suburbs, voters are sheltered from the working class who live from paycheck to paycheck. Their friends and neighbors have the resources to “weather the storm” and therefore they are less sensitive to job market woes. Wealthier suburbs aren’t affected by higher grocery and gas prices. They don’t see what a bad economy does to the average American.
The authors discuss blue collar families (who once were a loyal democrat voting block), suburban moms, and the Christian voter. The authors also look at globalism versus a local perspective, and the misconceptions of who the typical American is, from NRA members to Walmart shoppers.
Love him or hate him, Donald J Trump has reshaped American politics.
The Great Revolt is a must read for every student of America’s current political landscape.
Bill Savage is the Editor of the Wisconsin Conservative Digest and author of Savagespeaks.substack.com
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