For many, Donald Trump’s campaign for and election to the presidency has been the great surprise of modern American politics. In so many ways, we had seen nothing like the singular election of 2016 or the admittedly unique Trump candidacy. The first efforts to understand Trump’s rise have, not surprisingly, focused on him: his skills, his nerve, his braggadocio, his incivility.
In American Discontent, John L. Campbell shifts the analytic focus to the context that spawned Trump and his campaign. For Campbell, Trump’s victory was simply “the culmination of a half century of change during which public discontent ebbed and flowed but reached unprecedented heights in the years prior to the election, creating a political tsunami that swept him into the White House” (p. 2). He adds that “Trump’s ascendance to power was the manifestation of much deeper trends in society” (p. 9).
Campbell begins by listing the myriad short-term explanations for Trump’s victory, those offered by the political versions of “Monday Morning Quarterbacks” (p. 3). Some pundits suggested that Trump’s victory was the result of the public reaction to the embarrassing Clinton emails made public through Wikileaks. Others attributed Trump’s victory to then–FBI Director James Comey’s handling of the Clinton email server controversy. Political observers also attributed Trump’s victory to the ineptitude of Hillary Clinton’s campaign, public loathing of her, and the rise of social media. In each case, analysts attributed the election outcome to isolated, campaign-specific factors.
Without completely dismissing the role that these short-term factors played in the 2016 election, Campbell views all of these explanations as missing the central long-term message of Trump’s campaign and electoral success. For Campbell, fundamental changes in the American economy, in American society, and in American politics—the waning of the “golden age”—produced Trump’s victory.
Among the historical trends that contributed to this victory, Campbell includes the following: the transformation of the industrial economy of the mid-twentieth century, the growing diversity of the American population, the rise of neoliberalism (in both parties), and the dramatic increase in polarization and partisanship. Although each of these trends played a role in enabling Trump’s victory, Campbell views the transformation of the midcentury industrial economy—and the rise of inequality—as the central feature of that context. As he writes, “the backbone of my argument—the red thread—is the story of economic change. . . . [E]conomic factors facilitated many—but by no means all—of the racial, ideological, and political changes that helped pave the way for his victory” (p. 17).
The author details the transformation of the industrial economy to a tertiary economy. Faced with the decline of manufacturing jobs, stagnant wages, and weakened labor unions, American workers have faced considerable economic hardship over the last half century—in stark contrast to the relative prosperity of the immediate postwar era. Inequality grew, social mobility shrunk, and Americans’ discontent with the economy ballooned along with their personal debt.
As the golden age of the working-class economy was ending, the American population was growing more diverse. Increased immigration, the Southern Strategy, and the 9/11 terrorist attacks all incited disdain for racial and ethnic minorities among the white working class and made it easy for politicians like Trump to scapegoat minorities as the cause of their economic problems.
Dissatisfaction with economic and cultural conditions, in turn, made neoliberal policies increasingly attractive in the closing decades of the twentieth century. When Keynesianism seemingly sputtered during the stagflation of the 1970s, supply-siders’ claims that tax cuts, deregulation, and smaller government would boost the economy gained traction. Racial and ethnic resentment, epitomized by the “welfare queen” trope, made cuts to the social safety net amenable to white Americans. Neoliberal policies regarding free trade and immigration, however, only bolstered economic and cultural concerns among voters, while contributing to declining trust in government. Thus, Trump’s nationalist populism, with plans to shrink government (and drain the Washington “swamp”) while simultaneously restricting immigration and imposing tariffs, appealed to many. Other ideological movements mattered, too: Trump, Campbell argues, was able to capitalize on traditional family values held by the galvanized Christian Right movement—in part a reaction to cultural liberalization beginning in the 1960s.
These trends would foster another: increasing partisan polarization. Although Democrats adopted some tenets of neoliberalism and became more fiscally conservative, Republicans raced to the right—encouraged by a more fervently conservative business community—widening the ideological gap between the parties. Likewise, the parties became more racially polarized. Institutional changes—including lax campaign-finance regulation, partisan gerrymandering, and the postreform presidential primary system—contributed to polarization, too, according to the author, which escalated significantly in the 1990s.
In Campbell’s account of recent history, these “streams”—to use John Kingdon’s phrase—merged in a window of opportunity created by the Great Recession, the election of Barack Obama, the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and the resulting gridlock, all of which Trump took advantage of to seek and win the presidency.
There are several instances in Campbell’s telling with which we would disagree. For one, the Freedom Caucus did not have a role in the gridlock of the 112th and 113th Congresses, as it did not form until the 114th (p. 137). Additionally, Campbell grants partisan gerrymandering a significant role in polarization (pp. 117–18), although most political science research suggests it has had a limited role at best (e.g., Nolan McCarty, Keith T. Poole, and Howard Rosenthal, “Does Gerrymandering Cause Polarization?” American Journal of Political Science, 53(3), 2009). However, these are quibbles.
The historical lens that Campbell applies to the Trump election appeals to us, and in many respects we agree with him. But in basing his explanation of the 2016 election on decades-long trends, he begs the question: Why now? If economic dynamics are truly the “red thread” woven throughout the story of Trump’s victory, why was Mitt Romney unable to defeat Obama in 2012—a time at which the economy was demonstrably weaker than it was in 2016? Even if we focus on the more short-term factors highlighted by Campbell—Obama’s victory and the passage of the ACA—we get no leverage on the timing issue. Why the four-year delay?
An explanation based on the long-term trends identified by the author also provides little insight into Trump’s success during the nomination process. Trump’s victory in the general election was not the big surprise; the main shock was that he captured the Republican nomination in the first place. Thus, explanations of his electoral victory must first grapple with his successful effort to secure the nomination. Unfortunately, the grand themes upon which Campbell focuses are less useful at explaining how (and why) Trump won the Republican nomination.
Take, for example, the rise in neoliberal ideology, especially as it pertains to the Republican Party. It simply is not possible to see Trump as the standard bearer for neoliberalism among the host of Republicans who sought the presidential nomination in 2016. With Rand Paul and Ted Cruz in the race, how is Trump the champion of the neoliberals? If it was his nationalism—particularly his critiques of free trade—that helped him to stand out during the primary races, then it becomes harder to see how neoliberalism, as distinct from industrial and economic decline, opened the door for Trump.
Likewise, it is hard to see Trump as the darling of conservative evangelicals in the context of his Republican competition. Here again, how does Trump draw conservative evangelicals away from Cruz? Our own analysis suggests that “Born Again” Christians were less likely to support Trump during the primary races than they were other Republicans. Moreover, conservatism in general was negatively associated with Trump support.
Gridlock? This is where Trump begins to shine. As a political outsider—not an elected official—Trump cannot be faulted for gridlock. But Trump was not the only outsider among the potential Republican nominees. What about Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina? If Trump did not prevail over these competitors due to his celebrity or social media use, what else distinguishes him from the other outsiders?
There is one thematic arena, however, in which Trump “trumped” his fellow partisan opponents: on issues related to the politics of race and ethnicity. Campbell astutely notes that “disentangling economic and racial effects is very tricky” (p. 144), and there is a genuine debate over ascribing primacy to cultural anxieties and resentments in explaining the Trump vote (e.g., Stephen L. Morgan, “Status Threat, Material Interests, and the 2016 Presidential Vote,” Socius 4, 2018; Diana C. Mutz, “Status Threat, Not Economic Hardship, Explains the 2016 Presidential Vote,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2018). For us, this resentment is the “red thread” woven throughout the 2016 campaign and Trump’s electoral victory.
Although we differ with Campbell on the relative significance of the social forces that laid the foundation for Trump’s victory, we are very impressed with American Discontent. This slim and accessible book helps readers understand how even the most unexpected events may have deep, deep roots. While his skillful synthesis of more than a half century of economic, social, and political change makes this a useful read, the astute observations and occasional personal anecdotes make it a gratifying one, too. The book deserves a wide audience.
