Anyone who teaches political science faces a common problem: many of our theories predict stasis. Candidates appeal to the median voter; party identification is stable; party insiders choose presidential nominees. And yet, the last decade or so of American politics has seen tremendous change: the election of Barack Obama, the rise of the Tea Party, the election of Donald Trump, and the emergence of the Resistance. Scholars of politics often miss the signs of change because those signs are not to be found in large-scale national trends but instead in developments at the local level, many of which echo lessons from the past. Upending American Politics, a new volume edited by Theda Skocpol and Caroline Tervo, is about understanding both the new and the old. As an edited volume, each chapter tells a different story by focusing on a particular locale, such as counties that flipped from Obama to Trump in Wisconsin or Beto O’Rourke’s senatorial campaign in Texas. But whatever the location, woven throughout these chapters is an appreciation for old-school politicking based on local organizations and personal contact. Each one is written to stand alone as an independent piece and thus could be assigned in a class. In fact, a number of the chapters were originally written as undergraduate theses—something worth noting to your own students if you were to assign this book in an undergraduate class.

Unfortunately, space limits preclude a discussion of each chapter, so I can only include a sample. Consider these to be teasers, because the whole book is rich with insight.

One highlight of the book is a fascinating chapter by Michael Zoorob and Theda Skocpol on the underappreciated organizing of the Trump presidential campaign. Contrary to the common perception that the Trump campaign was at an organizational disadvantage to the Clinton team, this chapter argues that Trump outsourced its organizing to three types of “para-campaign” associations: gun clubs, white evangelical churches, and—portentously, given the national movement that has arisen in the wake of George Floyd’s death—union lodges of the Fraternal Order of Police. In an effective example of how qualitative and quantitative research can complement one another, this chapter includes a statistical analysis that leverages the fact that the Fraternal Order of Police did not endorse Mitt Romney in 2012 but did endorse Donald Trump in 2016. It finds that “police officers became more politically engaged in 2016 than they were in 2012” (p. 95)—to Trump’s benefit. This finding says a lot about Trump’s full-throated support of police in the face of growing calls, even within his own party, for police reform.

Skocpol has a chapter in which she explains how the Republican Party came to house two wings of contemporary conservatism: the libertarian free-marketeering of the Koch brothers and the ethnonationalistic populism of Donald Trump. Where the Koch brothers provide financial and organizational resources, Trump has harnessed the anger of the Tea Party. Both types of conservatives have burrowed into a party that had been hollowed out at the local level. The sort of outsourcing used by the Trump campaign in 2016 is also rife within the GOP: it relies heavily on organizations—like the Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity—that are outside of the party. Meanwhile, the Tea Party movement ignited the political passions of new conservative activists, many of whom have morphed into Trumpists. Their blend of cultural conservatism, nationalism, and protectionism has transformed the Republican Party. The irony, of course, is that on many issues the agenda of the Koch brothers is in tension with that of the Trumpists. Skocpol suggests that this tension can be managed as long as the party is winning. But should Republicans begin to suffer repeated electoral defeats, the party will likely fracture.

Another chapter, by Alexandra Caffrey, focuses on the swing counties along Florida’s I-4 corridor, where the battle for this all-important swing state is won and lost. We learn how in 2008 and, especially in 2012, the Obama campaign had an unparalleled ground game, with many field offices, locally rooted volunteers, and an emphasis on personal connections with voters. The Republicans learned their lesson and built a comparable ground game for 2016, “literally reading the Obama organizing textbook and learning from its secrets” (p. 160)—actually, they were hardly secrets, having been described in the widely read book, Groundbreakers by Elizabeth McKenna and Hahrie Han. Ironically, the Clinton team—and the Florida Democratic Party—apparently did not read the same book. Instead of following the Obama model, in 2016 the Democrats “did not directly employ the neighborhood team model, volunteers were not given as much responsibility, and the organizers were not predominantly local” (p. 161). And so Florida flipped from blue to red in 2016. Furthermore, the Democrats’ lack of investment in local organizing meant Florida was a Republican bulwark against the 2018 blue wave.

In a chapter that draws on her experience as a participant-observer, Lara Putnam documents the emergence in southwest Pennsylvania of what has come to be called the Resistance, although, as Putnam notes, the name is really a misnomer. Contrary to the image of anti-Trump activists as across-the-board progressives, Putnam writes that “on the ground we found a pattern of engagement that was ideologically diverse and far less issue-focused” (p, 177). These are groups comprised mainly of middle-aged, college-educated, suburban women—who have the civic skills, motivation, and social networks to be a formidable political movement. How formidable? Consider the special election in Pennsylvania’s 18th Congressional District, held in March 2018. With the support of these newly energized grassroots activists, Democrat Conor Lamb won this previously Republican seat, outperforming Hillary Clinton by roughly 19 percentage points in Allegheny, Westmoreland, and Washington Counties and by 26 points in Greene County. That special election proved to be a harbinger for the 2018 midterm elections in which the Democrats took the House of Representatives, electing a record number of women in the process. “By Election Day, canvassers for Democratic candidates up and down the ballot and allied progressive groups had knocked on 155 million doors nationwide” (p. 187)—dramatic increases from previous elections, including the 2016 presidential campaign. Just as significantly, in many places these grassroots organizers have also revitalized the local Democratic Party, However, as detailed in another chapter by Skocpol, Putnam, and Tervo, the degree to which these local activists are welcomed into the local Democratic Party varies widely. This volume makes clear that in the communities where these activists are rebuffed by the local party, Democrats should expect a replay of their troubles along Florida’s I-4 corridor.

You may notice a common thread across these chapters. Unlike many edited volumes, which often suffer from the absence of a unifying theme, each chapter of Upending Politics underscores the importance of old-fashioned grassroots political organizing. Readers familiar with Skocpol’s oeuvre will also see continuity with her work on the rise and fall of civic associations over the course of US history. As Skocpol, Putnam, and Tervo put it, today’s localized activism is “a reprise of a very old US form stretching back to the early nineteenth century… the organizing activities are new versions of old classics” (p. 310).

In short, Upending American Politics teaches us that to understand what is changing in American politics we also need to recognize what has stayed the same.