American Discontent

"Pundits have viewed Donald Trump as an orange-haired meteor unexpectedly crashing into American politics. John Campbell shows that he is more like an earthquake, a result of fault lines and tectonic pressures that have been building for years." -Jacob S. Hacker, Director, Institution for Social and Policy Studies, Yale University, and co-author of American Amnesia: How the War on Government Led Us to Forget What Made America Prosper "The rise of Donald Trump cries out for historical perspective, and no one is better equipped to offer that than John Campbell." -Lane Kenworthy, Professor of Sociology and Yankelovich Chair in Social Thought, University of California-San Diego "The election of President Trump was a shock, and it has led to many accounts of the dramatic events involved. John Campbell's book is utterly different, moving from events to the deep structural causes that made that election possible. Here we have intellectual insight based on powerful social science-massively moving forward our understanding of this key issue of the modern world." -John A. Hall, James McGill Professor of Comparative Historical Sociology, McGill University "An accessible analysis of the social trends that prefaced the shock to democracy of Donald Trump's electoral victory...free of fake news, a smart, engaging road map regarding 'what happened.'"- Kirkus "After acknowledging that he too was perturbed and surprised by Donald Trump's 2016 election, in this reflective analysis, Campbell argues that Trump's victory was created by what has become the usual cast of causal suspects: economic transformation, such as growing income inequality; racial division exacerbated by the reactions of many whites to Barack Obama's presidency; a rising ideological divide fed by media narratives (MSNBC versus Fox News); and sharpening party polarization, initially at the elite level but now also among the voting public. Drawing upon a wide range of social science sources and applying his insightful interpretation, Campbell gives a succinct but sophisticated context for trying to make sense of this radical development. This is a timely and important book."-CHOICE, E. T. Jones, emeritus, University of Missouri--St. Louis