Donald Trump has polarized the country more than any other time in the last 75 years. What are the forces that pushed him into the Oval Office? Further, what are the implications, if any, of his election? Drawing on prior work on the Tea Party movement, when we put Trump’s victory in historical context of reactionary movements of the past, his election is simply an extension of a process that began with the Know Nothing Party of the 19th Century. We demonstrate that Trump’s rise, like the formation of other reactionary movements, was fueled by a sense of existential threat: the belief that “real American” culture is under siege. Unlike other recent accounts of Trump, we go a step further to explore another application of threat: the threat the election of the 45th president posed to the progress of people of color (POC). We demonstrate that the Trump movement represented threat to racial minorities who were motivated to vote against Trump because of perceived racism, above and beyond ideology or partisanship. Finally, we conclude by demonstrating that for both groups, threat was a mobilizing force with both White Trump supporters and POC Trump opponents reporting heightened rates of political participation in 2016. We end interrogating the proposition that Trump is really “killing” American democracy. To us, the mobilization of POC suggests otherwise, something borne out in results of the 2020 election cycle.

This book explores the survival, performance and dynamics of radical right politics during peacetime, and Chapter 2 advances a theory of radical right mobilization grounded in the logic of electoral counter-mobilization, which originates in resentment about adverse shifts in the status quo that affect minority–majority relations. The core thesis is that radical right parties mobilize to keep minorities from advancing. The ire of radical right voters is not directed at all minorities, but specifically at minorities (and their allies) that aspire to change the status quo in their favor through the political process. Radical right mobilization does not originate in the demons of xenophobia or group hostility, as is often argued, but rather in policy shifts that reflect changes in the status quo and signal the social advancement of minorities. The state is the ultimate sovereign that is charged with regulating the relationship between the dominant group and minorities, and the appropriate assortment of accommodation, exclusion and repression. Radical right mobilization results from the sovereign’s resentment regarding its diminished status, and represents a revolt against a political system that has allowed minorities to gain political power and advance their causes.