I promised myself I wouldn’t blog about Donald Trump. But Ron Fournier’s piece about Trump’s candidacy calls for a facts-infused response. Fournier claims that Trump’s candidacy signals “restlessness” in the electorate, specifically among protest voters. There are three main problems with this analysis: lack of specific data about citizens’ actual views and motivations; the absence of historical context for the Wallace, Long, and Perot movements to which he compares Trump; and the failure to acknowledge the racial dimensions of populist political anger. CONT.
Julia Azari (Marquette), Mischiefs of Faction