Trump’s contradictory coalition roils elections in Virginia, Georgia

It’s been two years and a day since President Trump announced his candidacy for the top office — and the Republican Party hasn’t been the same since. Trump upended the traditional GOP politics, and his presidency offers near-daily evidence of strains within the party that aren’t going away anytime soon. […] Read more »

Cultural Displacement—Not Economic Hardship—More Predictive of White Working-Class Support for Trump

White working-class voters who reported feelings of cultural dislocation or favored deportation of illegal immigrants were more than three times more likely to support Trump, according to new analysis of a fall PRRI/The Atlantic survey released today. The influence of economic factors is both less powerful and more complex. CONT. […] Read more »

The Collapse of American Identity

After the British writer G. K. Chesterton visited the United States for the first time, he remarked that America was “a nation with the soul of a church.” Mr. Chesterton wasn’t referring to the nation’s religiosity but to its formation around a set of core political beliefs enshrined in founding […] Read more »

French voters are just as divided as American ones

Marine Le Pen. AP Photo/Michel Euler   Michele Gelfand, University of Maryland and Joshua Conrad Jackson, University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill On May 7, France will choose its next president. In the first round of voting on April 23, voters rejected candidates from the country’s established parties, lifting […] Read more »

Donald Trump’s Tilt Toward Convention

As Donald Trump jettisons his “America First” campaign promises at an accelerating pace, the populist nationalist political movement that roared into power with him is beginning to resemble a paper tiger. Trump’s march to the GOP nomination last spring demonstrated there’s a substantial audience within the party’s rank and file—particularly […] Read more »

What 4 types of American nationalism can tell us about Trump voters

With Donald Trump in the White House, observers are still asking what in his message resonated with enough voters to put him over the top in the electoral college. Theories include economic anxiety, racial resentment, authoritarianism and much more. As the nation debates the new president’s dramatic initiatives to restrict […] Read more »