The American Nations, Trumpism, and the 2016 Elections
Donald Trump offered something novel on the campaign trail, and it paid big dividends within two regional cultures and the Electoral College map
Readers of American Nations often ask if something changed with regard to the regional cultures to allow the 2016 Republican nominee, Donald Trump, to capture the Electoral College votes of several key “blue” and swing states and, thus, the White House.
The answer, which initially surprises many, is no. Voting behaviors among the 11 “nations” I identify in the book actually corresponded to what one would have expected. The critical difference wasn’t that some regional cultures had suddenly become “more conservative” or “less liberal,” whatever those terms are supposed to mean these days. What changed was the political program offered by the Republican nominee, who promised the most communitarian-minded agenda of any such nominee in the past four decades. His complete reversal of those promises will likely allow Democrats to roll back his gains in the very places that proved decisive last time around.
Here’s what happened in 2016, as seen through the lens of America’s regional cultures, which, as I’ve previously demonstrated in this series, have more influence on…
