The Forgotten Man and White Populist Resentment: Power, Politics, and Narrative Dominance in the Trump Era

Summary

American political history has a rhythm and a progression. Part of that progression is White populist anger and resentment. The Forgotten Man and White Populist Resentment: Power, Politics, and Narrative Dominance in the Trump Era traces how this White populism rose to dominate the Republican Party primary base, how the populist campaigns of Pat Buchanan and Newt Gingrich paved the way for the rise of Donald Trump, and how he maintains narrative dominance over both parties and American political discourse.

In the 1850s, populist resentment was directed to the national government because it told the South that slavery was evil and would not be allowed to spread into the west. Both before and after suffering defeat, the poor White Southern male was told that he was equal with the elites of the Southern slave aristocracy because both are White and superior to all Blacks. This resentment found a new iteration when the government ended a century of Jim Crow. In 1969, Newsweek depicted the "Forgotten American" in this new America and the resentment of the imposed change in the cultural society. The loss of "their" America was attributed to the federal government being controlled by social and financial elites. This book presents a clear narrative around the development of white populism and its resentment that shapes the narratives and rhetoric of the Trump era.