The Great Revolt Enters a New Phase: How the Populist Uprising of 2016 Will Reverberate in 2020
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By Salena Zito
December 31, 2019
WESTBY, WISCONSIN -- In a country increasingly engaged in national politics and divided, the next 12 months may feel like 12 years. Voters in both trenches are eager to vote, convinced not only of victory but also of vindication. The shocking result in 2016 wasn't a black swan, an irregular election deviating from normalcy, but instead the indicator of the realignment we describe in "The Great Revolt: Inside the Populist Coalition Reshaping American Politics," now available in a new a paperback edition in time for the 2020 election season.
The story of America's evolving political topography is one of tectonic plates that slowly grind against one another until a break notably alters the landscape with seismic consequences -- a sudden lurch long in development. The election of President Donald Trump cemented a realignment of the two political parties rooted in cultural and economic change years in the making. Although he has been the epicenter of all politics since his announcement of candidacy in 2015, Trump is the product of this realignment more than its cause, a fact that becomes clear as you travel the back roads to the places that made him the most unlikely president of our era.
Thirty-year-old dairy farmer Ben Klinkner doesn't consider himself a member of either political party. "I am a Christian conservative," he says matter-of-factly.
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https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/12/31/the_great_revolt_enters_a_new_phase_how_the_populist_uprising_of_2016_will_reverberate_in_2020_142053.html
