Donald Trump’s election victory resulted in one of the most unexpected presidencies in history. Identity Crisis provides the definitive account of the campaign that seemed to break all the political rules—but in fact didn’t. Featuring a new afterword by the authors that discusses the 2018 midterms and today’s emerging political trends, this compelling book describes how Trump’s victory was foreshadowed by changes in the Democratic and Republican coalitions that were driven by people’s racial and ethnic identities, and how the Trump campaign exacerbated these divisions by hammering away on race, immigration, and religion. The result was an epic battle not just for the White House but about what America should be.
John Sides is professor of political science at George Washington University. Twitter @johnmsides Michael Tesler is associate professor of political science at the University of California, Irvine. Lynn Vavreck is the Marvin Hoffenberg Professor of American Politics and Public Policy at the University of California, Los Angeles. Twitter @vavreck
"There is little if any support in voting data for the notion that 'economic anxiety' drove people to vote for Trump. As documented in Identity Crisis, an important new book analyzing the 2016 election, what distinguished Trump voters wasn't financial hardship but 'attitudes related to race and ethnicity.'"—Paul Krugman, New York Times
"Timely, careful and data-rich."—E. J. Dionne Jr., Washington Post
"The definitive account of the 2016 election."—Alex Shephard, New Republic
"Lucid, engaging, and ruthlessly rational, Identity Crisis is the guide we needed to what really happened in 2016, an election we still haven’t come to terms with. After all the speculation and partisan blame, the authors' search for the real answers isn't just interesting—it's necessary. Identity Crisis is about more than an election: it's about the state of America at a moment of political breakdown."—Molly Ball, national political correspondent, Time
