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'The Great Revolt' explains how Trump wound up in the White House

Michael Goode
Guest Columnist

Whether you love Donald Trump or hate him, "The Great Revolt: Inside the Populist Revolt Reshaping American Politics," is indispensable reading for understanding the coalition that handed Trump a decisive Electoral College victory almost no one predicted was possible.

Right up until most experts believed the polls closed on Election Day, conventional wisdom said the “blue wall” of solidly Democrat states gave Hillary Clinton a virtual lock on the presidency. Why voters in the Rust Belt, Great Lakes states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania switched after years of voting solidly Democrat is the story of "The Great Revolt."

'The Great Revolt' by Salena Zito and Brad Todd

Co-authors Brad Todd and Salena Zito are the perfect pairing. Their book is grounded in statistical research brought to life with insights from dozens of swing voters from the unlikely states that put Trump over the top.

Todd is a Republican media consultant who produced ads for one of Trump’s few major allies, the National Rifle Association. A native of Tennessee, he cut his teeth in Mississippi politics in the 90’s and has produced ads for numerous Republicans here since. Zito, a natural storyteller, is a former political analyst for CNN and a columnist for the Washington Examiner. Together they hit the bullseye on the who, what, where and why Trump won.

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So what is driving the great revolt? "The Great Revolt" astutely breaks down Trump’s coalition and brings to life its motivation. There are regular GOP voters like the “Rotary Reliables” and “King Cyrus Christians,” who support him based on shared concerns, not shared values. The Perotistas showed up in numbers not seen since Ross Perot’s 1992 campaign. “Girl Gun Power” and “Silent Suburban Moms,” who weren’t vocal but pulled the lever for Trump nevertheless, also fueled Trump”s march to 304 electoral votes. The most non-traditional Republican voters were the “Rough Rebounders,” who bounced back from adversity like Trump himself, and “Red-Blooded and Blue-Collared” voters, many of whom haven’t checked the Republican box since Reagan.

To these voters, “Trump’s candor, and even his fabrications and verbal gaffes, reinforced his authenticity as a nonpolitician. When the press picked Trump’s words apart for strict fact analysis, voters assumed he spoke directionally; the press took him literally but voters took him merely seriously.”

One of the book’s most astute insights is that Trump broke the traditional left-right conflict in American presidential politics by making the election about “inside-out” instead. The consummate insider Hillary Clinton was the perfect foil for the outsider Trump. As they note in their book, “The potential for Trump to be a disrupter, a force from outside politics who might be stronger than those in politics, offered the prospect of a successful pushback to many who craved it.”

Setting the stage for Trump’s win was the transformation of the Democratic party once heavily influenced by working-class voters to one “fueled by social wedges and cultural grievance.” As noted in the book, “In the short span of a generation, the face and focus of the Democrat Party nationally has shifted from a glorification of the working-class ethos to multiculturalist militancy pushed by the Far Left of the party.”

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Todd and Zito make a convincing case that reaction to this has driven what they call a “shotgun the marriage” of populists and conservatives. “A liberalism that seeks to spread cosmopolitan relativism to the masses, by force if necessary, instead of spreading economic equality, was destined to leave a decisive slice of the American electorate in search of a new home. It took an outsider to the conservative tent like Trump to throw out the welcome mat for them.”

Does the rise of Donald Trump represent a new alignment in presidential politics or will politics return to the status quo once Donald Trump exits the stage? Todd and Zito leave that for history to decide. For both parties, and for corporate brand leaders, they warn, “Going from the drive of a traditional left-right tension to the unpredictability of an inside-outside conflict is a part of the 2016 election’s payoff that many GOP leaders have yet to accept or, in some cases, grasp. In the age of Trump, the toppling of institutions may be a larger and more important measure of progress for Republicans than the advancement of any political philosophy.”

Michael Goode is a partner in The Clearwater Group, LLC, a Mississippi based public affairs and government relations firm.