Identity Crisis: The 2016 Presidential Campaign and the Battle for the Meaning of America

by John Sides, Michael Tesler, Lynn Vavreck

A gripping, in-depth account of the 2016 presidential election that explains Donald Trump's historic victory

Donald Trump's election victory stunned the world. How did he pull it off? Was it his appeal to alienated voters in the battleground states? Was it Hillary Clinton and the scandals associated with her long career in politics? Were key factors already in place before the nominees were even chosen? Identity Crisis provides a gripping account of the campaign that appeared to break all the political rules--but in fact didn't.

Identity Crisis takes readers from the bruising primaries to an election night whose outcome defied the predictions of the pollsters and pundits. The book shows how fundamental characteristics of the nation and its politics--the state of the economy, the Obama presidency, and the demographics of the political parties--combined with the candidates' personalities and rhetoric to produce one of the most unexpected presidencies in history. Early on, the fundamental characteristics predicted an extremely close election. And even though Trump's many controversies helped Clinton maintain a comfortable lead for most of the campaign, the prediction of a close election became reality when Americans cast their votes.

Identity Crisis reveals how Trump's victory was foreshadowed by changes in the Democratic and Republican coalitions that were driven by people's racial and ethnic identities. The campaign then reinforced and exacerbated those cleavages as it focused on issues related to race, immigration, and religion. The result was an epic battle not just for the White House but about what America is and should be.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, Political Science, History, Race, Academic, American

352 pages, Hardcover

Published October 30, 2018

Reviews

[Conor Ahern · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book summarily puts to bed the canard that the 2016 Election was about "economic anxiety," and pretty convincingly demonstrates that Trump succeeded because of his ability to activate the racist and xenophobic anxieties of people, aided by a bunch of freak factors that mostly aligned in his favor. Never straying too far from the data, the authors show that people were not really motivated by their concerns about their jobs or the state of their retirement accounts, but by their racist and xenophobic tendencies, as demonstrated by the high correlation between support for Trump and exhibitions of sexism, or beliefs such as "black people could get ahead if they just put in the effort" and "immigrants are a drain on our society."

Does a book like this even matter, though? I don't really know. We on the left probably believed this already, anyway, and those on the right are so knee-jerk reactive to charges of racism that they'll either offer bad faith arguments for why the above does not in fact evince racism or why liberals are the REAL racists. No, its findings will not be satisfying in that regard. But it is interesting to consider what it means for politics in a world where media is so important and race anxieties are fair game for major politicians to cultivate. I suppose the good news is that there is a more than sufficient base for opposing the types of folks who are turned on by Trump's appeals, and we have seen that as recently as the 2018 Midterms, which occurred after but were mostly presaged by this book. Here's hoping we learned our important lessons come 2020...

[Mehrsa · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you’ve been following polls and news articles and think pieces about 2016, this won’t be news to you. Spoiler: racism and not economic anxiety. Also, sexism. This is more of a play by play of the election with a lot of numbers heavy studies. The end chapter is interesting where it covers shifting identities (i.e. Latino men not voting for Hillary). I had high hopes after hearing them on Ezra Klein’s show but I’m going back to my moratorium on not reading any more about the 2016 election! That’s it. I’m serious this time.

[Mara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite dry, but a fascinating read that uses statistical analysis and solid political science to break down some common myths about why things went down the way they did in 2016. Kind of scary, but I choose to see the places of hope where we can grow as a country

[Jack Wolfe · Rating 5 out of 5]

I need to keep a copy of this book in a holster, so I can use it to slap anyone in my vicinity who says, oh...

"The 2016 election was about economic anxiety."

"Trump offered change to an angry electorate."

"Clinton would've won if she hadn't dismissed rural voters."

"The Democratic Party needs to do some serious soul-searching before 2020, get out of their bubble, learn how to speak to non-elites again, etc etc etc."

We've all heard many narratives of the 2016 Electoral Tragedy, and many are founded on ideas like those above. THESE IDEAS ARE FALSE. Armed with more data than an Russian hackbot (there are like three graphs for every two pages here), the authors of "Identity Crisis" tell the real story of Trump's nightmare victory, a story about an ugly white man using ugly white rhetoric to activate the ugly white sensibilities of an ugly white citizenry. Here is concrete evidence of what writers like Ta-Nehisi Coates have known for a while: that white supremacy isn't just something that powerful people do to the powerless, but a whole frame of mind that can be turned on at will by crass, faux-populist strongmen.

"Identity Crisis" doesn't make our country look good. It doesn't make me hopeful for the future. I hope a lot of people read it, though. Truth is much more instructive than bullshit.

[Raymond · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Rather than debate the economy, Trump and Clinton debated American identity"

In my opinion this book offers the clearest explanation on how Trump won the 2016 presidential election while losing the popular vote. Sides, Tesler, and Vavreck argue that Trump and Clinton both activated voters' identities and that activation helped Trump more than Clinton. They state that Trump's rhetoric and candidacy activated whites without a college degree who held views on racial, ethnic, and religious minorities that were in line with Trump's platform. These voters were disproportionately in key battleground states that allowed him to win the Electoral College while losing the popular vote.

The authors effectively showed how Clinton and Trump won their respective nominations. They also addressed every issue that could have impacted the final election results: the Access Hollywood tape, Comey letter, Russian interference, Clinton email scandal, etc. Finally I believe they successfully debunk the myth of economic anxiety being the cause of Trump's win and had the clearest explanation about why some Obama voters voted for Trump.

[Jack · Rating 5 out of 5]

THIS is the one book to read about the 2016 election. Thankfully, political scientists have increasingly embraced the idea of writing for larger audiences. And these three authors have written a powerful book. They come across as fair and thorough, and bring in all the relevant data and references necessary to bolster their narrative. People on the right will not care to realize that race was more relevant and helpful to Trump than the stories they like to tell of the working man who is economically aggrieved, and the left has to come to terms with the idea that Trump didn't steal his way to victory - Russia didn't put him over the top. Trump and Clinton both brought the issue of immigration into the 2016 debate, more so than earlier campaigns have done, and the structural underpinnings of 8 years of Dem White House control, with serious unlikability ratings for Clinton, gave Trump just enough votes to win the electoral college, even with a pretty decent popular vote loss. Also, the authors did a great job of showing how the media helped propel Trump into the GOP nomination, and didn't do Hillary Clinton the favors the right would like to imagine they did. Alas, it is what it is.

[C · Rating 5 out of 5]

After the 2016 election I was stunned and angry. I have been reading and learning to understand how Hillary lost. Everyone has opinions and conjectures. But I am the annoying type who keeps questioning, "I understand your conjecture. But is it true?"

I find this book very persuasive in its conclusions regarding the 2016 election. It explores practically every relevant explanation of what happens such as "economic anxiety", "partisanship", and uses data from polls, surveys, attitude studies, etc. to form a picture of what made a difference in the election and what didn't. Essentially the book says, this conjecture is right, and the data explains why. It satisfies my need for "Is it true?"

So what is true? Trump won because he activated prejudices that have always been there but never made into issues: it's white men vs blacks, white men vs brown immigrants, Christians vs Muslims. If I were a politician, I would consult with these authors and find a way to cross the "diploma divide".

[Sasha Mircov · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ezra Klein was right when is said the book was one of the most anticipated accounts of the 2016 election. The conclusion: it was the crisis of racial and ethnic identity that elected Trump. The thesis is not new. It was put forward by other researchers, including Seth Stephens-Davidowitz in his in-depth analysis of racially charged Google search terms during Obama's presidency and detailed in the book "Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are."

The book does not attempt to predict what it all means for the 2020 race, so I am turning to Francis Fukuyama's latest work "Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment" for help. Any other suggestion where to look guidance?

[drowningmermaid · Rating 2 out of 5]

This one took me a long time to get through...
It was quite dry, and steeped in graphs and polls and dense data, enough that I kept wondering-- who is it who takes these polls? Can I trust this info, since I've never taken one of these polls?

And, while I liked a lot of the setup, the turn it took-- essentially stated that if you voted for Trump, you're probably a racist, and here's the stats to prove it. And it's true, I don't think we've ever had a president who ran on a platform of whiteness in quite the way the current one did. Still, it strikes me as a very unsubtle understanding of what racism is. To a certain extent, it's a feature of the human brain, and ancestrally-- xenophobia probably saved lives. Other factors, like the rise of outright conspiracy mongering and the joys of following a personality cult, particularly on the right, but also on the left, didn't seem to be credited in the way I think it ought to.

[Robert Gustavo · Rating 3 out of 5]

This really shows that we need a nonfiction form between magazine article and three hundred and fifty page book. There is a really good 150 pager in here, which just needs a good editor to bring it out.

But, who is going to buy a 150 page thing? There’s no market for it. And it’s easier to write 350 pages than 150.

I got bored. I put the book down. I’m not likely to pick it up again.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Mary Retchko · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book helped give such a detailed analysis to “what happened to make 2016.” I feel like I could read this book several more times and continue to find new information. Very well written.

[Derek Osbourne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Only actuallly 220 pages of main book the rest being statistical analysis in an appendix per chapter

[Blaine Welgraven · Rating 3 out of 5]

"To downplay the role of economic anxiety is not to deny its existence. Many people face clear economic challenges, and their concerns and anxieties are real. But when economic concerns are politically potent, the prism of identity is often present. This is "racialized economics": the belief that underserving groups are getting ahead while your group is left behind. And throughout American history, the groups considered undeserving have often been racial and ethnic minorities."

--John Sides, Identity Crisis

Identity Crisis is an effective, well-documented breakdown of the 2016 election that arrives at (by this time) a relatively well-tread conclusion: Donald Trump activated a significant portion of white working-class, non-college graduate voters (the 'diploma divide') by employing a message centered on racialized economics (i.e., FOMO, by identity group) and immigration fears, causing this cohort to unify their vote in a manner that historically had been reserved for minority in-groups (e.g., African Americans, ESOL Latinos, etc).

That said, there remained several under-explored ideas in Identity Crisis - and even some casually dismissed ones - that I wish the authors had examined more thoroughly. For one, the overlapping economic attitudes and concerns (in certain data sets) of Bernie voters and Trump voters are left essentially unexamined. Secondly, the authors give only a broad overview of the "cross-pressured Obama voters" - i.e., those millions of voters that voted for President Obama in 2012 and then flipped their votes to Donald Trump in 2016. Finally, the book provides only the briefest analysis (5 pages) of the role that traditional minority in-block groups played in Clinton's 2016 loss (re: their lack of turnout). Rather, Identity's focus and tonality remains almost solely devoted to the problems posed by heightened white identity, and the consequences of their voting behavior imitating historic minority in-group voting patterns.

As the authors note (in a blink-and-you'd-miss-it section): "African Americans' in-group identity--their identification with blacks as a group--impacts how they think and act in politics....It was arguably unrealistic to expect similarly high levels of black turnout for a white Democratic candidate in 2016." Trump's political instincts - that Caucasian working-class voters could be treated and activated in a similar manner - proved prescient, even as very few prognosticators accurately predicted the possibility of his victory - or why and how it could happen.

Side note: it would be fascinating to see the authors' analysis of the 2020 and 2024 elections. Given their emphasis on racialized economics, how would they explain Trump's improved minority vote share (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-can...) even as his percentage of Caucasian voters fell?

[Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Only eye opening if you were someone lost to priviledge and made it through the 2016 cycle blindfolded by "politics as usual." It's a good read if you are unfamiliar with the arena or the long game conservative strategy of default (white) identity politics. Four stars for it being more tolerable than Game Change.

[Anuradha Pandey · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you truly want to understand 2016, this is one book you can't miss. This provided the most data driven explanations I've seen for all the trends that fed into the election of trump, and debunks a lot of myths that surround his election and the Democratic primary.

[Feng Ouyang · Rating 3 out of 5]

*Identity Crisis* examines the 2016 presidential election and the factors behind Donald Trump’s victory. The book argues that Trump’s success was not rooted in economic anxiety or traditional conservative ideals but was instead driven by white identity and racial prejudice.

Using extensive survey data and statistical analysis, the authors retrace the events of the 2016 primaries and general election, challenging the popular narrative that Trump’s base was primarily composed of economically disenfranchised individuals resentful of the establishment. According to the book, economic anxiety in 2016 was not significantly higher than in previous election cycles. What distinguished 2016 was the heightened salience of white identity and racial attitudes, a trend partly linked to the Obama presidency. Among Republican primary voters, Trump’s appeal did not stem from distinct policy positions but from his inflammatory rhetoric, which resonated with individuals harboring racial prejudices. The authors contend that many of these voters later aligned with Trump’s policy stances because they identified with him personally, not because they inherently supported those positions.

Gender also played a significant role in the general election. While Trump faced criticism for his sexist remarks and behavior, Hillary Clinton sought to capitalize on her historic candidacy to garner support from women. The book argues that while Clinton successfully increased her support among women, she simultaneously lost ground with male voters, leading to a net advantage for Trump in this area.

The authors’ conclusions are primarily supported by survey data and media analysis. While this approach is compelling, it has limitations. For instance, survey questions about economic anxiety may fail to capture the intensity or depth of voters’ frustrations. By contrast, *The Great Revolt* by Salena Zito and Brad Todd presents an alternative perspective. Based on interviews, their book highlights a diverse coalition of Trump supporters concerned about economic stagnation, community decline, extreme leftist positions, and Second Amendment rights. Together, such studies provide a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of Trump’s appeal.

The claim that Trump’s support was largely fueled by racial prejudice and white identity is also open to scrutiny in the face of empirical data. For example, Trump’s support among minority voters in 2016 was higher than that of previous Republican candidates, and this trend continued in subsequent elections. By 2024, when Trump secured another presidential victory, racial prejudice was no longer widely regarded as a key factor in his support. Instead, some cited gender dynamics as contributing to his win.

Rather than dismissing the “economic anxiety” theory solely based on poll data, the authors could have strengthened their argument by directly addressing discrepancies raised by alternative studies. This would have offered a more balanced and comprehensive view of voter motivations.

Beyond issues of identity and prejudice, *Identity Crisis* also examines other aspects of the election, including media behavior and its impact. The comparison of Trump with other Republican primary contenders offers a fresh perspective rarely explored in similar analyses.


Overall, *Identity Crisis* provides a thought-provoking analysis of the 2016 election and challenges the conventional view that economic concerns were the primary driver of Trump’s victory. However, the support provided by the book is not without limitations. As part of a broader, more holistic examination of the election, this work contributes valuable insights but would benefit from being considered alongside other studies to fully illuminate this complex topic.

[Daniel Cunningham · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book in many ways, though my feeling is it's a 3.5 star read, not really a 4 star. Reasons: turns out, people who voted for Trump had reservoirs of animus (or at least distrust, doubts, etc.) toward black people, Muslims, and immigrants, especially Latino immigrants. Surprise, surprise. But, in addition, it turns out they were *not* (primarily) motivated by economic concerns. There were two (large) contending theories about Trump's victory, and this book seems to shoot down the "it was *really* economic worries/trouble/despair/etc." contender.

But given that, it does seem like there are a few shaky points. One is that the book, several times, kind of reverses itself (at least in part, and possibly not at all if/once I reread it.) Case in point, 80% of the book builds up the conclusion that "Its race, stupid," but then the last chapter (and some content elsewhere) points that the partisan loyalty and the entirely predictable party-flip-after-two-terms mechanics also predict Trump's victory (or that, at least, his victory slots right into that, much the same statement.)

Perhaps this is due to there being three authors, with different chapters being written by different people (and hence different "voices", different phrasings and points being stressed, etc.) Or, the authors themselves don't quite buy the simple summary they themselves made on at least one podcast where I heard (all of them) interviewed.

Another shaky point is assumptions. At an early point in the book, the authors cite a paper that "plausibly" concludes (in their paraphrasing) that since voters didn't vote for more progressive economic policies, that they were not worried about economics. Fine, as far as it goes (and this makes sense with their findings that many Trump voters where economically liberal, conservative voters.) But how many conservatives do you know who, when asked by political scientists, call for more socialist/progressive economic policies? At least in the US, we just got off years of Tea Party activists calling for the opposite (because they believe e.g. less regulation and "free markets" will solve economic problems.)

And finally, I worry because of how much some of this all rests on just making calls. (What doesn't, at base, and especially in something as complex as political/social science, right? I know.) Example: a plot is shown with, if I remember correctly, different quartiles (or maybe it was quintiles) and when they recovered from the 2007-2009 economic crash. It shows income (or wealth, I should really find this plot again) the curve of each... quintile. Anyway, the point was that the second highest earning group had recovered something like 12 to 18 months before the election and, because people vote on their recent economic history and not their long-term history, economics was not a part of the election. But that seems crazy to me... and maybe I'm just wrong. But if I'm struggling for say 2007-2008 to 2015, and at 2015 I finally break even and then by 2016 I'm up 0.25% or something... I'm still thinking about it.

As weird as it might seem, I'd like to see more data and explanation here. But more sociological and/or anthropological data about this kind of stuff. I feel like political science is working at the edge of its expertise here.

Anyway, in some ways, these points are picking around the edges (see 3.5-star comment above, and a 4-star rating, thanks to Goodreads.) But as someone who thinks, "Of course it's about race and ethnicity and culture and religion; the US is an expanding experiment in heterogeneity and everyone seems to keep forgetting that that is WEIRD," and, "Uhh, duh, racists," I didn't come away as convinced as I feel I should have.

[Bill · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great book discussing the relative contributions of several factors to the outcome of the 2016 election but also speaking to the post-Trump political space in the U.S. The authors, political science professors, hew closely to empirical evidence from surveys and do a good job of using statistical techniques to control for some factors while exploring others. This method indicates that, to some degree, the outcome should have been no surprise simply given that both Democrats and Republicans tend to consistently vote for the same party (around 85% consistency), that the Democrats just finished 8 years in office and thus were at a disadvantage, that the economy had not fully recovered from the 2008 recession, and that Republicans benefit from minoritarian factors that are baked into our Constitution (e.g., the electoral college). However, there were many interesting variables that did or did not co-vary with voter choice even after these factors were controlled. The biggest variable explaining voter choice after the above were controlled was the "diploma divide" among White voters. Highly correlated with a college degree (and thus difficult to independently weigh) was the belief in a zero-sum competition between Whites and three other groups: immigrants, Muslims, and Black Americans (no coincidence that these were the targets of repeated Trump invective). Astonishingly, 2/3 of Republicans in a 2015 poll indicated that there was as much or more discrimination against Whites as there was against Black Americans. That floored me. Some research found that attitudes toward those groups, independent of any other context, were not that different among Republicans. The key was considering those groups in a competition with Whites. Surprisingly, economic anxiety explained very little in voter choice with one exception: the belief that non-White groups were doing better while Whites were doing worse. Thus, economic anxiety per se (e.g., consumer confidence) was not a factor in Trump's victory, but an us vs. them perspective with regard to race certainly was. The authors used historical surveys and found that while racial attitudes did predict voter choice in earlier elections, the correlation between those attitudes and voter choice has intensified over time. Also surprising was how small the estimated effects of some events were, such as Comey's last-minute announcement of concerns over emails (caused a bump, but temporary) and the Cambridge Analytica targeted Facebook ads (may have influenced fund-raising, but empirical evidence for direct effects on voter choice is non-significant; I'd like to hear more about possible indirect effects through racial attitudes). Gender probably did play a role, especially in the double standard faced by Hillary Clinton in 2016 (e.g., women are expected to be more honest than men, so the same violation is judged more harshly), but the untold gender story may be the surprising tendency for men to switch from Obama in 2008 and 2012 to Trump in 2016. Come on, guys, you're making us look bad. In general, a central take-home message from the book is the increasing importance of group identity, especially involving race (White vs. other) and religion (Christian, but perhaps more importantly anti-Muslim), in predicting voter behavior. The authors note that this trend forecasts more intense conflict between the parties than would simple policy differences.

[Wendy (bardsblond) · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book recounts, painfully, the events leading up to the 2016 Presidential Election, and persuasively disabuses readers that Donald Trump's election can be explained away by "economic anxiety." In essence, Trump's supporters are not particularly poor. Their incomes are average and there is no evidence that they are hard-pressed economically. Rather, it is the perception that their "group" is suffering that led to the outcome of Trump being elected. In essence, Trump exploited the fear of the white middle class in ugly ways and his campaign was explicitly racist, xenophobic, and Islamophobic. Identity politics was the crux of his being elected and, despite having a large popular vote victory, HRC went down because these disaffected white middle class voters with particularly noxious views on race and immigration reside in "battleground" states that are crucial to an electoral victory, i.e., Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Iowa, etc.

John Sides does a very thorough job explaining what happened during the election. He makes the case that the country has become exceedingly partisan, which each side only increasing its fidelity to its party and increasingly seeing the other side negatively. Yes, Trump was helped by the media who basically capitulated to giving him as much media coverage as possible in order to garner ratings. yes, the Republican establishment did not see him as enough of a threat early on and did not come up with a plan to defeat him. Yes, HRC was historically unpopular and the media treated her unfairly, on an objectively measurable way. Yes, gender is not as strong a basis to build solidarity as race. Yes, Comey threw HRC to the wolves and yes, the Russians interfered. But more than anything, it was identity politics that swayed the election. And as repulsive as it is to read about, there is a significant-enough portion of white voters who found Trump's brand of racist, bigoted sexist tinpot dictator braggadocio appealing enough that they voted for him.

This is a great book, very persuasive, and completely appalling to read.

[Asani · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is an analysis of the causes of the 2016 election outcome. It argues that group identity was the main driver of voting preferences and not economic anxiety. To the extent that the latter mattered, it was filtered through group identity. So voters less angry about losing jobs than the perception that they lost jobs to immigrants. The strength of the book is that it is based on data and analysis, and not just the pontifications of so-called experts. The strongest evidence relates to surveys taken before 2016, say in 2012, regarding voter identification with their groups. Since the survey occurred several years before the election, the answers are unaffected by the actual 2016 campaigns but reflect voters’ intrinsic preferences. The authors show that group identification in 2012 is strongly correlated with voting preferences in 2016. For example, a majority of white voters who identified with their group (e.g. that whites were discriminated against and should act jointly to redress this) voted for Trump. By comparison, a minority of white voters with weak group identification did so. Similar results were found for other groups, such as Hispanics and African Americans. With the caveat that I haven’t read the statistical analysis, the argument for the importance of group identity seems credible. The book’s weakness is that it doesn’t go a step further and consider the intersection of group identity with economic interests. Research quoted by the authors clearly shows that the performance of the economy during the election year is a strong predictor of election outcomes. Thus, it seems plausible that economic factors should be important in determining preferences of individual voters, perhaps filtered through group identity.

[康乐 · Rating 4 out of 5]

当美国人需要什么呢？这本书证明，美国的政治体系是世界最发达的之一。刚开始读时，我对美国政治几乎没有什么胃口，出人意料的是，读到了最后一页时，我却思考了很多有价值的问题：什么是‘身份政治’（2016年大选），教育的重要性（学历差距），什么是“煽动型政治家”（特朗普），骗人空话、误导性言论的危害（确实发现了不少逻辑谬论），民意调查的缺陷（老子为何不写一本《The Art of 定义因果关系》，来帮我们看清这柤数据呢？），以及党派之争的力量（Eek!）。
哦，对了，我现在好像更清楚美国人的特征了。它是一道不断移动的门槛。如果你想成为一个美国人（Yikes...），首先要具备一套价值观，然后通过日常行动将它们提现出来。那确实很美：一个宽阔的大门，却同时它同时拥有坚固的壁垒。为什么？谁有资格来定义什么哪些价值观是是必需的？在一个国家的精神与文化发展的过程中，这道门不一定会变窄，但它的位置确实会不断移动。我希望后来者（入籍美国人）能够跑上楼梯、找到它，并且真正跨过这道神奇的大门。一路平安，地球村的兄弟们！

- What does it take to be an American? I entered this whirlwind of polling analysis with little to no convictions about American politics. I came out the other end thinking about identity (the 2016 election), the significance of education (the diploma gap), the meaning of *demagogue* (Donald Trump), the impact of misleading media (we certainly collected a few logical fallacies along the way), the flaws of incessant polling (the art of establishing cause and effect; Lao Tzu, we have a new job for you!), and the power of partisanship. Regardless, this was mind-boggling. The cultural insight this book provides a foreign reader is intense. I claim no authority over American politics except my own opinion about my future appetite, which I will clearly state: that'll do, pig, that'll do (for now).
Oh. I also have a feeling of what it means to be an American now. It's a moving goalpost. To be an American is to embody a set of ideals and manifest them in your daily actions. It is beautiful: a wide-breathed, open door that paradoxically has strong barriers to entry. Why? Who has the definitive say on which ideals make the cut? As culture develops, this door doesn't necessarily become more narrow, but it certainly does change its position though! I hope modern Americans can climb the stairs to reach it.

[Alex Golub · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book uses polling data to explain how Donald Trump was elected in 2016. Many of its findings confirm what most people already know: for instance, that the larges field in the Republican primaries helped Trump. But the authors also come down on contested topics as well: Trump voters were motivated by racial affiliation rather than economic anxiety -- or rather, that they viewed economic issues through the lens of race, creating what the authors call "racialized economics", that Clinton's gender didn't rally female voters and pushed sexist men (of which there are apparently many) away from her, that Russian interference and social media played a relatively small role. The book is very clearly written and expertly organised (the signposting is remarkably clear), which makes it easy to read and allows non-experts to skim through the quantitative evidence (the appendices and notes contain even more data for dedicated readers). However, it's not a political memoir full of dramatic moments, big personalities, and backroom meetings, so don't expect a lot of 'ethnography'. If you want a just-the-facts-ma'am guided tour through 100 graphs of voter opinions, then this is the book for you! And even if you don't, it's very valuable to have a strong quantitative case that Trump has stoked white racial identification to assure his presidency. For me, at least, it's not a pretty picture of American politics, but the authors should be given credit for painting that picture with care and judiciousness. I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to dig a bit deeper into the 2016 elections.

[Ethan Gardner · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you’re looking to know what was behind the 2016 election, this book is the best resource. It compiles mountains of research and data in a highly readable 220 pages to explain what factors put Trump in the White House. Taking on the debate over whether economic or racial anxiety was the force behind Trump’s support, the authors find a resounding conclusion: Attitudes on racial, ethnic, and religious identity, in addition to partisanship, were the top factors in vote choice in 2016, while the authors could find little evidence that “economic anxiety” was a major factor in votes for either candidate. This thesis is buttressed by an insane amount of data, covering the primaries and general election, showing that racialized identity became a powerful force in politics that was not seen in elections over the past decade. Further, the authors detail how a white identity emerged as a force among Trump voters, who were found to have growing resentment against minority groups as America has become more diverse and especially as Trump emphasized racial campaign themes. Other highlights of the book include findings on the importance of media coverage in driving Trump’s rise and the discrepancy between coverage of Clinton’s few scandals to the weekly barrage of scandals that Trump generated.

It is by far the best empirical account of the 2016 election that we have to date.

[Mario · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sides, Tesler, and Vavreck put together a brilliant and very thorough examination of the 2016 election, and make a very convincing case that the election brought identity-based issues to the forefront of the campaign, and that those issues became the most decisive factor in the election's outcome. The three authors make their case by putting forth, then debunking, alternative explanations for Trump's victory. In doing so, they dispel several commonly-held "truths" about the election (including a few I held). Through a wealth of empirical data, they show that Trump won by activating dormant attitudes about race and gender in a way that his Republican rivals were unwilling or unable to imitate, while Clinton's campaign, while highly successful, was unable to replicate the coalition of voters that had propelled Obama to victory in 2008 and 2012. Further, this study points out that Clinton's efforts at coalition-building came with a trade-off: her efforts to reach out to some groups of voters cost her votes from other segments of the voting population. (Although I think the book mentions it, I don't recall if this trade-off was significant enough to change the election's outcome.) All in all, a must-read for anyone looking to understand what drove the outcome of the 2016 election, and what it could mean for future elections.

[Jake Hunt · Rating 4 out of 5]

5 Stars BECAUSE…

I’ve been wanting to become somewhat politically educated/armed with a more big picture political understanding going into the 2024 election and this book has delivered!

Watching Fox/CNN/MSNBC or reading bite-size articles online on random news sites to “get up to speed” is quite exhausting having to constantly fact check stories by looking it up on multiple sources and pealing back biases. Without a foundational lens with which to view politics from in the first place makes reading up on current events all the more difficult. Therefore, what I needed was a slow, data-driven analysis of a major political event which is relevant to today’s political environment: I needed this book!

Identity Crisis smartly chronicles and analyzes the 2016 democratic and republican primaries and general election and talks data and incentives all along the way. The degree of meticulousness with which they qualify their own conclusions (putting asterisks on them) helped build my trust in their analyses.

The portrayal of Trump in this book reveals it does not seem to be written by any Trump-supporting Republicans (I could not determine the authors’ partisanship from a quick google), but that does not weaken or discredit their analyses in the slightest.

Simply digesting political information in book form is SO refreshing. I won’t say I’m ready to talk politics quite yet, but the big-picture political understanding has been established!

[Anthony Friscia · Rating 5 out of 5]

The tl;dr of this book is that Trump won in 2016 with mostly the same people who typically vote Republican plus more racists.
The longer version is, Trump managed to invigorate the racist tendencies among many voters, especially on the right, and did so enough in a few key places, that he was able to squeak out an electoral win despite losing the popular vote. There was no ‘economic anxiety’ among his voters, except through the lens of racial identity. Many of the people that voted for him were anxious that an immigrant or brown person was going to get more than them, not about economic inequality more broadly. This was combined with a media that was particularly eager to cover Trump. Interesting, many self-identified Republicans are actually economically liberal, and don’t support the typical R talking points of lowering taxes on the rich and cutting entitlement programs. These are the social issue voters, and the main social issue that Trump was able to cash in on was animosity toward immigrant and other ‘others’.
The book itself is phenomenally well-researched - the appendices and references make up almost half of the book. The authors pull in other’s research and do much of their own to make their points, while still keeping it a lively and quick read.

[Kevin Whitaker · Rating 5 out of 5]

I understand this to be the best "political science" study of the 2016 election, and it felt that way while reading. Certainly an academic-feeling book but it wasn't too dry.

Three things I learned:
1. The two defining trends of the 2016 election: a) the long-term trend of increasing party loyalty (and especially hostility toward the other party); and b) the short-term trend of increasing partisan sorting by racial attitudes (started earlier but accelerated in the Obama years, then reinforced by Trump's campaign messages)
2. "Momentum" in primaries is often-discussed but poorly understood: the actual mechanism is not just a pure momentum effect, but it is concentrated among people with a similar view of the issues -- in other words more media coverage reveals to a certain set of voters that the candidate is "their type"
3. During the general election, a greater share of Clinton's coverage than Trump's focused on controversies

[Keith LaFountaine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really appreciate the way John Sides & his co-authors approach these books. Some may find them dry, but they are about as non-political as it gets, and they are stuffed full of important information, all back by data and statistics.

This book was especially interesting to me given the chaotic nature of it. I was one of the many people shocked by what happened in 2016, and it seems everyone under the sun has their own opinion of how it all transpired.

Through the data presented in this book though, it's clear what drove Trump supporters to the polls in November 2016 (hint: it wasn't economic anxiety as many like to claim), what motivated them (hint: often xenophobia and racism), and what actually was going on with the discrepancy between public polling and the final results.

All in all, if you're a political junkie like me, you'll find this interesting. I'm very interested in reading Sides's account of the 2020 election, which comes out next month.

[Steven Knight · Rating 4 out of 5]

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Book 73 of 2024. “Identity Crisis: The 2016 Presidential Campaign and the Battle for the Meaning of America” by John Sides, Michael Tesler, and Lynn Vavreck.

“A gripping in-depth look at the presidential election that stunned the world. 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.”