Modern American Populism: Analyzing the Economics Behind the “Silent Majority,” the Tea Party, and Trumpism

• Published date: 01 May 2019
• Author: Willis Patenaude
• Date: 01 May 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/ajes.12281

Modern American Populism: Analyzing the

Economics Behind the “Silent Majority,” the

Tea Party, and Trumpism

By Willis Patenaude iii*

abstract. Modern American populism (MAP) was born out of the

political upheaval of the civil rights movement of the 1960s. The article

examines the causes of populism. Economic anxiety is found to be the

main cause, but there is also evidence supporting an alternative theory

that racial resentment is an important driving force behind populism.

The article analyzes the role of populism in the 1972 election of

Richard Nixon, the Tea Party election of 2010, and the 2016 election

of Donald Trump using data provided by the American National

Election Studies (ANES). There is ample qualitative evidence that

economic anxiety caused the populist voting patterns that elected

Nixon, Tea Party candidates, and Trump. Statistical data supported the

same conclusion in the 2010 and 2016 elections, but the 1972 data

were inconclusive. The data show that both economic anxiety and

racial resentment played a role in the 2010 and 2016 elections, but the

findings suggest that economic anxiety is the underlying factor that

generates both racial resentment and support for populism.

Introduct ion

There has been a global resurgence of populism, particularly in the

United States. The most common explanation for this phenomenon

is that populism is temporarily making a renewed appearance. Thus,

commentators propose that it is merely an ephemeral movement aris-

ing out of reactionary politics. Viewing it in the lineage of earlier

expressions of popular dissent—the People’s Party, Andrew Jackson,

Huey Long, and Charles Coughlin—they consider recent events to be

little more than a short-term reversal of fortunes for political elites that

take their own political legitimacy for granted.

American Jour nal of Economics and Sociology, Vol. 78, No. 3 (May, 2019).

DOI: 10 .1111/ajes.122 81

© 2019 American Journa l of Economics and Sociology, Inc.

*This article is derived from the author’s master’s thesis from Iowa State University in

political science. Email: willisp1981@gmail.com

788 The American Journal of Economics and Sociology

Those commentators may be wrong. This time could be different.

The latest revolt of the masses may be more than a periodic expres-

sion of public resentment about the indifference of technocratic elites.

It draws from a wellspring of objective factors that are not likely to

dissipate in the near future, which means that the revolt is here to stay.

The thesis that I propose here is that the current wave of populism

represents the resurfacing of a political realignment that began with

the 1968 election in the United States and never went away. The im-

mediate impetus in 1968 was a reaction against the civil rights move-

ment, but the list of factors that fuel populist anger has grown since

then. In the interim, the populist label has seldom been explicit, but

the rhetoric has persisted in various forms. Anti-elitist sentiment did

not die; it simply had no outlet in the political arena until the presi-

dential election in 2016.

The populist mindset that began in the late 1960s, which I shall

call “modern American populism” (MAP), is not simply a product of

cultural resentment. It has a number of sources that I shall explore in

this article: economic issues, anxiety, inequality, and perceptions of

unfairness. I define MAP as an anti-elitist, homogenous, popular back-

lash against political authority. It adopts an “us vs. them” strategy that

defines an in-group as the “people,” which is comprised of Americans

who are white, rural, poor, and hold what are deemed “traditional”

values. The out-group consists of everyone else, but it particularly

incorporates the ruling elites, immigrants, and members of the es-

tablishment. The in-group feels a sense of solidarity around issues of

economic distress and resentment toward those in power who appear

indifferent to the social problems created by economic crisis.

In this article, I trace the formation of MAP and test the hypothesis

that MAP is caused by conditions of socioeconomic crisis more than

by social and cultural attitudes. I test this hypothesis with case stud-

ies and statistical analyses. This article adds to established research

in its novel formulation of case study specification and its statistical

analysis.

In the second section, I examine various methods of defining right-

wing populism. I leave left-wing populism out of the analysis because

it has generally failed in the United States. The second section also

includes an examination of the racial causes of MAP.

789Modern American Populism

The third section consists of three case studies: 1) the 1972 elec-

tion of Richard Nixon and the victory of the “silent majority,” 2) the

rise of the Tea Party and the 2010 mid-term elections, and 3) the

2016 election of Donald Trump and the emergence of “Trumpism.”

In each case, I examine the economic roots that precipitated the rise

of populism. The case is clearest in 2010, in the wake of the eco-

nomic collapse of 2008, which accelerated the declining social status

of white America, rising income inequality, and the perceived unfair

distribution of economic assistance. The 2016 case study illustrates the

rise in economic anxiety rooted in the failures of neoliberal policies

and global trade policies in conjunction with political neglect by the

ruling elites. In combination, the three case studies demonstrate the

transformational nature of modern populist politics.

The fourth section examines the relationship between voting be-

havior and the motives of voters in 1972, 2010, and 2016. These results

demonstrate that voters who supported the Tea Party and Donald

Trump were influenced both by economic anxiety and racial resent-

ment. Those were the expected results. The result in 1972 confounded

our expectations by showing no relationship between economic anx-

iety and support for Richard Nixon. However, the data sources were

sufficiently different over time that the 1972 results may not be very

meaningful in relation to the influences we expected to find.

The final section concludes the research and considers the implica-

tions of the findings. The clear association between economic anxiety

and populism strongly suggests the need for an effective response by

government to growing economic inequality in the United States.

This research is important because of its emphasis on the conse-

quences of economic decline, neoliberalism, and globalization as they

continue to unfold. Even before 1968, populism had a basis of support

in various features of the American economy: the mechanization of

labor, rising income inequality and wealth disparity, and decreased fi-

nancial opportunities for working people. Nevertheless, 1968 marks a

turning point because of the political realignment that occurred in the

post-civil rights era. From that point forward, economic justifications

overtook social and cultural ones as the basis for populist movements.

A large segment of the American population became disenchanted

with official economic policies and lost faith in politicians who have