Is there one unified theory of Trumpism?

Clare Malone writes at Five Thirty Eight,

Given the limitations of statistical analysis, political science and traditional reporting, I reasoned that a hybrid approach using all three could help answer the prevailing question in American politics: Why Donald Trump?

...Outsiders claiming to reveal what’s really happening on the inside of the marble halls of power — that’s what this election has become all about.

...Outsiderism means not just skepticism about big banks and Washington politicians but wariness of other institutional pillars of American life — like the media.


...Along with the fighting, though, something inspirational seems to be happening among the assembled — a sense of collective identity being discovered. In this millionaire cosmopolitan who has married two immigrants, the threatened silent American majority has found its champion.

The Upshot’s look at the geography of Trumpism showed a number of variables linked to areas of deep Trump support — counties where a high proportion of the population is white with no high school diploma, where there are large numbers of mobile homes, and where there is a poor labor-force participation rate. Political scientists Michael Tesler and John Sides recently pointed to new research that shows “both white racial identity and beliefs that whites are treated unfairly are powerful predictors of support for Donald Trump in the Republican primaries.”

...Sides and Tesler cite the work of political scientists James Stimson and Christopher Ellis, who have found that those who identify as conservatives often take liberal positions on things like the size of government. These voters are “symbolically conservative” but “operationally” liberal. According to Stimson and Ellis, that group made up nearly 25 percent of the electorate in 2008. Trump’s views on trade, which National Review called “silly and illiterate” are old-school-Democrat ones — globalization is really screwing over the little guy, huh?The idea that Trump could pick up white support that might typically go to Democrats in states like Ohio has become a truism of the 2016 race, though he lost the state to its governor, John Kasich, in the March 15 primary. “I am a commonsense conservative — Is that OK?” he asked the Super Tuesday crowd in Columbus. Trump has taken on the patina of conservatism, despite lacking a conservative orthodoxy.

Trump has offered people something more potent than party allegiance: empowerment.

...“Winning begets winning,” David Merritt had pointed out to me. “Lots of people like being on the winning team; there are more Patriots fans than there are Cleveland Browns fans.”

So, why Trump after all? Even after all my time on the road, no one explanation for Trumpism seems more illuminating than the other. Voters’ distrust in institutions meant news and basic facts were worthy of questioning and only the most outrageous statements had the ring of truth; working-class whites’ racial anger had reconstituted their sense of identity; and their desire for the center to no longer hold meant drastic upheaval in the Grand Old Party and America. But there is no one unified theory of Trumpism. The reasons for his rise are numerous, and perhaps, in some cases, unknowable. Trump’s candidacy has shown that Americans are more radical than anyone realized.

Read more here.