Roundtable on Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson, "Let Them Eat Tweets"

Session Submission Type: Author meet critics

Session Description

"Let Them Eat Tweets: How the Right Rules in an Age of Inequality" will be published in May. The book argues that our present predicament is the culmination of a long-term transit of the GOP toward what we call “plutocratic populism”—an ugly combination of plutocratic-friendly economic policies and right-wing populist, highly-racialized appeals. We situate the recent evolution of the Right in the United States within a comparative and historical analysis of the “Conservative Dilemma” that has regularly confronted conservative parties in periods of high inequality. The modern American hybrid of “plutocratic populuism” emerged as Republican elites sided with the increasingly organized and ideologically extreme winners in the winner-take-all economy. The GOP simultaneously embraced inegalitarian policies that hurt many of the party’s own voters and searched for campaign themes, tactics, and organizational allies capable of keeping those voters in the fold. Trump didn’t invent this governing model; he turned the dial to eleven on an existing machine. And we can’t understand what his presidency has done and what it threatens if we focus only on the ethno-nationalist populism that is its most vivid characteristic. Plutocracy is at the root of our current crisis, and it poses a distinct threat—one that will outlast his presidency.

Sub Unit

• Division 55: Class and Inequality

Chair

• Jennifer L. Hochschild Harvard University

Presenters

• Paul Pierson University of California, Berkeley

• Jacob S. Hacker Yale University

• Daniel F. Ziblatt Harvard University

• Christopher S. Parker University of Washington

• Suzanne Mettler Cornell University