The Right-Wing Populist Surge: Economic Anxiety, Alienation, or Status Threat?

• In Event: 30469 - Right-Wing Populism in the US and Beyond

Abstract

What explains the rise of right-wing populism in the US, which culminated in Donald Trump’s election to office in 2016 and his continuing appeal to millions of Americans? What groups or strata are the primary social carriers of this right-wing populism and what factors motivate them? Drawing on the Views of the Electorate Research (VOTER) Survey, the authors distinguish and test three widely advanced theories about the rise of right-wing populism in the US, namely, the (1) working-class revolt, (2) political alienation, and (3) status threat theories. In logistic regression analysis, the authors find evidence that challenges the conventional claims in the literature that working-class revolt is the primary reason Americans have turned to Trump or that his supporters are politically alienated. Instead, the authors find strong evidence that a feeling of entitlement to political institutions—and not alienation from them—as well as the gamut of racist, sexist, and xenophobic tendencies described by the status threat theory drive support for right-wing populism in the United States.

Authors

• Masoud Movahed, University of California - Santa Barbara

• Chad Alan Goldberg, University of Wisconsin-Madison