Trump Syllabus 3.0

This course explores one of the most unanticipated events in modern political history: the election of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States of America. We ask three basic questions: How did Trump win? Where …

This course explores one of the most unanticipated events in modern political history: the election of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States of America. We ask three basic questions: How did Trump win? Where (and whom) did he win? And why did he win? We devote equal time to each of these questions, breaking them down into 15 weekly topics. Each week starts with a primer article, followed by additional readings, data sources, and tools for further exploration.Beginning with the question of how, we survey readings that explain different voting patterns and which campaign strategies mattered most, along with other sources that offer up points for debate about the electoral process that brought Trump to power. Turning to the questions of where and whom, we move on to readings that map not just the state of Red State America, but also what has been called “the geography of despair,” the hollowed-out middle of Rust Belt and rural America where Trump gained enough slim victories to capture the presidency. Finally, we tackle the vexing debates about why Trump won. Was it a longing for an authoritarian leader? Racial resentment? Economic anxiety? Disgust for out-of-touch elites? All of the above? None of the above? Students, by engaging the readings and sources in this last part of the course, will answer these important questions for themselves.

Students will finish the course with a deeper understanding of this singular event and find themselves equipped with the knowledge and facts required to consider its implications for their own generation and for generations to come.

 

(Note to Reader: we tried to not duplicate readings that were included in some previous Trump syllabi, here and here. These other syllabi were prepared before the 2016 election and serve as excellent resources for anyone seeking greater historical and philosophical depth and more primary sources than we offer here.)


November 8, 2016. Photograph by Victoria Pickering / Flickr

PART ONE: HOW TRUMP WON

 

WEEK 1: Who Voted and How?
Making Sense of Electoral Returns

 

Primer

Primary Readings

Data and Tools

 

WEEK 2: Misinformation Nation:
Digital Politics, Fake News, and Social Media Bots

 

Primer

Primary Readings

Data and Tools

 

WEEK 3: Blame Bernie?
Third Parties & Political Spoilers

 

Primer

Primary Readings

Data and Tools

 

WEEK 4: The Road to 270:
Understanding & Exploiting the Electoral Map

 

Primer

Primary Readings

  • Eitan Hersh, Hacking the Electorate: How Campaigns Perceive Voters (Cambridge University Press, 2015)
  • Josh Pasek, “Predicting Elections: Considering Tools to Pool the Polls,” Public Opinion Quarterly, vol. 79, no. 2 (2015), pp. 594–619
  • Robert Bond & Solomon Messing, “Quantifying Social Media’s Political Space: Estimating Ideology from Publicly Revealed Preferences on Facebook,” American Political Science Review, vol. 109, no. 1 (2015), pp. 62–78
  • Eric Maskin and Amartya Sen, “The Rules of the Game: A New Electoral System,” New York Review of Books, January 29, 2017

Data and Tools

 

WEEK 5: Politrix?
Voting Rights—& Wrongs

 

Primer

Primary Readings

  • Lorraine C. Minnite, The Myth of Voter Fraud (Cornell University Press, 2011)
  • Stephen Ansolabehere and Nathaniel Persily, “Vote Fraud in the Eye of the Beholder: The Role of Public Opinion in the Challenge to Voter Identification Requirements,” Harvard Law Review, vol. 121, no. 7 (2008), pp. 1737–1774
  • Matt A. Barreto, Stephen Nuño, and Gabriel Sanchez, “The Disproportionate Impact of Voter-ID Requirements on the Electorate—New Evidence from Indiana,” PS: Political Science and Politics, vol. 42, no. 1 (2009), pp. 111–116
  • Marjorie Randon Hershey, “What We Know about Voter-ID Laws, Registration, and Turnout,” PS: Political Science and Politics, vol. 42, no. 1 (2009), pp. 87–91
  • Lonna Rae Atkeson, Lisa Ann Bryant, Thad E. Hall, Kyle Saunders, Michael Alvarez, “A New Barrier to Participation: Heterogeneous Application of Voter Identification Policies,” Electoral Studies, vol. 29, no. 1 (2010): 66–73

Data and Tools


Duck Dynasty Christmas Ornaments. Photograph by Mike Mozart / Flickr

PART TWO: WHERE TRUMP WON

(in which we map the geography of despair and learn about those who live it)

 

WEEK 6: Red State vs. Blue State

 

Primer

Primary Readings

Data and Tools

 

WEEK 7: The Geography of Despair:
Rural Ghettos & Small-City Blues

 

Primer

Primary Readings

Data and Tools

 

WEEK 8: Rustbelt Revolt:
What’s the Matter with Wisconsin (& PA & MI too)?

 

Primer

Primary Readings

Data and Tools

 

WEEK 9: White Views of Blacks,
Immigrants, & the Poor

 

Primer

Primary Readings

Data and Tools

 

WEEK 10: Whiteness, White People, White Grievances

 

Primer

Primary Readings

Data and Tools


Women’s March on Washington, January 21, 2017. Photograph by Mark Dixon / Wikimedia

PART THREE: WHY TRUMP WON

(in which we review and compare the leading explanations)

 

WEEK 11: Authoritarianism? “Only I Can Fix It!”

 

Primer

Primary Readings

Data and Tools

 

WEEK 12: Economic Anxiety? “I’ll Bring Back Jobs!”

 

Primer

Primary Readings

Data and Tools

 

WEEK 13: Racial Resentment? Beyond Birtherism

 

Primer

Primary Readings

Data and Tools

 

WEEK 14: Listen, Liberal!
Disdain for Urban, Coastal Elites?

 

Primer

Primary Readings

Data and Tools

 

WEEK 15: Globalism & Its Discontents?
Conservative Populism in America & Europe

 

Primer

Primary Readings

Data and Tools

Featured image: Donald Trump inaugurated as the 45th president of the United States of America, January 20, 2017. Photograph by Thomas Cizauskas / Flickr