The 2016 election was far from a fluke

by Saleno Zito,

America’s political experts got it wrong in 2016 — not because they took too few polls, but because they made the false assumption that American elections are immune to societal change.

They are, in large part, still getting things wrong, not only by failing to understand a new group of voters who put President Donald Trump in the White House but also by ignoring why they voted the way they did.

When explaining the Trump voter, the media usually offers portraits of isolated, uneducated, working-class rubes who are driven by anger, race and nationalism. To the experts and those who didn’t support Trump, it’s hard for them to see it any other way.

And while the media obsesses over the future demise of the president, they aren’t pausing to consider the strength and durability of the coalition that swept him into office.

My new book, “The Great Revolt: Inside the Populist Coalition Reshaping American Politics” (Crown Forum), co-written by Brad Todd, is a road trip into the lives of Rust Belt voters who switched their states’ allegiances in the presidential elections from 2012 to 2016.

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