ABSTRACT
Chapter Four investigates the “heirs,” so to speak, of America's traditional socio-political pool of ideas as they appear in present understandings of society and government. These may, under conditions of duress, turn to more binarized, us-them possibilities as follows:
Affirmative commitment to the community may become the defensive/self-protective my-community-in-struggle against “outsiders” (new immigrants, minorities), who are threats to be constrained—a civilizational populism.
Wariness of oppressive government/elites may become suspicion of government/elites per se, whose activities should be limited – except to implement the constraints on outsiders required by (i)—a political populism. In such a shift, evaluating specific administrations, policies, and levels of effectiveness is made difficult as government/elites are themselves suspect from the get-go.
Because both the historico-cultural background and turns to us-them binaries are longstanding, ever available to be drawn upon under duress, Sides, Tesler, and Vavreck, call populism's appeal to them “hunting where the ducks are”—that is, tapping into traditional understandings of society and government for their us-them potential. The chapter illustrates the present wariness of government and “outsiders” and of the appeal of Donald Trump to both suspicions.
