The Great White Hoax

Donald Trump and the Politics of Race and Class in America

Acclaimed anti-racist educator and author Tim Wise explores how Donald Trump expertly tapped into long-simmering racial tensions and rode an accelerating wave of white anxiety and grievance straight to the White House.

Rejecting the notion that Trump's racial appeals to white voters during the 2016 campaign somehow represented a break with business as usual, Wise shows how the politics of racial scapegoating have been operative in conservative and establishment Republican circles for decades. He also rejects the notion that the rise of Trump can be explained by the Democratic Party's failure to speak to the economic anxieties of white working-class voters, showing how it was cultural anxiety, more than anything else, that motivated Trump's white supporters.

THE GREAT WHITE HOAX offers a fascinating look at how conservative political leaders and strategists have been tapping into anxieties about cultural change to win the support of white Americans, especially white men, for decades. And it makes a powerful case for why Trumpism, and the politics of racial scapegoating, are destined to fail in the end.