America Is Still Living in the Backlash to Obama’s Presidency

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President Trump’s political rise came because of a white backlash against Barack Obama, says Julia Azari, a political scientist at Marquette University. She argues Trump’s circumstances are similar to Andrew Johnson and Richard Nixon, two other presidents whose predecessors made major advances for African-Americans. (Andrew Johnson succeeded Lincoln; Nixon succeeded Lyndon Johnson.) That’s the argument of her new book “Backlash Presidents.”  Combatting Trumpism, Azari argues, requires recognizing the racial nature of his support. In the cases of Johnson, Nixon, and Trump, American democracy declined in part because of that white backlash, so fighting MAGA will involve fighting anti-Black racism.