The Gilded Rage

"The Gilded Rage offers a sharp corrective to the panicked schematic analysis of Trumpism as another GOP-choreographed hoodwinking of disgruntled grassroots conservatives. By focusing on the Trump phenomenon as a social movement, Zaitchik astutely shows us how Trump’s mass appeal ... arises out of the same populist discontent that the GOP leadership has stoked throughout the Obama era, without even pretending to assuage it. To his great credit, he listens while his subjects offer up complicated, often self-questioning accounts of their idiosyncratic paths to ardent Trump support. There’s nothing here that resembles the glib demographic explanations-cum-dismissals of Trumpism that are now fashionable among liberals in the Northeast corridor... The overall effect of Zaitchik’s unrushed, painstaking interviews is to show a Trump electorate whose members—much like the rest of us—are deeply anxious about their precarious standing in a political and economic order that hasn’t given them any grounds for hope."—Chris Lehmann, The Nation

"[Zaitchik] believes that the stereotypical Trump supporter often portrayed by the media is not an accurate representation of all”—Salon

"Throughout the election, Trump supporters were represented as a fringe, alt-right group. But the people who make up Trump America are more than a monolith. Alexander Zaitchik explores the lives of these people through his book, The Gilded Rage: A Wild Ride Through Donald Trump's America. He examines the Trump phenomenon as a social movement born of discontent.”—NPR /The Takeway

"The Gilded Rage offers a sharp corrective to the panicked schematic analysis of Trumpism as another GOP-choreographed hoodwinking of disgruntled grassroots conservatives. By focusing on the Trump phenomenon as a social movement, Zaitchik astutely shows us how Trump’s mass appeal ... arises out of the same populist discontent that the GOP leadership has stoked throughout the Obama era, without even pretending to assuage it. To his great credit, he listens while his subjects offer up complicated, often self-questioning accounts of their idiosyncratic paths to ardent Trump support. There’s nothing here that resembles the glib demographic explanations-cum-dismissals of Trumpism that are now fashionable among liberals in the Northeast corridor... The overall effect of Zaitchik’s unrushed, painstaking interviews is to show a Trump electorate whose members—much like the rest of us—are deeply anxious about their precarious standing in a political and economic order that hasn’t given them any grounds for hope."—Chris Lehmann, The Nation

"[Zaitchik] believes that the stereotypical Trump supporter often portrayed by the media is not an accurate representation of all”—Salon

"Throughout the election, Trump supporters were represented as a fringe, alt-right group. But the people who make up Trump America are more than a monolith. Alexander Zaitchik explores the lives of these people through his book, The Gilded Rage: A Wild Ride Through Donald Trump's America. He examines the Trump phenomenon as a social movement born of discontent.”—NPR /The Takeway