The Politics of Losing

Protest During a Pandemic: How Covid-19 Affected Social Movements in the United States

“…His presidency was a prime provocation for movements on the left (Meyer & Tarrow, 2018). His electoral campaigns which, among other things, appealed to racist resentment and anti-immigrant sentiments among White Americans (Hooghe & Dassonneville, 2018;McVeigh & Estep, 2019), created the conditions under which activists could coalesce around progressive issues, and connect causes that seemingly were disparate in the eyes of average Americans. The potential to create new coalitions was evident immediately after Trump's election.…”

Analyzing Text and Images in Digital Communication: The Case of Securitization in American White Supremacist Online Discourse

“…Security forces, ranging from metropolitan police organizations to paramilitary militias, have long played a key role in the American WS movement. For example, police departments often enforced Jim Crow in the United States South, the modern Ku Klux Klan drew many members from the ranks of the police, and veterans of the Vietnam War were instrumental in establishing the contemporary WS movement (Belew 2018;McVeigh and Estep 2019). More recently, some rioters at the Capitol on January 6, 2021-an event that, although not explicitly WS, had WS overtones (Munn 2021)-were active police officers and military personnel from across the country (Kornfield 2021;Luscombe 2023).…”

“…The robust online discourse of the American WS movement and, more generally, the right-wing, highlights an underdeveloped dimension of our knowledge about securitization and the movement. Prior research has examined the social conditions and processes that have entwined security forces and the WS movement, shedding light on key historical events and organizational dynamics (e.g., Belew 2018;Jackson 2020;McVeigh 2009;McVeigh and Estep 2019).…”

Trump Knows Best: Donald Trump’s Rejection of Expertise and the 2020 Presidential Election

“…And there is no doubt that Trump benefitted immensely from high levels of support among less educated white voters at the same time he fared poorly among whites with a bachelor’s degree or higher (Cohn 2018 ; Pew 2018 ; Sides et al 2018 ; Silver 2016 ). It is also clear that less educated voters were critical in Trump’s success in the primaries that ultimately secured him the Republican nomination (Dyck et al 2018 ; McVeigh and Estep 2019 ). But Republican success among non-college educated whites did not begin with Trump in 2016.…”

“…There is little doubt that racial resentment and anxiety, anti-immigrant sentiment, and concerns over the loss of privileged status were critical to Trump’s victory in 2016. I would argue that there are economic and class elements intertwined in each of these perspectives (McVeigh and Estep 2019 ), but the explanatory power of these measures on the white vote in 2016 cannot be disputed. I do, however, want to propose a potential addition to this explanation: the rejection of expertise.…”