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

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