On the same day this week that former President Trump made his way to a criminal arraignment, those of us in Wisconsin made our way to the polls—a place that Trump works hard to convince people is dysfunctional. His actions that attempted to overturn the 2020 election will likely have their day in court, just like hush money did this week. Trump, of course, relishes the spotlight his legal troubles cast upon him. It’s now his platform for re-election. His single messaging marries together two words: “Weaponization,” as he describes the use of the justice system against him, and “victimization,” as in “this could happen to you.”
This “us vs. them” strategy was explored with great clairvoyance in Katherine Cramer’s 2016 book, “The Politics of Resentment.” In the book she unnested Scott Walker’s strategy to identify a common enemy—in this case public workers—and rally a political base to resent them and support him. The book is remarkably successful at predicting the events of the Trump era, and if you find yourself wondering how exactly our recent political climate developed, you may find the answers you’re looking within the pages of the Cramer’s book. On this edition of the Friday Buzz, Cramer joins host Andy Moore to talk about how the revelations from her book and studies have manifested themselves in recent politics.
Kathy Cramer is a professor of political science and the Natalie C. Holton Chair of Letters & Science at UW-Madison. She’s also the author of the award-winning book, “The Politics of Resentment.”
Photo courtesy of the University of Chicago Press via their website