The ascendance of Donald Trump to the presidential candidacy of the Republican Party has been both remarkable and, to most commentators, unlikely. The author argues that Trump's rapid rise through a bewildered Republican Party hierarchy is no anomaly
rather, it is the most recent expression of a long-standing theme in American political life, the tendency and temptation to an ascriptive politics--a political view that builds its basic case on ascribing to any relatively disempowered group (whether defined by race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, or other identifying category) a certain set of qualities that justify discriminatory treatment.--Publisher's description.