Trumpism flourished where social capital remained highest

Evidence

A few years later, Andrés Rodriguez-Pose, Neil Lee, and Cornelius Lipp’s “Golfing with Trump” adopted a similar approach. They found that in 2016 Trump outperformed the previous Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, in counties with comparatively high concentrations of social capital, particularly in rural areas that had experienced economic and demographic decline. Stagnation, outmigration, and increasing regional inequality, the authors argue, were especially likely to spur populist protest in places where associational life (such as golf clubs) and community life remained relatively intact. — Anton Jäger, Hyperpolitics, 146

Categorization

• XREF: This is the pivotal empirical objection to the hollowed-out-institutions thesis — the reader needs this countercase to judge whether Jäger’s diagnosis holds.
• SEED: A piece asking whether right-wing civil society (homeowners’ associations, golf clubs, churches) functions as ‘asymmetric reinstitutionalization’ — mass organizations revived on one side only.