. . .a compelling narrative. [Schier and Eberly] examine Trump’s social, political, and economic agenda, and speculate about Trump’s future and the future of American politics post-Trump. The book gives important perspective about both the current state and the future of American politics.

Booklist

All that astonishment when Donald Trump won the White House in 2016 – from the press, the polls, even the new president? Steven Schier and Todd Eberly argue in their provocative new book that it shouldn’t have been a surprise. The rise of a celebrity, populist candidate who managed to vanquish the leading political dynasties in both parties was the predictable outcome of political trends long in the making, they say – and regardless of what happens to the Trump presidency, those powerful impulses aren’t over yet.

Susan Page, Washington Bureau Chief of USA TODAY and author of The Matriarch

The authors provide critically important insights into the historic 2016 election by distilling the national, long-term trends in the evolution of American democracy and how they intersected with Trump specific factors.

Janet Box-Steffensmier, 2019-20 President of the American Political Science Association, Ohio State University

The election of Donald Trump continues to be an astounding event in American political history, and we are fortunate to have the incisive judgments and reporting of ace political observers Steven E. Schier and Todd E. Eberly on the Trump phenomenon.

Michael Barone, senior political analyst, Washington Examiner, founding co-author, The Almanac of American Politics

Donald Trump’s election in 2016 shocked most journalists, and the professional political class broadly. Steven Schier and Todd Eberly assemble abundant evidence that we could have seen it coming. The questions—How was Trump able to take over the Republican Party? Why are so many partisans still with him despite the controversies of his first term?—will echo for decades in the future, but the answers begin decades in the past. These veteran political analysts identify the Trump victory not as a momentary spasm but the latest expression of a long-term revolt against elites in both parties.

John F. Harris, Founding Editor, POLITICO

How Trump Happened is written with a general audience in mind, offering accessible accounts of important moments in the 2016 campaign and the first three years of the Trump administration. It also deploys some of the tools of political science to build its argument about the election’s outcome in a nontechnical fashion.

Congress & the Presidency