UPDATE 11/10/2016: Well, Donald Trump is the next President of the United States. With that in mind, this list is even more pertinent.
With election day now only 15 days away, the Republican Party is likely 16 days away from a post-mortem which will attempt to diagnose how it got stuck with Donald Trump as its nominee. While the GOP was responsible for a large part of the issues, Trump is largely only a figurehead for a larger shift in American culture and politics. Below are five events which helped to ignite the rise of Trump.
1. Release of I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
Tucker Max was one of the first people to successfully use the internet to create a marketable persona. In his blog, Max explained his drunken conquests, forming the beginning of the image we know today as a “bro.” Though he began his blog in 2000, he released a compilation of his best stories in a book in 2006. That book, I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell, became a New York Times #1 bestseller and has sold over a million copies worldwide.
His success led him to tour college campuses, where he received massive backlash from women’s groups. As it turns out, Max and his marketing team were behind many of those protests. Nonetheless, this helped to begin and legitimize the modern “social justice warrior” movement, which decries “rape culture.” Over the last ten years, this has evolved into colleges where “free speech zones” and “safe spaces” exist, raising the ire of older generations and more conservative-minded Americans. Needless to say, this then gave rise to “anti-PC” activists who wished to strike back against such thin-skinned students.
2. Duke Lacrosse False Accusations
In 2006, a sexual assault scandal engulfed the nation. Three members of the Duke lacrosse team were accused by a stripper and prostitute of raping her. A large array of issues were covered throughout the case, as it involved a wealthy and privileged trio of white men at an elite university and a disadvantaged black accuser. As it turned out, the female had lied and invented most of her story from events which hadn’t actually happened.
However, the larger issue was that much of the media covered the event in a largely deplorable manner, essentially convicting the three Duke lacrosse players in the court of public opinion. The pressure was so intense that the entire 2006 Duke lacrosse season was cancelled and the head coach was forced to resign. In 2007, the charges against the players were dismissed. The lead prosecutor acted so improperly that he was forced to resign and was ultimately disbarred. This instance pitted Americans against each other on lines of race, gender, and class for one of the first times in the “internet” era. The rush to judgment resulted in much anger, particularly among whites who felt they were being unfairly scapegoated, and left wounds which still remain unhealed.
3. John McCain Selects Sarah Palin
In 2008, John McCain ran his second and final presidential campaign in an attempt to succeed his former rival, George W. Bush. With the incumbent President facing historically low approval ratings, most analysts foresaw defeat for the Republican ticket. However, McCain made one last play for victory when he selected the virtually-unknown Sarah Palin as his running-mate against Barack Obama.
McCain had prided himself on running as a center-right Republican who always spoke with respect toward his opponent. However, upon taking on Palin, the GOP campaign took on a much more populist tone, leading to several uncomfortable moments wherein supporters criticized Obama with xenophobic and racially-tinged insults. Following the defeat, moderate Republicans and populist conservatives debated over whether Palin helped or hurt the ticket. Eventually, Palin helped lead the insurgent “Tea Party” to take over the GOP in 2010, which partially assisted in reelecting Obama in 2012 with its radical rhetoric, only further inflaming the populist portions of the Republican Party.
4. Trayvon Martin Shooting
There had been many, many racial conflicts in the United States before Trayvon Martin was killed in 2012. George Zimmerman, a community watchman, killed the 17-year-old with a gunshot after the two got into a physical confrontation. After initially refusing to charge Zimmerman with murder due to him invoking Florida’s “stand your ground” law, he was eventually tried and acquitted of the crime.
However, this incident was perhaps different because it occurred in the social media era. Every person was able to tweet his or her opinion (informed or not) in a matter of seconds. Much like any other racial conflict, lines were drawn between black and white. Additionally, liberals and conservatives found themselves at odds. With neither side willing to budge on their opinions and each respective side clinging to news sources confirming their biases, Americans saw front-and-center that race was still a major issue in the country, even with a black President in the Oval Office. The protests which came before and after the verdict planted the seeds for what would become the Black Lives Matter movement, which only further divided Americans.
5. Bruce Jenner Becomes Caitlyn Jenner
Perhaps there could be no better symbolism to blue-collar Americans that the country had rapidly changed before they could even take note. On June 1, 2015, Bruce Jenner, a man who had in 1976 set a new world record for the decathlon while competing on behalf of the United States, appeared not on the front of a Wheaties box with his gold medal, as he had after his Olympics victory — but rather, on the cover of Vanity Fair magazine, in lingerie as a woman, with the caption “Call me Caitlyn.”
This appearance by Jenner marked a significant advance in trans rights. She used her fame to speak out about the way in which this class of Americans had been treated over the last several decades. However, to many, this represented a tearing at the fabric of America. Some resented the idea that she was named “woman of the year” by some publications and that she won an ESPY for her heroism. Nonetheless, her visibility gave rise to more issues, such as which bathroom trans people should use. Fittingly, exactly two weeks to the day the Vanity Fair magazine was released, Donald Trump announced his campaign, first invoking his oft-repeated promise to “Make America Great Again.”