Reconstruction pitted poor 'white trash' against newly freed slaves, which factored in the rise of eugenics-a widely popular movement embraced by Theodore Roosevelt that targeted poor whites for sterilization. Poor whites were central to the rise of the Republican Party in the early nineteenth century, and the Civil War itself was fought over class issues nearly as much as it was fought over slavery. Surveying political rhetoric and policy, popular literature and scientific theories over four hundred years, Isenberg upends assumptions about America's supposedly class-free society-where liberty and hard work were meant to ensure real social mobility. They were alternately known as "waste people," "offals," "rubbish," "lazy lubbers," and "crackers." By the 1850s, the downtrodden included so-called "clay eaters" and "sandhillers," known for prematurely aged children distinguished by their yellowish skin, ragged clothing, and listless minds. The wretched and landless poor have existed from the time of the earliest British colonial settlement to today's hillbillies. Yet the voters that put Trump in the White House have been a permanent part of our American fabric, argues Isenberg.
"When you turn an election into a three-ring circus, there's always a chance that the dancing bear will win," says Isenberg of the political climate surrounding Sarah Palin.
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