The Partisan Sorting of “America”: How Nationalist Cleavages Shaped the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election

Political scientists have acknowledged the importance of nationalism as a constitutive element radical-right politics but typically empirically reduced phenomenon to specific out-group sentiments. Sociologists, in contrast, devoted more attention theorizing and operationalizing only sporadically engaged debates about institutional politics. The present study brings these literatures together by considering how nationalist beliefs shaped respondents’ voting preferences 2016 U.S. presidential election outcome built on long-term changes distribution population. results suggest that competing understandings American nationhood were effectively mobilized candidates from two parties, both primaries general election. Furthermore, over past 20 years, has become sorted party, Republican identifiers come define America exclusionary critical terms Democrats increasingly endorsed inclusive positive conceptions nationhood. These trends point rising demand for radical among Republicans potentially bleak future politics, becomes yet another multiple overlapping social cultural cleavages serve reinforce partisan divisions undermine stability liberal democratic institutions.