In The New York Times Book Review back in April, Beverly Gage wrote: “Liberals may be experiencing mixed emotions these days. The prospect of a Trump presidency has raised urgent fears: of the nation’s fascist tendencies, of the potential for riots in the streets. At the same time, many liberals have expressed a grim satisfaction in watching the Republican Party tear itself apart. Whatever terrible fate might soon befall the nation, the thinking goes, it’s their fault, not ours. They are the ones stirring up the base prejudices and epic resentments of America’s disaffected white working class, and they must now reap the whirlwind.

“In his new book, the social critic Thomas Frank poses another possibility: that liberals in general — and the Democratic Party in particular — should look inward to understand the sorry state of American politics. Too busy attending TED talks and vacationing in Martha’s Vineyard, Frank argues, the Democratic elite has abandoned the party’s traditional commitments to the working class. In the process, they have helped to create the political despair and anger at the heart of today’s right-wing insurgencies.”

THE POPULIST EXPLOSION: How the Great Recession Transformed American and European Politics by John B. Judis (Columbia Global Reports)

This “cogent and exceptionally clarifying guide,” Jonathan Alter wrote in The New York Times Book Review, “helps to understand what ‘populism’ means, where it comes from and why it is advancing on both sides of the Atlantic.” Mr. Judis distinguishes left-wing economic populism from right-wing cultural populism, which accuses “elites of coddling an ever-shifting third group — immigrants, blacks, terrorists, welfare recipients or all of the above,” Mr. Alter wrote.

“In the end, Judis has a surprisingly benign attitude toward even right-wing populism. He thinks Trump and the European right-wing populists are nasty nationalists, but not fascists, insisting that even those with authoritarian streaks believe in working within the democratic system and lack the territorial ambitions that were central to German and Italian fascism. Instead, Judis writes, Trump resembles the former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, the buffoonish media baron.”

WHITE TRASH: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America by Nancy Isenberg (Viking)

Donald J. Trump was elected by America’s wealthy as well as its working class. But this eloquent book is that rare history of America that not only includes the weak, the powerless and the stigmatized, but also places them front and center. It’s an analysis of the intractable caste system that lingers below the national myths of rugged individualism and cities on hills. Ms. Isenberg does not skimp on economic analysis. She notes how the central engines of our economy, from slave-owning planters up through today’s bank and tax policies, have systematically harmed the working poor. “We have to wonder,” she writes about her book’s subjects, “how such people exist amid plenty.” Part of her answer is the “backlash that occurs when attempts are made to improve the conditions of the poor,” from the New Deal through Obamacare. “Government assistance is said to undermine the American dream,” she writes, adding: “Wait. Undermine whose American dream?” As if speaking of this election, she wrote: “When you turn an election into a three-ring circus, there’s always a chance the dancing bear will win.” (Dwight Garner)