Nia-Malika Henderson, Columnist

‘Backlash Presidents’ Are Not Inevitable

December 21, 2025 at 1:00 PM UTC

Nia-Malika Henderson is a politics and policy columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. A former senior political reporter for CNN and the Washington Post, she has covered politics and campaigns for almost two decades.

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As Trump openly calls Somali-Americans garbage and prioritizes White South Africans for refugee status, the racial component of Trump policies can’t be ignored. In “Backlash Presidents: From Transformative to Reactionary Leaders in American History,” political scientist Julia R. Azari of Marquette University explores the historical throughlines between racially transformative presidents and their successors. Our interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What is a backlash president? You identify three of them throughout history: Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon and Donald Trump. What defines these three leaders and ties them together?