For a long time, scholars of social movements assumed that political coalitions form when different groups discover they have aligned interests. But in American history, those alignments have usually been short-lived and shaky at best. Labor unions, civil rights groups, immigration activists, and environmentalists have each followed their own logic, rarely coming together in any lasting way. In recent years, though, something more surprising has started to happen — a new kind of convergence visible in movements like “May Day Strong.”

To understand why, we need to look at the deeper structure of politics in the Trump era.

Trumpism didn’t just energise its own supporters. It redrew the entire political map into a sharp, simple binary: real Americans versus elites, insiders versus outsiders, loyalists versus enemies.

Trumpism didn’t just energise its own supporters. It redrew the entire political map into a sharp, simple binary: real Americans versus elites, insiders versus outsiders, loyalists versus enemies.

This binary did two things at once. Inside Trump’s base, it created stronger unity. But on the other side, it unintentionally created a shared sense of threat for a wide range of groups that previously had little in common. Suddenly, workers facing job insecurity, immigrants under pressure, racial justice activists, and climate organizers all........

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