Note: Thank you to NetGalley, Prometheus Books, and author Martin Gelin for the advanced reader copy of this book. This review will also be posted on NetGalley. What follows is my unbiased review of the book.

And you may ask yourself, “Well, how did I get here?”

To gain an understanding of why we are where we currently are in this country, author Martin Gelin makes the quite successful argument that what we are currently experiencing with Donald Trump, Republicans, and the rise of White Nationalism all have their roots in the racism that has pervaded the United States throughout its history. He goes back into the history of the United States and highlights pivotal moments that highlight when the white population chose prejudice, discrimination, and fear over embracing those who had a different skin color than they did.

Although The White Storm was published in the United States in January of 2025, it is quickly apparent that the book was written at least a year or more before then. Trump has not been re-elected as of this writing, nor has there been the upheaval in the Democratic Party that substituted Kamala Harris as the nominee for President. I have to wonder what Gelin would make of the current climate and deportations without due process.

Gelin has been a Swedish correspondent in the United States for more than twenty years. He has written a number of books about his observations during that time. I haven’t read any of his other works, but this is a solid piece of research and writing that all too accurately sums up how racism has brought us to this moment. He goes back to the enigma that is Thomas Jefferson, a white President who owned slaves and fathered numerous children with one of them. Gelin makes the point that as much as Jefferson wrote that there would one day be a reckoning for the sin of slavery, he still had twelve-year-old boys whipped and did not free his slaves upon his death as George Washington did.

Slavery and colonization were justified by dehumanizing everyone who was not White.

Specifically, Gelin shows how, in the years since the Civil War, we failed to do what Germany did following World War II. We failed to come to terms with the dehumanization of those we had enslaved. Instead, thanks to politicians such as Andrew Johnson, freed slaves in the south were enslaved again in different ways that skirted the laws enacted following the War, giving them citizenship and all that comes from that. He cites examples that prove the point quite well. Some of it I had heard about before. Some of it I knew about but didn’t realize just how pervasive it was, especially in Southern society.

One of the clearest examples is forced prison labor. It was primarily black citizens that were picked up for vague crimes such a “vagrancy” or “loitering” and the like and sent to prison where they became unpaid labor for local businesses. In California, this happened as well with the Native population. Gelin makes the argument that California was better able to come to terms with its pained history than the rest of the country. It’s not perfect, but they don’t shy away from the negative part of their history.

Trump’s voters should more often be seen as “high-status American,” who do not fight inferiority but instead stubbornly try to preserve existing privileges.

Meanwhile, the rest of the country tries to literally whitewash its history. Gelin shows how Trump is a product of this racism and denial of history. The long-game for White Nationalists began with Nixon and has culminated in our own time. Gelin cites the moments in history that back up this assertion, and I found that my own experiences have matched the arguments brought up in The White Storm.

Most of the last hundred pages or so deal with the rise of White Nationalism and Trump. Even without him weighing in on the current deportations we are seeing, I could see how all of this comes out of this background. Perhaps we need an outsider looking in to see us as we are.

This is precisely why the nationalists are mobilizing in an impatient offensive against democracy itself – they have lost the battle of ideas…

Gelin’s argument and research are thorough. He provides anecdotes of his own interactions within the right-wing where he encounters racism. People think if you are white, you must automatically be racist like them and tend to open up, which some of them, such as Alex Jones and Roger Stone, do.

I highly recommend The White Storm to anyone who doesn’t think that our current situation all boils down to racism. Gelin doesn’t give us any real answers, except to cite the very imperfect state of California as having gotten it right better than the rest of the country. It’s not a particularly difficult read, but it does not paint a sunny picture for us, either.