Ian Reifowitz
American historian
Ian Reifowitz is SUNY Distinguished Professor of Historical Studies at Empire State University of the State University of New York. He is the author of four books, the most recent of which was published in 2025, and writes commentary on American politics and society. His research focuses on political rhetoric relating to issues of ethnic and national identity in multiethnic societies, including Austria-Hungary in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and the contemporary United States. His books on American politics have examined Barack Obama, Rush Limbaugh, and Donald Trump. Reifowitz is a contributing author for the Progressive Policy Institute, was a contributing editor/writer at Daily Kos, and has also published articles in various print media outlets.
Media
Reifowitz's most recent book, Riling Up the Base: Examining Trump's Use of Stereotypes through an Interdisciplinary Lens, was published in 2025. Also that year he published an essay, "How Democrats Lost Sight of Obama's Vision of National Identity" for the Progressive Policy Institute. Reifowitz appeared on a number of podcasts to discuss Riling Up the Base, including Open Book, hosted by Anthony Scaramucci, and the Daily Blast, hosted by Greg Sargent. Reifowitz discussed his 2019 book, The Tribalization of Politics: How Rush Limbaugh's Race-Baiting Rhetoric on the Obama Presidency Paved the Way for Trump, on The Thom Hartmann Program and on the PBS program Story in the Public Square, among other outlets. Reifowitz was quoted extensively in articles published upon the conservative host's death in February 2021.
The public source identifies “Ian Reifowitz” as american historian. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Reifowitz, American and historian.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q60194384. VIAF identifies the subject as 61792760. The Library of Congress control number is no2003129062. None of the 2 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2025, 2019 and 2021.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ian Reifowitz” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.