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How race and identity became the central dividing line in American politics

Updated by Lee Drutman Aug 30, 2016, 10:40am EDT


Mothers of the Movement stand on stage prior to delivering remarks on the second day of the Democratic National Convention
at the Wells Fargo Center, July 26, 2016, in Philadelphia. Joe Raedle/Getty Images

In 2016, race and identity has emerged as the central dividing line in American politics. Though race has always lived close to the surface of politics in the US, it has rarely been so explicitly front and center in political campaigns. So how did this happen?

The easy answer is Donald J. Trump. True, Trump was the first modern Republican to win the nomination based on racial prejudice. And, yes, racial resentment does more to explain support for Trump than even ideology.

But Trump is not acting in a vacuum. He is instead riding forces set in motion a half-century ago. His identity-based nomination should be seen as the logical culmination of Republicans' 50-year "Southern strategy" to make politics primarily about race and identity instead of economics.

This history is not just an academic exercise. It's crucial for understanding where politics is headed. Treating Trump's nomination as a historical aberration allows one to think that there is some returning to "normal." Viewing Trump's nomination as a historical culmination suggests instead that there is no going back, and that "normal" is just a name we call a bygone era.

For Republicans, the irony is that this strategy reached its full completion at precisely the moment when it was no longer a winning national strategy.

[.. well, it was written before the election result which caught most pundits off guard, yet i hope that doesn't take away too much from the worth
of the article .. have only glanced through it so far and am not up on the history so trusting the feeling it's a reasonably accurate one .. it's long .. ]

[...]

How Obama's election fueled a backlash

When it happened in 2008, Obama's election was widely viewed as a landmark of race relations progress. But looking back, it now seems increasingly clear that his presidency activated a racist backlash among a particular segment of the population.

Political scientist Michael Tesler, for example, has found that "[o]ld-fashioned racism returned to white Americans' party identification in the early Obama era because the country elected an African-American president from the Democratic Party." He also found that whites with strong racist attitudes turned much more sharply Republican following Obama's election, including some who had previously been Democrats.

[...]

How immigration fueled a backlash

Immigration has also contributed. It's important to understand that between 1990 and 2014, the share of foreign-born citizens in the United States went from 7.9 percent to 13.9 percent — a near doubling. The last time the share of foreign-born citizens got this high (about 100 years ago), it provoked enough nativist backlash in the 1920s to largely close the borders for four decades, until 1965.

[...]

And then ... Trump

Now, in retrospect, it becomes increasingly clear how the Republican Party got to a place where it was primed for Trump's white grievance message. Republicans spent the past half-century winning over socially conservative, non-college-educated whites on issues of race and identity, to the point that these voters became the dominant faction within the party. With little else to hold the party together, Republican leaders doubled down on these issues over the past decade. They were also helped out by events.

To be sure, a good number Republicans strongly disagree with Trump's "textbook racism." And many have previously advocated for Republicans to broaden their electoral appeals beyond resentful whites.


Supporters cheer for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump during a campaign rally at the Mississippi
Coliseum on August 24, 2016, in Jackson, Mississippi. Photo by Jonathan Bachman/Getty Images

And to be sure, not all of Trump's appeal is based on racism. He was also the only Republican candidate to speak directly to the economic uncertainties that many downscale Republican voters have been feeling, and the only Republican candidate to stand up, at least rhetorically, for Social Security and for taxing the wealthy (even if his campaign platforms have not always reflected these details).

But the reality is that Trump won the nomination with the most explicit racial language we've seen from a modern presidential candidate. His campaign resonated because it connected with a sizable piece of the Republican electorate.

.. much more with links .. http://www.vox.com/polyarchy/2016/8/30/12697920/race-dividing-american-politics