Race and Politics

After Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016, many political scientists and pundits came forth with a simple explanation. Trump had won, they said, because of white Americans’ racial resentment.

These analysts looked at surveys and argued that the voters who had allowed Trump to win were distinguished not by social class, economic worries or any other factor but by their racial fears. “Another study shows Trump won because of racial anxieties — not economic distress,” as a typical headline, in The Intercept, put it.

I never found this argument to be persuasive. Yes, race played a meaningful role in Trump’s victory, given his long history of remarks demeaning people of color. But politics is rarely monocausal. And there were good reasons — including Barack Obama’s earlier success with Trump voters — to believe that the 2016 election was complex, too.

Eight years later, the “it’s all racial resentment” argument doesn’t look merely questionable. It looks wrong.

Skewed polls?

Since Trump’s victory, a defining feature of American politics has been the rightward shift of voters of color. Asian, Black and Hispanic voters have all become less likely to support Democratic candidates and more likely to support Republicans, including Trump.

In each group, the trend is pronounced among working-class voters, defined as those without a four-year college degree. (The Democrats’ performance among nonwhite voters with a college degree has held fairly stable.)