A majority of white Americans back the Republican Party. Perry Bacon writes:
A clear majority of White Americans keeps backing the Republican Party over the Democratic Party, even though the Republican Party is embracing terrible and at times antidemocratic policies and rhetoric. The alliance between Republicans and White Americans is by far the most important and problematic dynamic in American politics today.
Non-Hispanic White Americans were about 85 percent of those who voted for Donald Trump in 2020, much larger than the 59 percent of the U.S. population overall in that demographic. That was similar to 2016, when White voters were about 88 percent of Trump backers. It is very likely that White Americans will be more than 80 percent of those who back Republican candidates in this fall’s elections.
Eighty-five percent of those who voted for Donald Trump in 2020 were White, even though they make up only 59 percent of the U.S. population.
The Republican Party is the preferred choice of White people who describe themselves as evangelical Christians (whom Trump won by 69 points in 2020), White people in rural areas (Trump by 43 points), White people in the South (29 points), White men (17), White Catholics (15), White Protestants who don’t describe themselves as evangelicals (14), White people in the Midwest (13), White women (7) and White people who live in the suburbs (4). (These numbers come from post-election surveys and analysis from the Pew Research Center, the Cooperative Election Study and Eastern Illinois University professor Ryan Burge.)
That White Vote is problematic:
Being the party of White Americans has given and will continue to give the Republicans two huge advantages. First, White Americans are about 72 percent of the U.S. electorate, about 13 percentage points more than their share in the overall population. White adults are more likely than Asian and Hispanic adults to be citizens (not recent immigrants) and therefore are eligible to vote. The median age for a White American is higher than that for Asian, Black or Latino Americans, and older Americans tend to vote at higher rates. If the electorate mirrored the country’s actual demographics and those groups voted as they did in 2020, Trump would have won only about 44 percent of the national vote, three points less than his 47 percent two years ago.
Second, the electoral college and the Senate give outsize power to less populated states — which in America today tend to be disproportionately White.
And history shows that White Americans have traditionally chosen the Republican Party:
The alliance between White Americans and the Republican Party has existed for decades. The last time a Democratic presidential candidate won the majority of White voters was in 1964, a year before Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the Voting Rights Act. The Republican Party spent much of the next three decades courting White Americans, in part, by casting Democrats as too tied to the causes of minorities, particularly Black people and Latino immigrants.
So it’s no accident that Republicans are winning the majority of White voters. It is in many ways the result of a successful strategy. It’s not that Trumpism brought White voters as a bloc to the Republican Party (they were already voting Republican) — but rather that it hasn’t scared many of them off.
So, you have to ask, What's wrong with White Americans?
Image: vox.com
13 comments:
Hermann Goering answered that question back when the vast majority of white Americans were antifa - "Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger." The Fox media-Facebook-YouTube echo chamber is constantly telling their white audience that they are under attack by migrants, minorities, (((elites))) and communists/Democrats. It's like Radio Rwanda on steroids.
Cap
Thanks for the Goering reference, Cap. We've been here before.
I'd like to publish your comment, Anon. But it must be initialed.
Sorry, I'm confused. There is a difference between "A clear majority of White Americans keeps backing the Republican Party over the Democratic Party." and a majority of Republicans are white. Is Perry Bacon overstating his case?
Two different ways of saying the same thing, Toby.
But it's not the same thing, Owen. They would be different numbers.
I take your point, Toby. It sounds like the same thing -- but it isn't. You're not confused. Bacon is.
Lee Atwater breathed life into Goldwater's "southern strategy" idea and, in short order, reversed America's political polarity. As Kennedy/Johnson pushed for civil rights, the former Democratic south bolted to the increasingly racist GOP. Shifting demographics have provided ample fuel to keep American whites firmly in the Republican fold.
LBJ summed it up: "If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”
This is one of America's seemingly irreparable fault lines. In the perilous decades that lie ahead, race could be where America fractures.
MoS
Blogger Owen Gray said...
"Thanks for the Goering reference, Cap. We've been here before."
Just wondering who 'We' is in that sentence above--?
Care to spell it out for all of us.
The latest headline reads: "Biden's Rating Hits Rock Bottom As Poll Finds Only 1/3 Would ‘Re-Elect' Him."
So now there should be no need to explain why our favourite ol' kultural marxist is rolling out the vacuous, ad hominem attacks on white folks and the Republican party.
Setting aside the fact that Owen conveniently severs himself and obviously regards himself as better, which is implicitly racist and elitist; it must also be noticed that he and his folks are protesting much too loudly. They know something must be done, and fast; so expect this particular October surprise to be yuuge. They're going to have to go out of their way to do something incredibly outrageous so as to misdirect public opinion and thereby try to stave off the complete Mid-term wipe-out which they know full-well is coming. To that end, it's worth noting that they could well do without that super-silver-sniffer and 81-million-vote-getter, the erstwhile most-popular-resident-ever, swampy Joey 10%. Were he to--say--take a tumble under the bus of a lone-nut white supremacist while absent-mindedly licking his ice-cream on a break from some meaningless campaign stop, well, then, no one would be too surprised...or upset.
In the United States, Mound, slavery was the original sin. It's a sin that -- it seems -- can't be expiated. It's good to see you commenting again.
The "we" is the world in general, Brian. Humanity's darker angels never disappear.
I think of myself as a better, Carol? Not at all. Sounds to me like you feel threatened -- by a lot of people and things.
Post a Comment