… One of the core beliefs that binds the modern Republican coalition, particularly since the rise of Donald Trump, is rejection of the idea that racial minorities and women face structural bias in American society.
Studies of the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections conducted by the Tufts political scientist Brian Schaffner and his colleagues used the Cooperative Election Study, a large-scale national poll, to determine the factors that predicted which candidate voters supported in those races. Those studies found that in each contest, the single best predictor of who voted for Trump was the belief that systemic racism no longer exists in the U.S.; the second-best predictor was denial that systemic bias exists against women. …
As Trump more overtly identified the GOP with white racial resentments, Democrats have moved in the opposite direction. Since Obama’s presidency, polls show, the share of Democrats who say that Black Americans and other minorities face structural discrimination has dramatically increased. With more Democrats describing systemic racism as a problem, the gap between the two parties on racial questions has notably widened over roughly the past 15 years.
Other surveys document a further step in thinking among Republicans. Not only do a majority of Republican voters assert that structural barriers no longer constrain women or minorities; a majority also claim that core GOP constituencies are the real victims of bias. CONTINUED
Ronald Brownstein, The Atlantic
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