… A convenient liberal interpretation of the recent presidential election would have it that Mr. Trump won in large part because he managed to transform economic disadvantage into racial rage — the “whitelash” thesis. This is convenient because it sanctions a conviction of moral superiority and allows liberals to ignore […] Read more »
Secular voters didn’t turn out for Clinton the way white evangelicals did for Trump
One question in the tumultuous 2016 presidential campaign was whether white evangelicals would “come home” to the GOP and vote for Donald Trump, given his history of divorce, crude language and lack of familiarity with the Bible. We now know from exit polls that they did — in droves. … […] Read more »
Is the Slide Into Tribal Politics Inevitable?
Donald J. Trump’s victory could well push the American party system toward a clash between an overwhelmingly white ethnic party and a cosmopolitan coalition of minority groups and college-educated whites. … Mr. Trump’s campaign may set in motion a process that reorients American politics toward the cosmopolitanism versus nationalism divide […] Read more »
Trump’s election is actually a return to normal racial politics. Here’s why.
Donald Trump’s election as president startled many Americans. A number of observers commented that Trump’s campaign represented a set of illiberal values and policy positions far outside of the United States’ political traditions of individual rights, equality and democracy. But in many ways, Trump represents a return to the historical […] Read more »
The Not-So-Silent White Majority
Between Richard Nixon’s election by the silent majority in 1968 and Donald Trump’s stunning victory in 2016, there have been six conservative waves that swept Republicans into office. Disaffected white voters without college degrees have been the driving force in all of them. … Despite their declining share of the […] Read more »
The education gap among whites this year wasn’t about education. It was about race.
Election swings are usually pretty uniform. States tend to shift together from one presidential election year to the next. Most demographic groups do as well. But there was one glaring exception this year: College-educated voters became a lot more Democratic and non-college educated voters became a lot more Republican. … […] Read more »