The graph tells a compelling story, one that echoes research documenting the increasing racialization of U.S. politics. First, racial resentment has been a consistently significant force in U.S. politics, net of other factors, for at least 30 years. Consistent with previous research, there is a notable spike in this association in 1994, perhaps attributable to partisan realignment and the racialization of opposition to President Clinton (Sears, Valentino, and Cheleden 1999). Second, the recent increase in the role of racial resentment in political identity long preceded the emergence of Donald Trump. That increase is more rightly situated concurrently with the election of Barack Obama in 2008.
This graph suggests, among other things, that what it means to identify with the liberal or conservative “team” for U.S. Whites is increasingly bound up with one’s racial politics. Even after considering economic measures, political ideology is increasingly driven by racial resentment in the modern United States. The trend represented in this graph invites troubling questions in an increasingly racially diverse society that is also riven by growing political polarization.
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Originally Posted by cwolff
