![]() There is a faction in American politics that has moved from party to party, can be recruited from either party, and responds especially well to hatred of marginalized groups. ![]() Most significantly, in Mason’s view, is that If this practice eventually comes to be seen as a “winning strategy” for Republican politicians as a whole, it could bring us into a new era of polarization wherein Republican cooperation with the “Demon Rats” is seen not just as undesirable, but thoroughly unconscionable. Wantonly disregarded this norm, and now Trump’s base may come to expect future Republican elites to be willing to do the same. Further, given the decisive role that Independents can play in elections, these results suggest that reservoirs of animosity are not necessarily specific to a particular party, and may therefore be tapped by any political elite.īefore Trump took center stage in 2015, Republican leaders were determined to “stymie Democratic policy initiatives, resist compromise, and make it clear that Republicans desire to score political victories and win back power from Democrats,” Kane wrote in his email, but “establishment Republicans generally did not openly demonize, much less dehumanize, Democratic politicians at the national level.” ms-filter:progid:(Opacity=100) Īnimosity toward Democratic-linked groups predicts Trump support, rather remarkably, across the political spectrum. ![]() g-aiPointText p įont-family:nyt-franklin,arial,helvetica,sans-serif support is in regards to harnessing this out-group animus.įor as long as Trump remains the standard-bearer of the Republican Party, Wronski continued, “this animosity coalition will define the party.” The only area where Trump support is different than other G.O.P. Warmth toward whites and Christians equally predict support for Trump, other G.O.P. This animosity has no bearing on support for any of the other G.O.P. The Trump coalition is motivated by animosity toward Blacks, Hispanics, Muslims and L.G.B.T. Julie Wronski, a political scientist at the University of Mississippi - a co-author, with Mason and John Kane of N.Y.U., of a just published paper, “Activating Animus: The Uniquely Social Roots of Trump Support” - put it this way in reply to my emailed query: The objectives of the Trump wing of the Republican Party stand out in other respects, especially in the strength of its hostility to key Democratic minority constituencies. Lacking these traditional credentials, Trump sought out “the underserved market within the Republican electorate by giving those voters what they might have wanted, but weren’t getting from the other mainstream selections.” When Trump got into the 2016 primary race, “he did not have a clear coalition, nor did he have the things candidates normally have when running for president: political experience, governing experience, or a track record supporting party issues and ideologies,” Joseph Uscinski, a political scientist at the University of Miami, wrote in an email. Trump’s success in transforming the party has radically changed the path to the Republican presidential nomination: the traditional elitist route through state and national party leaders, the Washington lobbying and interest group community and top fund-raisers across the country no longer ensures success, and may, instead, prove a liability.įor those seeking to emulate Trump - Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Ron DeSantis, for example - the basic question is whether Trump’s trajectory is replicable or whether there are unexplored avenues to victory at the 2024 Republican National Convention. But this faction has been around longer than our current partisan divide.” In fact, “they are not loyal to a party - they are loyal to white Christian domination.” Lilliana Mason, a political scientist at Johns Hopkins, makes the case via Twitter that Trump has “served as a lightning rod for lots of regular people who hold white Christian supremacist beliefs.” The solidification of their control over the Republican Party “makes it seem like a partisan issue. The segregationist segment of the electorate has been a permanent fixture of American politics, shifting between the two major parties.įor more than two decades, scholars and analysts have written about the growing partisan antipathy and polarization that have turned America into two warring camps, politically speaking. With all his histrionics and theatrics, Trump brought the dark side of American politics to the fore: the alienated, the distrustful, voters willing to sacrifice democracy for a return to white hegemony. In 2016, Donald Trump recruited voters with the highest levels of animosity toward African Americans, assembling a “schadenfreude” electorate - voters who take pleasure in making the opposition suffer - that continues to dominate the Republican Party, even in the aftermath of the Trump presidency.
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