Trump won on white fright: Why identity politics win elections [View all]

The United States of America has become a giant church basement where members of Alcoholics Anonymous congregate to commiserate over their self-made problems. Sobriety never lasts, because white Americans continue to redefine their bottom. In October of 2016, anyone reasonable would have assumed that the election of a grotesquely ignorant and incompetent clown would inspire rehabilitation, but the protectors of white fragility and the enablers of white ignorance quickly came to the rescue.

America’s problem is not racial resentment, mainstream reportage and even progressive reaction insisted, it is economic anxiety. “No one saw the election of Trump coming,” countless analysts proclaimed — but they should have, they whined, because of growing dissatisfaction with globalization, international trade and wage stagnation.

Christopher Parker, a political scientist at the University of Washington, not only predicted the nomination and presidential victory of Donald Trump. He also accurately forecasted the flatulent rise of the white reactionary constituency when the Tea Party was in its embryonic stage.

Parker and his research partner Matt Barreto wrote “Change They Can’t Believe In: The Tea Party and Reactionary Politics in America,” which won the American Political Science Association’s award for the best book in race, ethnicity and politics, and are currently working on a book examining how “white fright” led to the Trump victory. Racial resentment and terror at the prospect of social change is what animated the Tea Party and now energizes Trump supporters, according to their research, not perceptions of economic interest.


http://www.salon.com/2017/07/22/trump-won-on-white-fright-why-identity-politics-win-elections/