How political science helps explain the rise of Trump: the role of white identity and grievances
we discussed the research showing that most voters are not ideologues, and, in particular, that many Republicans have liberal positions about government spending. This gives a heterodox candidate like Trump an opening.
This post describes the research underlying another key aspect of Trump’s appeal: the grievances of some white Americans and their hostility to minority groups.
Along with demonstrating that most Americans do not organize their political opinions based on ideology, Phillip Converse’s field-defining 1964 essay argued that Americans do organize their opinions around something else: attitudes toward social groups.
Fifty years of research backs this up. Ethnocentric suspicions of minority groups in general, and attitudes about blacks in particular, influence whites’ opinions about many issues.
.. “it is not surprising that a candidate (Trump) who is well known for questioning President Obama’s citizenship…and said that black youths have ‘never done more poorly’ because ‘there’s no spirit’ would be attractive to a party that these days is dripping with racial resentment.”