[EL] "Southern Whites Loyalty to GOP..."

[Paul Gronke]

Like a lot of my fellow political scientists, I'm thrilled to see social science being featured in the new NY Times webpage ("Upshot") and at the Washington Post ("The Monkey Cage").  Our discipline was all atwitter when Lynn Vavreck (co-author with Sides of "The Gamble") along with Brendan Nyhan were joining the team at the Times.  It will be fascinating to follow the trajectory of the two sites over the next few years.  I was initially skeptical that The Monkey Cage would retain it's nerdy, political science focus after the move to the Post, but I give credit to Sides, Farrell, and the other principals--not only have they kept the political science content, but they've doubled down, adding new contributors from the academic community.

In my view, the debut of Upshot, however, already shows the advantages of journalistic curation.  The stories are more polished and "newsy" than the quick hits that characterize The Monkey Cage.  Time will tell if the Upshot can move as quickly in response to events (see for instance the rapid fire set of stories about Ukraine that has come out of The Monkey Cage).

The article below, however, shows the advantage of the Monkey Cage, because I don't think any political scientist would have written these lines in quite this way:

> But it is hard to know the extent to which racism is responsible for Mr. Obama’s weakness. After all, Mr. Obama is not the only Democrat to perform so poorly in recent years. Some white Democratic candidates, like Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, have done worse than Mr. Obama among Southern whites. And Mr. Obama’s losses are part of a longer-term trend. Mr. Kerry, for instance, performed worse than Al Gore, who even fared worse than Michael Dukakis among Southern whites.
> 

There is a long and complex literature on public opinion and race in American politics, but the consensus of the discipline, is that "racism" as popularly understood--attributions of biological or genetic inferiority among African Americans--is very nearly extinct in the United States.  Expressions of social unease with racial integration ("Would I object if a black family moved into my neighborhood", "Would I feel uncomfortable having a black person over to dinner", "Do I think there should be a law against interracial marriage" and even "Do I disapprove of interracial marriage") have also steeply declined.  

A nice summary of these trends since 1998 is maintained by Maria Krysan, co-author of a comprehensive book on the subject ("Racial Attitudes in America"); the longer term trends are in the book.   http://igpa.uillinois.edu/programs/racial-attitudes/brief

While they are a lot less spicy than "racism", and the terms are awkward, you'll more typically see political scientists use terms like "negative racial affect," "negative out-group sentiments", or "racial resentment".  I don't want to go in depth into what these are here, but some nice examples of how political scientists treat race are an article by Steve Ansolabehere and Charles Stewart's piece on the 2008 election "Amazing Race"  (http://new.bostonreview.net/BR34.1/ansolabehere_stewart.php).  They write about "racial polarization" in voting but never use the term "racism.  

Or you might look at this piece by Mark Tesler of Brown University at the Monkey Cage (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2013/10/22/republicans-from-racially-conservative-districts-were-more-likely-to-vote-against-the-shutdown-deal/) where he uses the terms "racialization" and "racial resentment"; "racism" only appears as a foil (phrases uttered by political commentators).

Race remains a deep and divisive issue in America, and I'm not trying to minimize it's importance.  But "racism" is a very loaded term and it should be used carefully.  Cohn, I think, uses it a bit too casually, and inaccurately.  

(And he's wrong, by the way, about the impact of the "influx of Northerners" into the South. Yes, it has transformed some portions of the South into "liberal bastions of Yankee expats," but as McCarty, Poole, and Rosenthal show in "Polarized America," that has been far outweighed by Yankee expats who have moved to the South and contributed to the growing conservatism in the region.  Not every Northerner who has migrated moved to the suburban DC, the Research Triangle, Atlanta, or Miami--many moved into the suburbs or most of these are voting Republican.)
---
Paul Gronke	Ph:   503-517-7393
                        Fax: 503-661-0601

Professor, Reed College
Director, Early Voting Information Center

On Apr 24, 2014, at 8:07 AM, Rick Hasen <rhasen at law.uci.edu> wrote:

> “Southern Whites’ Loyalty to G.O.P. Nearing That of Blacks to Democrats”
> 
> Posted on April 23, 2014 8:40 pm by Rick Hasen
> Nate Cohn at NYT’s New “The Upshot:”
> 
> It is impossible to discuss Mr. Obama’s weakness among Southern whites without mention of race. It is surely a factor, and perhaps even a large one. Mr. Obama performed significantly worse than John Kerry among Southern whites, even though both were Northern liberals and 2008 was a far better year for Democrats than 2004. (The estimates are derived from census and exit poll data). And the pattern of white support in the 2012 presidential election is an eerie reversal of post-Reconstruction presidential elections, when Jim Crow laws rendered blacks ineligible to vote and Democrats won the so-called Solid South by similar margins.
> 
> But it is hard to know the extent to which racism is responsible for Mr. Obama’s weakness. After all, Mr. Obama is not the only Democrat to perform so poorly in recent years. Some white Democratic candidates, like Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, have done worse than Mr. Obama among Southern whites. And Mr. Obama’s losses are part of a longer-term trend. Mr. Kerry, for instance, performed worse than Al Gore, who even fared worse than Michael Dukakis among Southern whites.
> 
> <share_save_171_16.png>
> Posted in campaigns, Voting Rights Act

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