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Donald Trump has built his presidency on top of racial dog whistles, xenophobic rhetoric, and anti-immigrant policies. A core belief among liberals was that this strategy would help Trump with whites but almost certainly hurt him with Latinos, and people of color more broadly. Then the opposite happened: In 2020, Trump gained considerable support among voters of color, particularly Latinos, relative to the 2016 election. What happened? Ian Haney López is a legal scholar at UC Berkeley and the author of Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class. In 2017, he partnered with the leftist think tank Demos and various polling groups to better understand the effectiveness of racial dog whistles and how Democrats could combat them. The results were sobering, even to the experts who commissioned the polls. As Haney López documented in his 2019 book Merge Left: Fusing Race and Class, Winning Elections, and Saving America, 60 percent of Latinos and 54 percent of African Americans have found Trumpian dog-whistle messages convincing, right in step with the 61 percent of whites who did. This conversation is about the complicated reality of racial politics in America. It’s about the fact that the electorate isn’t divided into racists and non-racists — most voters, including Trump supporters, toggle back and forth between racially reactionary and racially egalitarian views — and a more robust theory of how race operates in American politics that follows. And it’s about the kinds of race- and class-conscious messages that Haney López’s research suggests work best with voters of all backgrounds. Book recommendations: Racial Realignment:The Transformation of American Liberalism, 1932–1965 by Eric Schickler The Line Becomes a River by Francisco Cantú Born a Crime by Trevor Noah Credits: Producer/Audio engineer - Jeff Geld Researcher - Roge Karma Please consider making a contribution to Vox to support this show: bit.ly/givepodcasts Your support will help us keep having ambitious conversations about big ideas. New to the show? Want to check out Ezra’s favorite episodes? Check out the Ezra Klein Show beginner’s guide (http://bit.ly/EKSbeginhere) Want to contact the show? Reach out at ezrakleinshow@vox.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
When and how did racial liberalism find its way onto the liberal – and Democratic Party – agenda? Rather than seeing the 1960s as the critical moment in the partisan realignment on race, Eric Schickler claims that the process of connecting civil rights support to the liberal project began in the late 1930s, thanks to the rise of the CIO, the efforts of African American activists, and the reaction of southern Democrats. (Encore presentation.) Eric Schickler, Racial Realignment: The Transformation of American Liberalism, 1932–1965 Princeton University Press, 2016 The post Race, Labor, and the Liberal Project appeared first on KPFA.
When and how did racial liberalism find its way onto the liberal – and Democratic Party – agenda? Rather than seeing the 1960s as the critical moment in the partisan realignment on race, Eric Schickler claims that the process of connecting civil rights support to the liberal project began in the late 1930s, thanks to the rise of the CIO, the efforts of African American activists, and the reaction of southern Democrats. Eric Schickler, Racial Realignment: The Transformation of American Liberalism, 1932–1965 Princeton University Press, 2016 The post Race, Labor, and the Liberal Project appeared first on KPFA.
In one of the most powerful transformations in the history of American politics, African Americans shifted loyalties to the Democratic Party while Republicans became the party of racial conservatism. How and why did this happen? Did certain moments in history cause this bipartisan ‘racial realignment?’ How has this realignment led to the political polarization of 2016? In episode 10 of Politics and Polls, professors Julian Zelizer and Sam Wang interview Eric Schickler, a political scientist at University of California, Berkeley, about his new book, “Racial Realignment: The Transformation of American Liberalism, 1932-1965” (Princeton University Press). Schickler challenges the conventional argument that this realignment occurred in the 1960s, dating the change to several decades earlier following the aftermath of the New Deal. Drawing upon rich data sources and original historic research, Schickler shows that top party leaders were among the last to move, and their choices were dictated by changes that had occurred beneath them — not unlike this year's presidential race.
Eric Schickler is the author of Racial Realignment: The Transformation of American Liberalism, 1932-1965 (Princeton University Press, 2016). Schickler is the Jeffrey and Ashley McDermott Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. Much scholarship on the racial realignment of U.S. political parties argues for an elite based explanation focused on Washington and national figures. Schickler’s new book challenges this notion with a deep-dive into the archives. He argues that rather than a top-down explanation, party realignment happened from the bottom-up. He credits the long history of the Civil Rights movement, emergence of new players in organized labor, and state and local forces. Realignment, then, is a gradual process that occurred over decades, rather than primarily in the 1960s. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Eric Schickler is the author of Racial Realignment: The Transformation of American Liberalism, 1932-1965 (Princeton University Press, 2016). Schickler is the Jeffrey and Ashley McDermott Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. Much scholarship on the racial realignment of U.S. political parties argues for an elite based explanation focused on Washington and national figures. Schickler’s new book challenges this notion with a deep-dive into the archives. He argues that rather than a top-down explanation, party realignment happened from the bottom-up. He credits the long history of the Civil Rights movement, emergence of new players in organized labor, and state and local forces. Realignment, then, is a gradual process that occurred over decades, rather than primarily in the 1960s. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Eric Schickler is the author of Racial Realignment: The Transformation of American Liberalism, 1932-1965 (Princeton University Press, 2016). Schickler is the Jeffrey and Ashley McDermott Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. Much scholarship on the racial realignment of U.S. political parties argues for an elite based explanation focused on Washington and national figures. Schickler’s new book challenges this notion with a deep-dive into the archives. He argues that rather than a top-down explanation, party realignment happened from the bottom-up. He credits the long history of the Civil Rights movement, emergence of new players in organized labor, and state and local forces. Realignment, then, is a gradual process that occurred over decades, rather than primarily in the 1960s. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Eric Schickler is the author of Racial Realignment: The Transformation of American Liberalism, 1932-1965 (Princeton University Press, 2016). Schickler is the Jeffrey and Ashley McDermott Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. Much scholarship on the racial realignment of U.S. political parties argues for an elite based explanation focused on Washington and national figures. Schickler’s new book challenges this notion with a deep-dive into the archives. He argues that rather than a top-down explanation, party realignment happened from the bottom-up. He credits the long history of the Civil Rights movement, emergence of new players in organized labor, and state and local forces. Realignment, then, is a gradual process that occurred over decades, rather than primarily in the 1960s. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Eric Schickler is the author of Racial Realignment: The Transformation of American Liberalism, 1932-1965 (Princeton University Press, 2016). Schickler is the Jeffrey and Ashley McDermott Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. Much scholarship on the racial realignment of U.S. political parties argues for an elite based explanation focused on Washington and national figures. Schickler’s new book challenges this notion with a deep-dive into the archives. He argues that rather than a top-down explanation, party realignment happened from the bottom-up. He credits the long history of the Civil Rights movement, emergence of new players in organized labor, and state and local forces. Realignment, then, is a gradual process that occurred over decades, rather than primarily in the 1960s. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Eric Schickler is the author of Racial Realignment: The Transformation of American Liberalism, 1932-1965 (Princeton University Press, 2016). Schickler is the Jeffrey and Ashley McDermott Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. Much scholarship on the racial realignment of U.S. political parties argues for an elite based explanation focused on Washington and national figures. Schickler’s new book challenges this notion with a deep-dive into the archives. He argues that rather than a top-down explanation, party realignment happened from the bottom-up. He credits the long history of the Civil Rights movement, emergence of new players in organized labor, and state and local forces. Realignment, then, is a gradual process that occurred over decades, rather than primarily in the 1960s. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Eric Schickler is the author of Racial Realignment: The Transformation of American Liberalism, 1932-1965 (Princeton University Press, 2016). Schickler is the Jeffrey and Ashley McDermott Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. Much scholarship on the racial realignment of U.S. political parties argues for an elite based...