The Democratic Party’s great White flight: How racism spurred a demographic reckoning

The Democratic Party’s great White flight: How racism spurred a demographic reckoning

In a recent New York Times piece,
Nick Confessore explores why Donald Trump has proven so successful with
whites. His piece, while admirable in many ways, obfuscates the role of
race in Trump’s rise and the white working class abandoning the
Democratic Party.

One theory for why whites
are leaving the Democratic Party is because Obama is not progressive
enough. This impression has been heightened by recent comments made by Susan Sarandon, who said she wasn’t sure if she could vote for the similarly centrist Hillary Clinton in a general election.

The simple answer is no. A vast political science literature shows that
racism is indeed what is causing whites to leave the Democratic party.
Explanations that obscure the importance of race simply cannot explain
the voting patterns of white Americans.

Read on here.