Outgroup Hostility and the Mainstreaming of Racism

Hard White ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 204-224
Author(s):  
Richard C. Fording ◽  
Sanford F. Schram

Chapter 10 reviews the major findings of the book and draws conclusions about what is to be done to respond to the mainstreaming of racism in the current era. The findings suggest that U.S. politics has become extremely polarized, with the Republican Party becoming disproportionately comprised of whites with high levels of outgroup hostility. While Donald Trump was central in making this happen, white outgroup hostility is likely to have an enduring influence on American electoral politics for some time to come. In the current era of extreme polarization, the hopes for an inclusive democracy can be derailed for dictatorship. Whites increasingly are expressing declining support for democracy given that it means to them a stronger government that supports outgroups. Given the high levels of racialized outgroup hostility, it is futile to try to convert them or achieve common ground. Mobilization of an opposition and resistance to white racism is more likely to prove effective than trying to persuade those whites to switch sides. Evidence from the Blue Wave in the 2018 midterm elections suggest that is indeed likely to be effective.

Never Trump ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 240-248
Author(s):  
Robert P. Saldin ◽  
Steven M. Teles

This concluding chapter highlights how the Republican Party has been substantially transformed by the experience of having Donald Trump at its head. The president's reelection in 2020 would only deepen that transformation. Deep sociological forces—in particular, a Republican Party base that is increasingly white, working class, Christian, less formally educated, and older—will lead the party to go where its voters are. What Trump started, his Republican successors will finish. Just as parties of the right across the Western world have become more populist and nationalist, so will the Republicans. That, of course, bodes poorly for most of the Never Trumpers, who combined a deep distaste for Trump personally with a professional interest in a less populist governing style and a disinclination to see their party go ideologically where he wanted to take it. Ultimately, the future is unwritten because it will be shaped by the choices of individuals. Never Trump will have failed comprehensively in its founding mission, which was to prevent the poison of Donald Trump from entering the nation's political bloodstream. However, it is likely to be seen, in decades to come, as the first foray into a new era of American politics.


Significance McCarthy has a difficult role within a Republican Party that remains beholden to former President Donald Trump but has elements that wish to maintain a degree of autonomy from him. The coming months, as the Democrats’ agenda moves through the House, will also test his legislative skills. Impacts Republicans only need a net gain of five seats in the 2022 midterm elections to take control of the House. The redistricting process now beginning in all 50 states should result in more winnable seats for Republicans in 2022. McCarthy’s alignment with Trump appears sufficient to prevent any Republican challenge to his becoming Speaker. As Speaker, McCarthy would conduct constant conflict with the Biden White House on most issues, with China the main exception.


2017 ◽  
Vol 61 (6) ◽  
pp. 600-610
Author(s):  
Joan L. Conners

This analysis of political cartoon coverage of the 2016 presidential primaries found considerable attention given to the political parties themselves, as well as issues, and controversies the parties were facing. In political cartoons, the Republican and Democratic parties were usually reflected in animal representations of the elephant and donkey. A qualitative textual analysis of cartoon images from U.S. newspapers found a number of themes emerged in 2016 with regard to the party animals: Both parties were portrayed expressing reluctance or hesitancy in their party’s nominee, the Republican Party in particular was represented as helpless to stop the political success that Donald Trump saw in the primaries, and the Democratic Party was portrayed as divided between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. These themes found in political cartoon images suggest how the two dominant political parties operate in electoral politics today.


Author(s):  
Doug McAdam

The tumultuous onset of Donald Trump’s administration has so riveted public attention that observers are in danger of losing a historical perspective. Trump’s rhetoric and behavior are so extreme that the tendency is to see him and the divisions he embodies as something new in American politics. Instead, Trump is only the most extreme expression of a brand of racial politics practiced ever more brazenly by the Republican Party since the 1960s. His unexpected rise to power was aided by a number of institutional developments in American politics that also have older roots. In the spirit of trying to understand these historical forces, the chapter describes (a) the origins and evolution of the exclusionary brand of racial politics characteristic of the Republican Party since the 1960s, and (b) three illiberal institutions that aided Trump’s rise to power, and that, if left unchanged, will continue to threaten the survival of American democracy.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (8) ◽  
pp. 29-36
Author(s):  
Alexis Dubon ◽  

How do you find common ground with those that believe in a vast, intricate, media conspiracy to hide the truth? In this work of philosophical short story of fiction, the narrator drives out to his parent’s house to visit them for the holidays. Much to his surprise, when his parents open the door, they are only two feet tall! He is concerned that his parents, like many in the world, have shrunk to half their size. His parents, however, are equally concerned about their son because they believe he, and others in the world, have doubled in size. The son tries to explain to his parents that they have shrunk, that is why their house, and all their belongings, seem so large. However, his parents believe he, like many others, have an altered idea of what reality is, and that they have been lied to by the media and local officials. The son continues to come year after year to visit his tiny parents, who continue to refuse that they have changed, not the world around them.


Author(s):  
Matthew J. Lacombe

The National Rifle Association (NRA) is one of the most powerful interest groups in America, and has consistently managed to defeat or weaken proposed gun regulations — even despite widespread public support for stricter laws and the prevalence of mass shootings and gun-related deaths. This book provides an unprecedented look at how this controversial organization built its political power and deploys it on behalf of its pro-gun agenda. Taking readers from the 1930s to the age of Donald Trump, the book traces how the NRA's immense influence on national politics arises from its ability to shape the political outlooks and actions of its followers. The book draws on nearly a century of archival records and surveys to show how the organization has fashioned a distinct worldview around gun ownership and has used it to mobilize its supporters. It reveals how the NRA's cultivation of a large, unified, and active base has enabled it to build a resilient alliance with the Republican Party, and examines why the NRA and its members formed an important constituency that helped fuel Trump's unlikely political rise. The book sheds vital new light on how the NRA has grown powerful by mobilizing average Americans, and how it uses its GOP alliance to advance its objectives and shape the national agenda.


1997 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 271-298
Author(s):  
Barry Hankins

At times in history, groups of people with very different ideologies have allied with one another because of a common threat. The most striking example of this was the World War II alliance of the United States and the Soviet Union. In a religious matter, Baptists and other free-church evangelicals in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries joined with deists like Thomas Jefferson to combat the threat to religious liberty posed by the establishment of religion. At other times, groups with similar ideas have been unable to come together because they did not share similar attitudes toward or positions within their cultures. This essay is concerned with the latter phenomenon and uses Southern Baptists and northern evangelicals as a case study. The historical relationship of these two groups illustrates something profound about the very nature of religious alliances; specifically, it illustrates how cultural factors and intuitive notions of uneasiness about theological security determine whether or not religious groups with great theological similarities can find common ground.


Author(s):  
John Kenneth Galbraith

This chapter focuses on the politics of contentment. In the past, the contented and the self-approving were a small minority in any national entity, with the majority of the citizenry being relegated outside. In the United States, the favored are now numerous, greatly influential of voice and a majority of those who vote. This, and not the division of voters as between political parties, is what defines modern American political behavior and shapes modern politics. The chapter first considers the commitment of the Republican Party and the Democratic Party to the policies of contentment before discussing the effects of money and media on the politics of contentment. It also examines American electoral politics, social exclusion, and international relations in the context of the politics of contentment. Finally, it tackles the question of whether, and to what extent, the politics of contentment in the United States extends to other industrial countries.


2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 132-141
Author(s):  
Hasbi Aswar

A speech from the President of United States, Donald Trump, who explicitly state Jerusalem as the capital city of Israel triggering debate that threatens harmonization of the Middle East. Disagreement appear from South East Asia state up to European state regarding to Trump’s statement, which turn into United States foreign policy. Trump’s statement described as the main reason of increasing tension Palestinian – Israel conflict. This essay argues that The US policy toward Jerusalem was merely influenced by domestic politics in the sense that to satisfy Trump`s main voters of the Republican Party that is Evangelical Christian base.


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