Why Trump Became a ‘Confederate’ President

The Forum ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Angie Maxwell
Keyword(s):  
Republican Party ◽  
American South ◽  
Data File ◽  
Religious Fundamentalism ◽  
Primary Elections ◽  
Tracking Data ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Racial Resentment ◽  
General Elections ◽  
The American South

Abstract This article explores the causes for and the contemporary ramifications of the realignment of the American South with the Republican Party. Using the American National Election Surveys (ANES) Time Series Cumulative Data File (1948–2016), the 2016 and 2020 Blair Center Polls, and the election tracking data compiled by Richard Berg-Andersson and Tony Roza at www.thegreenpapers.com, the author first explores the role that racial animus, anti-feminism, and religious fundamentalism played in white southern voters’ emergence as the Republican Party base. Second, the author considers the structural advantages that this prominence in the GOP gives southern whites in the primary nomination process and to what degree these advantages benefitted Donald Trump in 2016. Finally, the author explores the influence of Racial Resentment, Modern Sexism, and Christian Fundamentalism on the 2016 Republican primary elections and the 2016 and 2020 General Elections.

Short-Term Pain for Long-Term Gain: The Logic of Legislative Party Switching in the Contemporary American South

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 259-281 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antoine Yoshinaka ◽  
Seth C. McKee
Keyword(s):  
Republican Party ◽  
American South ◽  
Career Decisions ◽  
Significant Risk ◽  
Political Ambition ◽  
Short Term ◽  
High Prevalence ◽  
Party Switching ◽  
The American South

One of the most important career decisions for a legislator is the decision to switch parties, and it raises a theoretical puzzle: it carries significant risk, yet sometimes legislators do change partisan affiliation. We elucidate this puzzle with the first-ever systematic comparison of the entire careers of state legislative switchers and non-switchers in the American South, where the high prevalence of party switching coincided with rapid realignment toward the Republican Party. Our analysis is the first to evaluate all post-switch career decisions (retiring, running for reelection, running for higher office) simultaneously, and it is the broadest in its scope with two full decades of career data. We demonstrate that converts to the Grand Old Party (GOP) pay a reelection cost. However, they are less likely to retire than Democratic non-switchers and more likely to seek higher office. This latter finding is especially strong during the earlier part of our study—when the Republican bench in the South was not as deep and competition for the party label was not as intense. Our findings suggest that political ambition motivates legislators to trade short-term electoral costs for a more promising long-term electoral career with the ascendant party.

Resilience of Southern Identity

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher A. Cooper ◽  
H. Gibbs Knotts
Keyword(s):  
Republican Party ◽  
American South ◽  
First Century ◽  
The South ◽  
Cultural Changes ◽  
Remarkable Change ◽  
Southern Identity ◽  
Interstate Highway System ◽  
Past Half Century ◽  
The American South

The American South has experienced remarkable change over the past half century. Black voter registration has increased, the region’s politics have shifted from one-party Democratic to the near-domination of the Republican Party, and in-migration has increased its population. At the same time, many outward signs of regional distinctiveness have faded--chain restaurants have replaced mom-and-pop diners, and the interstate highway system connects the region to the rest of the country. Given all of these changes, many have argued that southern identity is fading. But here, Christopher A. Cooper and H. Gibbs Knotts show how these changes have allowed for new types of southern identity to emerge. For some, identification with the South has become more about a connection to the region’s folkways or to place than about policy or ideology. For others, the contemporary South is all of those things at once--a place where many modern-day southerners navigate the region’s confusing and omnipresent history. Regardless of how individuals see the South, this study argues that the region’s drastic political, racial, and cultural changes have not lessened the importance of southern identity but have played a key role in keeping regional identification relevant in the twenty-first century.

scholarly journals Industrialization and Two-Party Democracy

1991 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 100-112
Author(s):  
Eric M. Mackey
Keyword(s):  
Republican Party ◽  
Industrial Development ◽  
American South ◽  
Industrial Change ◽  
The South ◽  
Congressional Voting ◽  
Industrial Employment ◽  
Primary Finding ◽  
The American South ◽  
The Impact

This paper analyzes the impact of industrial change on partisan transitions in the American South. Using aggregate data from the decennial censes from 1940 to 1980 and aggregate election returns for roughly this same period, the primary finding is a weak and often contradictory bivariate relationship between industrial employment and partisan support in the South. The results were usually much worse for a typical economic development thesis when the dependent and independent variables were operationalized dynamically and when presidential voting and congressional voting were analyzed separately. Overall, the evidence in this paper does not suggest that the Republican party is necessarily or often a beneficiary of industrialization. Neither does it speak well for the possibility of pursuing industrial development as a means of promoting partisan democracy in the South or any other geopolitical context.

New York Sybarite Conquers the South

2019 ◽  
pp. 128-150
Author(s):  
Charles S. Bullock ◽  
Susan A. MacManus ◽  
Jeremy D. Mayer ◽  
Mark J. Rozell
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Free Trade ◽  
Republican Party ◽  
Gun Control ◽  
General Election ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Southern States ◽  
White Voters ◽  
Racial Resentment ◽  
Republican Nomination

Donald Trump, the thrice married and publicly philandering Manhattan resident who had recently been pro-choice and pro-gun control, won the Republican nomination and the presidency in 2016 in part through his very strong showing among Southern white voters. How he managed to do that is the story of this chapter. Trump appealed to Southern white racial resentment, as well as to the anti-immigration fervor particularly evident in the low growth “stagnant” Southern states such as Alabama and Mississippi. But what was really remarkable is how he won the GOP nomination by doing well in all regions. The Republican Party has become unified around a largely Southern conception of conservatism: deeply religious, pro-military, and less concerned with free trade. In the general election, by contrast, regional polarization intensified in 2016. In both elections, Trump’s path to victory required him to do well among Southern whites, which he ably did.

scholarly journals Why Local Party Leaders Don't Support Nominating Centrists

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
David E. Broockman ◽  
Nicholas Carnes ◽  
Melody Crowder-Meyer ◽  
Christopher Skovron
Keyword(s):  
Republican Party ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
The United States ◽  
Primary Elections ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
General Elections ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Original Survey ◽  
Local Party ◽  
Do So

AbstractWould giving party leaders more influence in primary elections in the United States decrease elite polarization? Some scholars have argued that political party leaders tend to support centrist candidates in the hopes of winning general elections. In contrast, the authors argue that many local party leaders – especially Republicans – may not believe that centrists perform better in elections and therefore may not support nominating them. They test this argument using data from an original survey of 1,118 county-level party leaders. In experiments, they find that local party leaders most prefer nominating candidates who are similar to typical co-partisans, not centrists. Moreover, given the choice between a more centrist and more extreme candidate, they strongly prefer extremists: Democrats do so by about 2 to 1 and Republicans by 10 to 1. Likewise, in open-ended questions, Democratic Party leaders are twice as likely to say they look for extreme candidates relative to centrists; Republican Party leaders are five times as likely. Potentially driving these partisan differences, Republican leaders are especially likely to believe that extremists can win general elections and overestimate the electorate's conservatism by double digits.

scholarly journals Immigration, Race, and Political Polarization

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Hout ◽  
Christopher Maggio
Keyword(s):  
Political Party ◽  
Past Research ◽  
Primary Elections ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
Political Climate ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Racial Resentment ◽  
Immigration Attitudes ◽  
Contemporary United States ◽  
The Relationship

The growth of non-White immigration in the post-1965 era has been a major force in defining the relationship between race and immigration in the contemporary United States. Another key trend, political polarization, has been important in understanding this relationship, exemplified most recently by the election of the strongly anti-immigrant and racially inflammatory presidential candidate, Donald Trump. This article explores the contemporary relationship between race, immigration, and political polarization by analyzing several key components of said relationship. Echoing past research, we find that racial and immigration attitudes are increasingly split along political party lines. We also show that, although the positive correlation between racial resentment and restrictive immigration attitudes has generally increased in recent times, 2016 saw an uptick in this correlation, a finding that is likely related to the mobilization of these issues in 2016. Again paralleling prior research, we show that both conservative racial attitudes and restrictive immigration attitudes were strong predictors of Trump voting among non-Hispanic Whites, both in the general and primary elections, and even controlling for voting patterns in the 2012 general election, highlighting the unique connection between Trump and these issues. Overall, these findings point toward an increased importance of race and immigration in the current political climate.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document