The conclusion, again, is that the question “Is opposition to Obama based on race?” does not have a simple answer. Racial resentment definitely exists in America today, but it’s more polarized along party lines than it has been in a long time. Many people who do not like blacks oppose Obama, but they would likely oppose him even if he were white since they’re Republicans.
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This still doesn’t explain the Hetherington and Weiler finding that racial attitudes predict support for health care today, but not in the mid-1990s. The partisan polarization on racial resentment was in full swing by 1994.
I’m really fascinated by the growth of the spread between Democratic and Republican answer-givers starting in 1992 (it looks like)and stabling out in 1994. I think it is the suddenness, or apparent suddenness, of the thing that has me intrigued. why was that era so polarizing (unless it’s just a spurious finding).
I believe that we first see a split between the two parties on the subject of abortion right around 1992, as well. I’m really curious why that split emerged so suddenly right then, when most other indicators of shifting party allegiances (PID in the South, for example) occurred so much more gradually.
Adam, I fixed a coding error in the charts and extended the analysis to 2008 (see here). What the updated charts show is that party polarization on these questions has moved in two steps, the first in the early 90s and the second in the early 2000s. So while white Democrats and Republicans were polarized on racial issues during Clinton’s push for health reform, they have become significantly more so since that time.
This data is from a survey that happens every two years in conjunction with the national election. That means the difference opened up in 1994. Racial attitudes don’t change that quickly, but what can change that quickly is the social acceptability of expressing those attitudes. The defining event of the 1994 election was the ascendancy of the Republican party in the House of Representatives. That was the year that saw the popularization of the phrase “angry white men” and the “Contract with America” (which was a codification of the implicit racism of the Reagan administration).
Ockham is right. The divergence occurred after the 1992 election & by the 1994 election. There’s no data-point between ’92 & ’94. Hetherington & Weller’s results are consistent w/ this, if just barely. Was the failure of the Clinton health reform part of a process that finally precipitated the polarization that had been forming for the preceding quarter-century?
If you look at Seth’s post, you’ll see that for a different measure of racial attitudes, the polarization began in 1992, not 1994. So I wouldn’t craft an explanation centered on events in and around 1994.
Actually, the other measure that John Sides reinforces my point. Look carefully at the two statements. Then go back and look at the nature of the political debate in the 1992 Presidential election versus the debate in 1994 and the reason for the divergence is pretty clear. Political campaigns don’t change racial attitudes, but they really affect the people’s perceptions of what’s socially acceptable. In 1992, it became more socially acceptable to say that blacks should overcome discrimination without special favors. By 1994, it was socially acceptable (at least for Republicans) to effectively deny that discrimination was a problem.
We shouldn’t get hung up on one survey question. The idea that race began dividing the parties only during the Clinton years is very mistaken. At the elite level they had been polarizing for 30 years before then on the issue and, while I have disagreements with them in my book, Carmines and Stimson showed in Issue Evolution (1989) that this was was true for voters as well starting in the 1960s. The disagreement is over how much of this was top down or bottom up, see Taeku Lee’s critique. Also look at the Chen, Mickey and Van Houweling piece in Studies in APD suggesting that Republican voters were conservative on race compared to Democrats already in 1940s California.
I think there is a possible interpretation you are ignoring.
Do you all think the degree of difficulty blacks face from the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow is static over time? Or is it diminishing over time, so that balck/white wage gaps lessen; black/white test score discrepencies lessen? So that blacks become secretary of state and president as time goes on?
I think the republican line shows them thinking that the burden on blacks diminishes AS the burden on blacks actually diminishes. The democrat line shows no reaction to changing facts. What does that tell you?
Do you all think the degree of difficulty blacks face from the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow is static over time? Or is it diminishing over time, so that balck/white wage gaps lessen
Um, the black/white wage gap is actually increasing.
Is it coincident with the Rodney King beating ocurring in 1991?
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