Vox - The past year of research has made it very clear: Trump won because of racial resentment
This illustrates the problem with progressives like Bernie who try to blame Democratic losses on Democrats playing "identity politics" as he did right after the election.
http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/307014-sanders-dems-must-move-beyond-identity-politics
This ignores that Trump and Republicans have been playing the white resentment card with increasing impunity. The basic quid pro quo is that the white working class gets a scapegoat in the form of blaming minorities, immigrants and working women. In return, the rich get huge tax cuts and cuts in benefits that benefit the working class. This is modern populism. It is not about providing benefits to the working class. It is about stoking and reinforcing racism and sexism.
https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/12/15/16781222/trump-racism-economic-anxiety-study
More than a year after President Donald Trump won the election, there are still some questions about what drove him to victory: Was it genuine anxiety about the state of the economy? Or was it racism and racial resentment?
Over at the Washington Post, researchers Matthew Fowler, Vladimir Medenica, and Cathy Cohen have published the results of a new survey on these questions, with a focus on the 41 percent of white millennials who voted for Trump and the sense of “white vulnerability” that motivated them. The conclusion is very clear:Contrary to what some have suggested, white millennial Trump voters were not in more economically precarious situations than non-Trump voters. Fully 86 percent of them reported being employed, a rate similar to non-Trump voters; and they were 14 percent less likely to be low income than white voters who did not support Trump. Employment and income were not significantly related to that sense of white vulnerability.
So what was? Racial resentment.
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