For Republicans, it jumps substantially to 45 percent. For Independents, this percentage grows to 33 percent. Kane wrote me that approximately 18 percent of Democrats have scores above the midpoint of the scale (which would mean negative feelings/animus). Mason, Wronski and Kane created an “animus to Democrat groups” scale, ranked from zero at the least hostile to 1.0 at the most. support is in regards to harnessing this out-group animus.įor as long as Trump remains the standard-bearer of the Republican Party, Wronski continued, “this animosity coalition will define the party.”Īnimosity toward these four Democratic-aligned minority groups is not limited to Republican voters. The only area where Trump support is different than other G.O.P. Warmth toward whites and Christians equally predict support for Trump, other G.O.P. This animosity has no bearing on support for any of the other G.O.P. The Trump coalition is motivated by animosity toward Blacks, Hispanics, Muslims and L.G.B.T. Julie Wronski, a political scientist at the University of Mississippi - a co-author, with Mason and John Kane of N.Y.U., of a just published paper, “Activating Animus: The Uniquely Social Roots of Trump Support” - put it this way in reply to my emailed query: The objectives of the Trump wing of the Republican Party stand out in other respects, especially in the strength of its hostility to key Democratic minority constituencies. Lacking these traditional credentials, Trump sought out “the underserved market within the Republican electorate by giving those voters what they might have wanted, but weren’t getting from the other mainstream selections.” When Trump got into the 2016 primary race, “he did not have a clear coalition, nor did he have the things candidates normally have when running for president: political experience, governing experience, or a track record supporting party issues and ideologies,” Joseph Uscinski, a political scientist at the University of Miami, wrote in an email. Trump’s success in transforming the party has radically changed the path to the Republican presidential nomination: the traditional elitist route through state and national party leaders, the Washington lobbying and interest group community and top fund-raisers across the country no longer ensures success, and may, instead, prove a liability.įor those seeking to emulate Trump - Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Ron DeSantis, for example - the basic question is whether Trump’s trajectory is replicable or whether there are unexplored avenues to victory at the 2024 Republican National Convention. But this faction has been around longer than our current partisan divide.” In fact, “they are not loyal to a party - they are loyal to white Christian domination.” Lilliana Mason, a political scientist at Johns Hopkins, makes the case via Twitter that Trump has “served as a lightning rod for lots of regular people who hold white Christian supremacist beliefs.” The solidification of their control over the Republican Party “makes it seem like a partisan issue. The segregationist segment of the electorate has been a permanent fixture of American politics, shifting between the two major parties.įor more than two decades, scholars and analysts have written about the growing partisan antipathy and polarization that have turned America into two warring camps, politically speaking. With all his histrionics and theatrics, Trump brought the dark side of American politics to the fore: the alienated, the distrustful, voters willing to sacrifice democracy for a return to white hegemony.

In 2016, Donald Trump recruited voters with the highest levels of animosity toward African Americans, assembling a “schadenfreude” electorate - voters who take pleasure in making the opposition suffer - that continues to dominate the Republican Party, even in the aftermath of the Trump presidency. Edsall contributes a weekly column from Washington, D.C., on politics, demographics and inequality. Trump’s Cult of Animosity Shows No Sign of Letting Up

Cult animosity no sign letting up