Study Suggests Southern Slavery Turns White People Into Republicans 150 Years Later

[babylonsister]

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/09/09/2587231/study-suggests-southern-slavery-turns-white-people-republicans-150-years/

Study Suggests Southern Slavery Turns White People Into Republicans 150 Years Later

By Ian Millhiser on September 9, 2013 at 9:00 am


White Southerners are one of the great outliers in American politics. President Obama polled significantly worse with white voters in the South than he did with whites in swing states. One survey of working class white voters found Obama only 4-8 points behind Romney in the majority of the country, while he polled 40 points behind Romney among Southern white working class voters. And a new study by political scientists Avidit Acharya, Matthew Blackwell and Maya Sen suggests that there may be a simple explanation for this divide — slavery.

The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution banned slavery nearly 150 years ago, yet this study suggests that the legacy of slavery continues to drive voters in areas that once housed large numbers of slaves to vote Republican:

Drawing on a sample of more than 39,000 southern whites, we show that whites who currently live in counties that had high concentrations of slaves in 1860 are on average more conservative and express colder feelings towards African Americans than whites who live elsewhere in the South. That is, the larger the number of slaves in his or her county of residence in 1860, the greater the probability that a white Southerner today will identify as a Republican, express opposition to race-coded policies such as affirmative action, and express greater racial resentment towards African Americans. We show that these differences are robust to a variety of factors, including geography and mid-19th century economic conditions and political attitudes. We also show that our results strengthen when we instrument for the prevalence of slavery using local measures of the agricultural suitability to grow cotton. In fact, our findings indicate that in the counterfactual world where the South had no slaves in 1860, the political views of white Southerners today would be indistinguishable from those of similarly situated white Northerners.

The authors offer several potential explanations for how a human rights atrocity banned more than a century ago can continue to drive political attitudes today. Among them, the authors suggest that “the sudden enfranchisement of blacks was politically threatening to whites, who for centuries had enjoyed exclusive political power. In addition, the sudden emancipation of blacks substantially undermined whites’ economic power by suddenly increasing blacks’ wages and threatening the plantation economy.” These two factors, according to the author of the study, “led Southern white elites to promote localized anti-black sentiment by encouraging violence towards blacks, propagating racist norms and cultural beliefs, and, to the extent legally possible, pushing for the institutionalization of racist policies (such as Jim Crow laws). In turn, these racially hostile attitudes have persisted as each successive generation has, to some degree, inherited the attitudes and beliefs of the previous generation.”

[JEFF9K]

1. Don't discount ...

Don't discount the effect of Rapture Republicanism, which really took hold in the South.

[zazen]

2. we just have an easier scapegoat down there

I think angry, bitter, projecting people will always look for a collective scapegoat. Apart from the history, it's just plumb easier for pissy, angry Tea Party types to plug into scapegoating here (I speak as a descendent of slave owners and even a proud lead lyncher who then joined the state legislature). Other hate groups in other parts of the country want a scapegoat too, but it's not as institutionalized.

Here in NC, I feel the hate as much toward white liberals as I do toward Blacks. Now, the hatred toward Blacks has worse consequences for them than for me, of course, but as far as the whites doing the hatin'--honestly, they're so cultish now on a national level that the Limbots would hate a white liberal more than a Black middle class guy if the latter supported their looney policies.

I grew up around palpable gentrified racism and I just don't sense that from the right wingers here as much anymore. Well, they hate poor Blacks who vote Democratic. That's true. But honestly, they're just as enraged at white liberals, and strong uppity women, and anyone who tells them that their values of patriarchal greed and entitlement and endless materialism and climate destruction are fucked up. A sense of racial superiority isn't what is driving them, IMO, as much as a blind, desperate desire to return to some American imperialism and their comfy, delusional economy. Since they don't understand the real underlying causes of our degrowth over the next century, they're ever more desperate for a scapegoat. If they could brand we white liberals (well, I'm a socialist, not a liberal) and round us up, I think they'd rather do that then go after black people per se. Just my two cents worth.

[babylonsister]

4. I've had experiences

as a white, female liberal in the south to support that; and I'm a Yankee and don't care about college football; I was doomed. Better now; I live alone.

[NutmegYankee]

3. Well I could have told you that.

I grew up in the south, and chose to leave.