Thread by @JeffreyASachs

If you're like me, you'd rather walk into traffic than read another centrist/NeverTrump column on why Democrats need to jettison racial liberalism and ID Politics in order to win in 2020.

Well, good news! There's strong evidence those columns are wrong. Not decisive, but strong.

First of all, identity politics (or whatever you want to call it) can be a winning strategy for Democrats. See for instance Stout (2015), which examines the impact of racial appeals by black candidates on voter turnout and partisan support.

amazon.ca/Bringing-Race-…

When black candidates make positive racial appeals (e.g. "Black unemployment is a top priority for me", "Affirmative action helps to redress discrimination"), black and Latino support increases WITH NO CORRESPONDING DROP in white support.

(More on negative appeals in a moment)

How much of an increase? In the case of black voters, 29%. For Latino voters, 18%. Just imagine the impact this would have for Democrats in Georgia or North Carolina.

And again, there is no drop in white support.

What's going on here? In a word: intra-minority solidarity. You can read more about how this works in Cortland, et. al. (2017) and Craig and @jaricheson (2014).

pdfs.semanticscholar.org/1bf6/a9269bc8c…

pdfs.semanticscholar.org/4e41/04477cfe0…

@jaricheson Be careful. Negative racial appeals drive down white AND black support.

But note well: "negative" in this context means attacking a candidate as racist or assigning specific blame. It does not include something like "Anti-black racism is a major problem in American society".

@jaricheson Also, while Stout doesn't address the impact of racial appeals by white candidates in his 2015 book, his new book project does. The gist: due to partisan sorting and polarization, white Democrats no longer pay a penalty with white voters for embracing racial liberalism. @HeerJeet

@jaricheson @HeerJeet Side note: can someone please interview Christopher Stout already? Or better yet, solicit a piece?

@IChotiner @johnmsides @Nate_Cohn

liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/school-public-…

@jaricheson @HeerJeet @IChotiner @johnmsides @Nate_Cohn There's more. "Identity-based" activism can also have an electoral payoff. @shom_mazumder found that counties where a BLM protest took place saw higher Democratic ID and, in the 2018 midterms, an increase of between 4-6% in Democratic vote share.

dataforprogress.org/blog/2019/5/5/…

@jaricheson @HeerJeet @IChotiner @johnmsides @Nate_Cohn @shom_mazumder Such changes can last for decades. E.g. whites in counties that saw historic civil rights protests in the 60s exhibit less Racial Resentment today and greater Democratic ID. This can happen even with violent protests (@RyanDEnos).

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.111…

scholar.harvard.edu/files/renos/fi…

@jaricheson @HeerJeet @IChotiner @johnmsides @Nate_Cohn @shom_mazumder @RyanDEnos Why do identity-based protests have this effect? A big part of it is probably mobilization. That seems to be what's happening with the Women's March and related Resistance demonstrations.

scholar.harvard.edu/files/thedasko…

@jaricheson @HeerJeet @IChotiner @johnmsides @Nate_Cohn @shom_mazumder @RyanDEnos Of course, critics have dismissed the Women's March as hopelessly intersectional and counter-productive. Well, they're right about it being intersectional, as @Fisher_DanaR, et. al. (2017) shows.

researchgate.net/publication/31…

@jaricheson @HeerJeet @IChotiner @johnmsides @Nate_Cohn @shom_mazumder @RyanDEnos @Fisher_DanaR In fact, it was probably the most intersectional demonstration in years, bringing together first-time and repeat protesters with all kinds of viewpoints and grievances, albeit some more than others.

osf.io/preprints/soca…

@jaricheson @HeerJeet @IChotiner @johnmsides @Nate_Cohn @shom_mazumder @RyanDEnos @Fisher_DanaR But they're wrong about it being counter-productive.

1) The Women's Marches and related protests have been massive mobilization and fundraising tools for liberal organizations. Marchers of all sorts report high levels of subsequent political activism.

americanresistancebook.com/early-drafts/

@jaricheson @HeerJeet @IChotiner @johnmsides @Nate_Cohn @shom_mazumder @RyanDEnos @Fisher_DanaR And while Extremely Online critics slam intersectionality as undermining the movement from within, there's little evidence for that on the ground.

washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-ca…

@jaricheson @HeerJeet @IChotiner @johnmsides @Nate_Cohn @shom_mazumder @RyanDEnos @Fisher_DanaR 2) As with BLM, the March had a direct impact on the midterms. Using rainfall data to instrument March participation, @JCPinckney finds a causal relationship between the size of a Woman's March in 2017 and the Democratic vote share in 2018. See Model 4.

static1.squarespace.com/static/57fbfb8…

@jaricheson @HeerJeet @IChotiner @johnmsides @Nate_Cohn @shom_mazumder @RyanDEnos @Fisher_DanaR @JCPinckney In other words, the Women's March is bringing to the polls Democratic voters who would otherwise stay at home.

@jaricheson @HeerJeet @IChotiner @johnmsides @Nate_Cohn @shom_mazumder @RyanDEnos @Fisher_DanaR @JCPinckney Now, it's not all good news. Race and gender still divide the activist Left in ways that are difficult to overcome. For instance, priming white women with sexism makes them *more* pro-white, in a kind of defensive assertion of superiority.

citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/downlo…

@jaricheson @HeerJeet @IChotiner @johnmsides @Nate_Cohn @shom_mazumder @RyanDEnos @Fisher_DanaR @JCPinckney And media framing is key. Depending on how a story about BLM is presented, voters can become more (or less) pro-Trump and legislators more (or less) supportive of police accountability.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.111…

tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.108…

@jaricheson @HeerJeet @IChotiner @johnmsides @Nate_Cohn @shom_mazumder @RyanDEnos @Fisher_DanaR @JCPinckney Luckily, there are strategies for getting white people to care about racial justice in general and Black Lives Matter in particular. They work.

researchgate.net/publication/31…

researchgate.net/publication/32…

@jaricheson @HeerJeet @IChotiner @johnmsides @Nate_Cohn @shom_mazumder @RyanDEnos @Fisher_DanaR @JCPinckney I could go on. There's a LOT more research along these lines coming out all the time, but let me just end with this:

We all know about the post-2014 transformation in liberal attitudes, especially among whites. "The Great Awokening", etc.

vox.com/2019/3/22/1825…

@jaricheson @HeerJeet @IChotiner @johnmsides @Nate_Cohn @shom_mazumder @RyanDEnos @Fisher_DanaR @JCPinckney Now, the conventional wisdom is that these attitudes are electoral poison. They force Democratic candidates to adopt unpopular positions and push white voters to the right.

Be skeptical of the conventional wisdom.

@jaricheson @HeerJeet @IChotiner @johnmsides @Nate_Cohn @shom_mazumder @RyanDEnos @Fisher_DanaR @JCPinckney The conventional wisdom was that liberal activism during the Kavanaugh hearings would backfire and hurt Democrats in 2018 (remember #HimToo?). That's not how it worked out.

https://twitter.com/RachelBitecofer/status/1128380683796271105

view.publitas.com/perryundem-res…

@jaricheson @HeerJeet @IChotiner @johnmsides @Nate_Cohn @shom_mazumder @RyanDEnos @Fisher_DanaR @JCPinckney Look, I'm not saying that the road to the White House in 2020 doesn't still run through white Wisconsinites. It probably does.

What I'm saying is that the choice those centrists and Never Trumpers are trying to force on us is a false one.

@jaricheson @HeerJeet @IChotiner @johnmsides @Nate_Cohn @shom_mazumder @RyanDEnos @Fisher_DanaR @JCPinckney And the reason they are trying to force it on us is not because they want Trump to lose, though they do. Rather, it is because should he lose, they don't want it to be because the Left won.