Thread by @LarryGlickman

I've long been critical of a common way of framing backlashes as an automatic, inevitable response to demands for social equality because this framing removes the agency of people who choose to participate in backlashes. A thread on why this matters for history and today. /1

President Trump is doing his best to foment a white backlash but, thus far, it doesn't appear to be happening in spite of what might be the largest social movement for African American equality in our history. /2
nytimes.com/interactive/20…

In seeking the cause of backlashes, we should grant agency to those who participate in them. Why do they do so? Under what conditions? /3

But too often in the past, commentators assigned causality not to the backlashers but to movements for social equality which supposedly "set them off." /4

Here's an example from 1967 in which "civil rights marches" supposedly "sparked a white protest."/5
newspapers.com/clip/54771423/

Here's an example from 1984in which a reporter claims that Jesse "Jackson's voter registration efforts in Florida sparked a white backlash."/6
newspapers.com/clip/54771368/

And here's a thread I wrote last year about the general problems with this framework which claims that Civil Rights activities "sparked" backlashes./7

https://twitter.com/LarryGlickman/status/1112079895889354752?s=20

Things could, of course, change. But the current moment, I think, is proving my point. Demands for African American equality don't _cause_ backlashes. And even politicians efforts to foment backlashes, as Trump has been tirelessly doing, don't inevitably work./8

For a backlash to work, what is needed, above all, is for there to be a large number of people willing to engage in them. And we are not seeing that right now. Trump is trying to call for a backlash party but, at the moment, only small numbers of are choosing to participate./9

As I showed in @TheAtlantic recently, the dynamics of the "white backlash" have long constrained politics in the United States. /10
theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…

To see massive support for the Movement for Black Lives alongside an unpopular president actively attempting to foment a white backlash but (thus far) utterly failing is heartening proof that backlashes are not inevitable. /11

This set of tweets is inspired in part by @jbouie's recent smart thread (in dialogue with @nils_gilman and @DamonLinker) about the absence of a "reactionary backlash." /12

https://twitter.com/jbouie/status/1279612310487732224?s=20

Postscript: Today’s @washingtonpost says that “Obama’s election produced a backlash,” which suggests that his election was the causal agent.
An alternative formulation: Many people, including GOP politicians, engaged in backlash politics after he was elected, or even before./13