White Clinton voters and the racial divide

Public opinion polls indicate that white liberals feel more warmly toward other races than they do toward their own, which seems unusual.

Political scientist Eric Kaufmann cited the following survey data in an article in the New York Times.  It’s on a scale with 0 as completely unfavorable, 50 as neutral and 100 as completely favorable.

Black Clinton voters

85 percent favorable opinion about their own race

59 percent favorable opinion about other races.

White Trump voters

80 percent favorable opinion about their own race

69 percent favorable opinion about other races.

Black Trump voters

77 percent favorable opinion about their own race

72 percent favorable opinion about other races.

White Clinton voters

70 percent favorable opinion about their own race

80 percent favorable opinion about other races.

Now you can’t say that white Clinton voters are self-hating, because they have a favorable opinion about their own race.  And you can’t say that black Clinton voters are “reverse racists” because they have a favorable opinion of non-black races.

Note also that none of the four categories of voters has a net unfavorable view of other races. That’s important, because I’m pretty sure this wouldn’t have been true 50 or 60 years ago.

But it’s interesting that the white Clinton voters are the least favorable toward their own race and the most favorable toward other races, while black Clinton voters are the reverse.

Kaufmann wrote in his New York Times article—

Since 2012, white liberals have moved considerably left on questions related to race, reflecting both a campus- and online-driven cultural awakening that has accelerated in response to Mr. Trump.  

On the American National Election Study’s scale measuring how respondents feel about a group — white liberals are warmer toward minorities than their own racial group.

[snip] This has happened as liberal thought has changed its focus from class to identity issues since the 1960s.  

During the civil rights era, African-Americans rallied strongly behind racial liberalism, which was a communal issue.  But the connection between race and racial ideology has weakened considerably: People of color are not the driving force behind most of today’s forms of racial liberalism.

I think he underestimates the amount of both open racism and unconscious racial prejudice in the USA.  And I don’t think the change in white liberal thinking is a response to Donald Trump’s election.  If anything, Trump’s election is a reaction to the change in white liberalism that began about five years ago.