The fundamental divide

I wish I understood why so many liberals are reluctant to admit this. It is clear as day. I wish it weren’t so but it is.

The conflict between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump over racial and gender issues in Monday’s debate reflects a deep divide in voter attitudes: views on the influence of men, women and racial groups in society are closely related to vote preferences.

The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, mainly released Sunday, finds that majorities of Hillary Clinton’s supporters believe minorities and women have too little influence in American society, while half say men and whites have too much influence. For all his outsider appeal, Donald Trump’s supporters, by contrast, are far more apt to endorse the status quo in this regard.

See PDF with tables and full results here.

All told, the survey, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates, finds that about half of Americans think women, men and whites have about the right amount of influence in society these days. Fewer — three in 10 — say the same about racial and ethnic minorities.

Of the rest, many more say women have too little rather than too much influence (42 vs. 10 percent). The gap also is wide for minorities (40 percent say they have too little influence, 23 percent too much). In contrast, Americans overall are more apt to say men and whites have too much rather than too little influence, 37 vs. 9 percent for men, 34 vs. 12 percent for whites.

The divisions among Clinton and Trump supporters are deep. Two-thirds of Clinton supporters say minorities have too little influence in the country these days, while just 17 percent of Trump supporters agree. Among Clinton supporters, 58 percent say women have too little influence; only 21 percent of Trump’s say the same.

Further, 50 percent of Clinton’s backers say men have too much influence, and 53 percent say the same about whites. That view plummets to 20 and 8 percent, respectively, among Trump voters.

Instead, roughly two-thirds of Trump supporters say women, whites and men alike have about the right amount of influence. Four in 10 Trump supporters say minorities have the right amount of influence -– and as many say they have too much.

These results stand up in a statistical model. Controlling for demographics, partisanship, ideology and presidential approval, seeing too little influence for whites and men and too much influence for minorities and women independently predicts support for Trump. Other than disapproval of Barack Obama, which is by far the best predictor of support for Trump, views of group influence have a similar effect as partisanship, ideology and race.

This is what’s driving the Trump phenomenon. Of course it is.