Dangerously Divided: Race Trumps Class in Shaping Who Wins in American Democracy

• In Event: Race and American Democracy: Problems and Solutions

Abstract

Dangerously Divided examines the political consequences of America’s growing economic inequality and its increasing racial diversity. Is our politics driven primarily by race or largely by class? And what are the consequences of those divisions for who wins and who loses in American democracy and more broadly in American life? Dangerously Divided begins by showing that across a wide array of elections race overshadows class in shaping the vote. The book then goes on to demonstrate the wide ranging consequences of this racial divide. Race profoundly shapes which candidates win office, more than any other factor it determines which voters win when the votes are counted, and more than any other factor determines whose voices are heeded when government makes policy. America has become a racial democracy with whites disproportionately on the winning side of that democracy and non-whites much more likely to be on the losing side. Fortunately, there is a clear solution. When Democrats control the White House and Congress, all or almost all of the racial imbalance in policy responsiveness fades away. Democratic Party control also matters for a deeper, more fundamental outcome – the economic well-being of racial and ethnic minorities. If Democrats had been in power over the last five decades, most of America’s racial inequality in economic well-being may well have been erased.

Author

• Zoltan L. Hajnal, University of California, San Diego