The Rational Basis of Irrational Politics: Fear and Loathing in the Texas Suburbs

• In Event: 594 - Section on Political Sociology Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 05. The Politics of Morality

Abstract

The T.E.A. Party has drawn an enormous amount of attention over recent years to Right -Wing politics and Right-Wing social movements. However; with a few notable exceptions little attention has been the basic question of why some voters have increased their political support for the Republican Party even as it has become more partisan and more politically extreme. This paper explores just such a dynamic in the state of Texas, where the Republican Party has been able to grow their voter base even as their policies have become more extreme. Through an in-depth historical analysis of the state’s political realignment coupled with a fixed-effects regression analysis of state-wide election results from 1994 through 2012, the author explains durable support for radical, right wing candidates in the context of statewide battles over equalization of education finance. This study lends strong insights into the relationship between material and symbolic politics, and the ways in which race has been incorporated into modern political campaigns on the right. The author demonstrates the role that material and symbolic “threats” play in maintaining and increasing support for the Republican Party, even among politically moderate populations.

Author

• John D Kincaid, University of California-Davis