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   Just how racist is the MAGA movement? This survey measures it.   
      
   A Trump supporter holds a Confederate flag outside the Senate chamber   
   after rioters breached the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.   
      
   By Jennifer Rubin   
   September 28, 2022   
      
   It has long been understood that the MAGA movement is heavily dependent   
   on White grievance and straight-up racism. (Hence Donald Trump’s refusal   
   to disavow racist groups and his statement that there were “very fine   
   people on both sides” in the violent clashes at the white-supremacist   
   rally in Charlottesville.)   
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   Now, we have numbers to prove it.   
      
   The connection between racism and the right-wing movement is apparent in   
   a new poll from the Public Religion Research Institute. The survey asked   
   respondents about 11 statements designed to probe views on racism. For   
   example: “White Americans today are not responsible for discrimination   
   against Black people in the past.” The pollsters then used their answers   
   to quantify a “structural racism index,” which provides a general score   
   from zero to 1 measuring a person’s attitudes on “white supremacy and   
   racial inequality, the impact of discrimination on African American   
   economic mobility, the treatment of African Americans in the criminal   
   justice system, general perceptions of race, and whether racism is still   
   significant problem today.” Higher scores indicate a more receptive   
   attitude to racist beliefs.   
      
   The results shouldn’t surprise anyone paying attention to the MAGA   
   crowd’s rhetoric and veneration of the Confederacy. “Among all Americans,   
   the median value on the structural racism index is 0.45, near the center   
   of the scale,” the poll found. “The median score on the structural racism   
   index for Republicans is 0.67, compared with 0.45 for independents and   
   0.27 for Democrats.” Put differently, Republicans are much more likely to   
   buy into the notion that Whites are victims.   
      
   The poll also found that the religious group that makes up the core of   
   today’s GOP and MAGA movement has the highest structural racism measure   
   among the demographics it surveyed: “White evangelical Protestants have   
   the highest median score, at 0.64, while Latter-day Saints, white   
   Catholics, and white mainline Protestants each have a median of 0.55. By   
   contrast, religiously unaffiliated white Americans score 0.33.” This is   
   true even though Whites report far less discrimination toward them than   
   racial minorities do.   
      
   The survey also captured just how popular the “Lost Cause” to rewrite the   
   history of the Civil War and downplay or ignore the evil of slavery is on   
   the right: “Republicans overwhelmingly back efforts to preserve the   
   legacy of the Confederacy (85%), compared with less than half of   
   independents (46%) and only one in four Democrats (26%). The contrast   
   between white Republicans and white Democrats is stark. Nearly nine in 10   
   white Republicans (87%), compared with 23% of white Democrats, support   
   efforts to preserve the legacy of the Confederacy.”   
      
   Americans who fully support reforming Confederate monuments have a much   
   lower structural racism index score, while those who oppose it have a   
   much higher score. The same is true when it comes to renaming schools   
   honoring individuals who supported slavery and racial discrimination or   
   changing racist mascots.   
      
   Those who want to keep Confederate monuments and offensive mascots in   
   place might deny that their views have anything to do with bigotry, but   
   then again, they often deny the legacy of racism and paint Whites as   
   victims, too. In general, MAGA forces have one goal when they amplify   
   “replacement theory” or fuss over corporations promoting inclusivity: to   
   maximize White anger and resentment.   
      
   Robert P. Jones, who leads PRRI, tells me, “While this result may seem   
   surprising or even shocking to many White Christians, it is because we do   
   not know our own history. If we take a clear-eyed look at our history, we   
   see a widespread, centuries-long Christian defense of white supremacy.”   
   He adds, “For example, every major Protestant Christian denomination   
   split over the issue of slavery in the Civil War, with Methodists,   
   Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and Baptists in the South all breaking   
   fellowship with their Northern brethren.” Given that history, Jones says,   
   “it’s hardly a surprise that a denial of systemic racism is a defining   
   feature of White evangelicalism today.”   
      
   The PRRI poll shows the MAGA movement has done a solid job convincing the   
   core of the GOP base that they are victims. And let’s be clear: An   
   aggrieved electoral minority that believes it has been victimized and is   
   ready to deploy violence is a serious threat to an inclusive democracy.   
      
      
   https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/28/racism-survey-prri-   
   maga-republicans/   
      
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