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Subject: Feeble Old tRUMP'S MAGA Movement Made Up of White Trash Racist Dirtbags & Wife Beaters
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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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questions in politics

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/