White Identities in American Politics

The politics of white identity pervade American national discourse, and many commentators and scholars rightfully express concern about rising tides of white nationalism in America politics. Yet white Americans today exhibit broad diversity in their ethnic origins, the relative importance of those origins, and their views on race in politics and society.

In White Identities in American Politics, Dominik Stecula and Matthew P. Hitt draw on two large original surveys to codify the various forms of white identities that exist in America today. White Americans are no more monolithic politically and psychologically than any other ethnic group. The various typologies of whiteness exhibit durable and meaningful relationships with other important political attitudes, including nativism, immigration attitudes, and racial resentment. In an era where all politics can be related to identity politics, oversimplifying and overgeneralizing the attitudes and behaviors of America’s largest racial and ethnic group risks accidentally reinforcing and affirming a hegemonic form of white identity divorced from nuance and ethnic origins, one responsible for centuries of violence and bigotry in the United States.