How the 2016 Election Exposed America's Racial and Cultural Divides

 

by Perry Bacon Jr. 

The 2016 election exposed an America of deep divides over race, ethnicity and culture — a nation carved into two large coalitions, roughly equal in size but radically different in demographics and desires.

Those contrasts were brought into sharp relief in the hours after Donald Trump was elected president.

Voters in the Rust Belt and rural regions of country who felt left out of Obama's vision of economic prosperity and progress celebrated, in part, because they felt they once again had a champion.

Meanwhile, across the country, thousands of minorities, millennials and women in urban enclaves went into a period of mourning and took to the streets in protests fueled by frustration, fear and disillusionment in a country they feel that, by electing Trump, is now entering a dark and divisive era.

"The biggest difference between the two parties is the urban-rural divide. That gap widened. Politically, that translates into race and identity as the main political dividing line. Rural and exurban America is very white, and generally inward-looking. Urban America is very diverse and cosmopolitan," said Lee Drutman, a political scientist at New America, a Washington-based non-partisan think tank.

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Source: NBC News