Civil rights, not other issue concerns, drove Southern whites’ falling approval of Kennedy

Evidence

We repeat this exercise for the number of hits for each placebo issue (each without any hand-coding). The best performing placebo issue (social security and safety net issues) explains only 20% (see Appendix Figure A.6) and completely misses the huge decline in relative approval in the Spring of 1963. In fact seven of nine placebo issues explain under five percent of the South-nonSouth variation over time. The overwhelming predictive power of Civil Rights in explaining regional differences in approval for Kennedy undercuts the argument that other issues were triggering dealignment during this key period. — Ilyana Kuziemko and Ebonya Washington, Why Did the Democrats Lose the South?…, 634

Categorization

• XREF: Directly serves the threatened-privilege mechanism question: this is falsification evidence eliminating competing issue explanations for the realignment trigger. — connects to: Democratic identification among Southern whites fell a full 17 percentage points — Ilyana Kuziemko and Ebonya Washington, Why Did the Democrats Lose the South?…, 82; The civil rights movement’s Democratic adoption made southern whites available to Republican appeals. — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers: Inside the…, 241; Southern whites opposed to integration were staunchly Democratic before 1964. — Ilyana Kuziemko and Ebonya Washington, Why Did the Democrats Lose the South?…, 1333 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• The civil rights movement’s Democratic adoption made southern whites available to Republican appeals. #expands (0.85) — Katherine Stewart, The Power Worshippers, 241
• Civil-rights-era policy shifts drove southern whites into the Republican Party #expands (0.85) — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 105
• Racially conservative white Southerners abandoned Democratic identification after 1964. #expands (0.84) — Ilyana Kuziemko and Ebonya Washington, Why Did the Democrats Lose the South?…, 1327
• White backlash against the Civil Rights Act delivered the South to the Republican Party #expands (0.82) — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight, 519
• Racially conservative whites’ defection drove the Southern realignment #expands (0.82)
• Southern whites opposed to integration were staunchly Democratic before 1964. #corroborates (0.80) — Ilyana Kuziemko and Ebonya Washington, Why Did the Democrats Lose the South?…, 1333
• Conservative racial views predicted Democratic identity among Southern whites only before 1963 #corroborates (0.80) — Ilyana Kuziemko and Ebonya Washington, Why Did the Democrats Lose the South?…, 7
• Racially conservative Southern whites defecting explains all of the 1958-1980 Democratic decline #expands (0.80) — Ilyana Kuziemko and Ebonya Washington, Why Did the Democrats Lose the South?…, 7