ABSTRACT
The 1964 presidential election was conducted as a referendum on the progressive legislation passed in the years following the death of John F. Kennedy and the succession of Lyndon B. Johnson to the Presidency. The academic work that identified resentment was propelled by Mendelberg’s interest in how the race card was played during the presidential election of 1988. Civil rights legislation and Supreme Court decisions that created school integration and access to voting were seen by the Dixiecrats in 1948 and later resisters to federal law as violating state’s rights. One reason the 2016 Clinton v. Trump election resulted in the election of the Republican candidate may be because Clinton was not attractive to many white voters. National elections are only one of the stages on which the duel is played out between the belief in racial equality and the fear that whites are no longer in a position of social superiority as part of the national majority.
