How much is race driving opposition to Obama?

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It’s easy to imagine Hillary Clinton being elected in 2009, and Republicans in Congress similarly opposing her agenda en masse, because we are in the midst of an era of very high political polarization that is as much about voters as presidents.

Barack Obama has been, according to Gallup, one of the most divisive presidents in recent history, with very strong support among Democrats and nearly universal disapproval from Republicans. But the man who is basically tied with Obama in creating polarization is George W. Bush, Obama’s predecessor. A president Hillary Clinton or Jeb Bush is likely to be divisive as well.

3. But what about the tone of the opposition, all the birthersim and Muslim comments? Isn’t that racial?

Obama supporters, like Oprah Winfrey, say the president faces an usually high level of public “disrespect” because of his race that no other president has encountered. The list of examples they cite is long: U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) shouting “you lie” at the president as Obama addressed a joint session of Congress in 2009, a reporter from the conservative Daily Caller interrupting Obama during a 2012 speech, the persistently high number of Americans who believe the president either was not born in the United States or is a Muslim, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican, putting her finger in the president’s face during an argument on an airplane tarmac, racist signs at Tea Party events, the spate of voter ID laws passed by conservative legislators all over the country during the president’s tenure.

It’s of course impossible to assess in a scientific way the actions of one congressman or governor or a handful of protestors. And allies of George W. Bush and Bill Clinton say each man faced episodes of intense personal opposition, such as the false allegation by conservatives that Bill and Hillary had one of their top aides killed.

But Democrats correctly believe that the Tea Party is driving much of what’s happening within the GOP and that movement arose in reaction to the election of Obama. Therefore, they say, the energy of the GOP is driven by racial animus to Obama.

Scholars who have studied the Tea Party movement make a different case. Yes, they say, people who identify with the Tea Party tend to score higher on racial resentment questions than other Americans.

As the University of Washington’s Christopher Parker, who co-wrote the book Change They Can’t Believe In: The Tea Party and Reactionary Politics in America, puts it, “even as we account for conservatism and partisanship, support for the Tea Party remains a valid predictor of racial resentment.”

But what really drives some Tea Party members, Parker argues, is their concern about a changing America, of which Obama’s race is only one part. The tone of the opposition to Obama is driven by a sense that people they consider “others,” including the president, are on the rise. In this context, casting Obama as Muslim or not being born in the United States is in part because he is black, but mostly because he is different.

“People who think that Tea Partiers’ anti-Obama sentiment is driven solely by racial resentment are mistaken,” Parker writes. “Tea Partiers are driven by a more general perception of social change. Race may be a big part of that, but Tea Partiers also remain wary of the improving status of all historically marginalized groups. Consider their hostility to reproductive rights and gender parity. Or their wrath over the growing acceptance of same-sex marriage and adoption, and the open inclusion of gays and lesbians in the armed forces. Or their continuing opposition to immigration reform.”

A group of researchers at Harvard has come to a similar conclusion.

“Rather than conscious, deliberate, and publicly expressed racism, these racial resentments form part of a nebulous fear about generational societal change—fears that are crystallized in Tea Party opposition to President Obama,” they write in a paper titled “The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism.” “As we’ve seen, many Tea Partiers are deeply concerned that the country they live in is not the country of their youth— and that they themselves are no longer represented by the US government.”

While it is difficult to prove a counterfactual, the research suggests that a gay, Hispanic or female president may have also inspired a Tea Party-like movement in 2009. Parker makes this point directly as he predicts the Tea Party will continue if Hillary Clinton is elected in 2016.

“Just as the far right rejected the rise of feminism in the 1960s and ’70s, people who identify with the Tea Party harbor anti-feminist tendencies. For this reason, we will likely witness continued Tea Party activity,” Parker writes of the political impact of a Clinton victory.

4. So what do Republicans think about this issue?

Privately, leading Republicans will point out that while the excesses of the Tea Party worry them, most Republicans are not members of the Tea Party and even though the Tea Party is powerful within the GOP, it’s no accident that Mitt Romney, a relative moderate, won the party’s nomination in 2012.

But there is evidence, although limited, of another defense that Republicans should offer when asked if the party is opposed to Obama because of race. As Parker and other scholars suggest, racial opposition to Obama seems linked to other factors of a changing America, with women, gays and Hispanics ascendant. What about black politicians, unlike Obama, who are not also linked to supporting gay rights and immigration reform?

In fact, Republicans actually seem to like some black politicians just fine. Conservative ones. The scarcity of black conservatives limits the sample size, but over the last two decades, white Republicans have embraced black figures like Herman Cain, Colin Powell (before he endorsed Obama), Condi Rice and over the last year, the doctor and political activist Ben Carson. None of these four have been elected to political office, but that is less about race than desire, as only Cain has even run. Powell in particularly surely could have won a seat to the U.S. House or Senate if he chose to.

All were at one point touted by Republicans as potential presidential candidates. In the Obama era, Tea Party conservatives in particular praised Cain (before sexual harassment charges effectively ended his campaign) and seem to like Carson as well.

And if you think Republicans are just giving lip service to supporting black candidates, look at what’s happening in South Carolina, where both U.S. senators are up for election this fall. Some conservative activists are looking to replace one of the state’s incumbent senators, Lindsey Graham, who they feel has taken too many moderate, pro-Obama positions, like backing immigration reform. But Sen. Tim Scott, the black Republican who was appointed in 2012 and now must stand for election for a full six-year-term, has no opposition at all in his primary, even though he has never run statewide before. Scott is very conservative and opposes Obama on nearly every issue, and Republicans in South Carolina are doing everything possible to make sure he wins a full term.

In short, in a state in the Deep South that is full of anti-Obama, Tea Party members, Republican activists prefer a strong conservative who is black over a moderate conservative who is white.