My guest today on Weekend Reading Live was Chris Parker, a renowned professor of political science at UC Santa Barbara and the principal of Black Insights Research, a consulting firm specializing in the study of the Black community.
Chris’s award-winning books have rewritten public understanding about reactionary movements (Change They Can’t Believe In: The Tea Party and Reactionary Politics in America, co-authored with Matt A. Barreto) and the role of Black veterans in the civil rights movement (Fighting for Democracy: Black Veterans and the Struggle Against White Supremacy in the Postwar South).
We had a rich discussion about his areas of expertise, including:
How status threat — white Christian men’s belief that they are losing social, cultural, or political status — has driven reactionary movements from the KKK to the Tea Party to MAGA, and how it is shaped by geography and social environment. (For instance, Blue states like California and Massachusetts have undergone dramatic demographic change without the political backlash seen in red states.)
Why Black military service in World War II and Korea was an underappreciated driver of the civil rights movement, with veterans’ courage and conviction that they deserved full citizenship spreading in their communities.
Key findings from longitudinal research conducted by Chris’s firm on the Black community during the 2024 election cycle — including the fact that 70% of low-propensity Black voters were never reached by the Harris campaign.
Why obsessing over “the white working class” leads Democrats astray and alienates Black voters.
