HMM: Americans Are Divided by Their Views on Race, Not Race Itself: It’s a crucial difference — and grounds for optimism.

We find this pattern across numerous issues. And taken as a whole, it reveals something about the United States in the Trump era: The country is not divided by racial conflict, but by conflict over racial ideology. This is a crucial difference — and it is also grounds for optimism.

Race pertains to communities defined by ancestry and physical appearance. Racial ideology turns instead on race as a political idea. Questions like “Should Northam resign?” or “Is the wall racist?” divide voters today by ideology far more than race. “White” is a description of a person’s race, whereas feelings about whether whites are privileged or whether diversity makes the country stronger are part of a person’s racial ideology.

Liberal whites — not minorities — are setting the tone on these issues.

Since 2012, white liberals have moved considerably left on questions related to race, reflecting both a campus- and online-driven cultural awakening that has accelerated in response to Mr. Trump. On the American National Election Study’s scale measuring how respondents feel about a group — white liberals are warmer toward minorities than their own racial group. . . . For example, support for immigration among Democrats has broadly risen, but that rise is much more pronounced for white Democrats than for black Democrats. . . .

Yet Trump voters rate minorities relatively warmly. Racial ideology rather than race accounts for their differences with white Democrats: White Republicans reject affirmative action, the notion of white privilege and the idea that racial discrimination continues to hold minorities back.

Minorities again rank in between on many of these measures. When it comes to “microaggression” statements such as “America is a colorblind society” or “You are so articulate,” few blacks and Hispanics find these offensive while more liberal whites do.

So basically, most of the racial conflict in today’s America comes from white liberals wanting to feel good about themselves.