Democrats of late are talking about the political bounty of the rapidly changing Sun Belt, but critics note that such a strategy is risky; Obama lost Arizona and Georgia twice and won North Carolina just once, in 2008. Clinton lost all three in 2016. Meanwhile, Republicans are always eager to use the left’s ­so-called identity politics against them. Like gender-free bathrooms, the issue of reparations is guaranteed to inflame not only conservatives but also white identifiers, who already ­resent their perceived loss of power. In 2014, a YouGov poll found that half of white Americans believe that slavery is “not a factor at all” in the lower average wealth of blacks; just 6 percent support cash payments to the descendants of slaves.

Respondents were asked to place themselves on a scale measuring their support of racial and ethnic diversity in the United States. The lowest percentages of Americans from either party agreed with the phrase “I would prefer the U.S. to be a nation primarily made up of people from Western European heritage.” But while 65 percent of Democrats agreed with the phrase “I would prefer the U.S. to be a nation made up of people from all over the world,” only 29 percent of Republicans felt that way. Instead, about 56 percent of Republicans placed themselves between those two options. Whites were the least likely group to want diversity, with 44 percent preferring the U.S. to be made up of “people from all over the world.” Another 42 percent said they wanted something in the middle.

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