Racism, then, works against non-wealthy white Americans in two ways. First, it lowers their support for government actions that could help them economically, out of a zero-sum fear that it could help the racialized “undeserving” as well. Yet racism’s work on class consciousness is not total—there are still some New Deal–type economic policies that the majority of white Americans support, like increasing the federal minimum wage and raising taxes on the wealthy. But the racial polarization of our two-party system has forced a choice between class interest and perceived racial interest, and in
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