None of my many white friends say they will vote for Donald Trump, but I’m almost certain that in November most white voters will support Trump. Although the current American political climate is volatile, the racial divide in American politics is wide and enduring. In every presidential election since 1964, white Americans have supported Republican candidates, while black Americans have supported the Democrats.

This racial divide has deep roots in American history. In 1936 black Americans left the Republican Party of Lincoln to join the Democratic Party of Franklin Roosevelt, but during the 1950s millions of white voters abandoned Roosevelt’s New Deal coalition to become Eisenhower Republicans. John F. Kennedy and especially Lyndon Johnson temporarily attracted many of these white voters back to the Democratic side, but Johnson’s support for the landmark civil rights legislation and Richard Nixon’s Southern Strategy in 1968 prompted a historic shift of millions of white…