Many never had the time or inclination to invest themselves heavily in the political process. And anyone with leadership ability began to avoid public life as the politics of social justice gradually corroded its way into all public institutions. Though this transformation was seen coming for decades, it was written off as too surreal to be true.
Not so surreal anymore.
Also many whites suffered from a kind of naive universalism that the country was headed towards a post-racialist future and we were all gonna get along.
Nope. The election of Obama and everything that’s happened since then has buried that ideal.
Apparently the politics of kin selection are very much alive.