The Ebb and Flow of Equality: Political Backlash to Rights Expansion

The United States has taken steps since its founding to improve the equality of its citizens. Often, these steps take the form of major political moves such as Constitutional Amendments, legislation, or Supreme Court decisions that expand the rights of marginalized groups following a movement pushing for that expansion. I theorize that each of these rights expansions will be followed by a measure of political backlash, which I operationalize in three ways: electoral backlash, agenda-setting backlash, and erosion backlash. I will use three case studies, the 19th Amendment (1920), Civil and Voting Rights Acts (1964 and 1965), and Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) to find support for this hypothesis across various cases of rights expansion. Ultimately, I find evidence for backlash in each of these case studies as well as support for my other two hypotheses: that racial rights expansions lead to the most backlash and that Constitutional Amendment is the most lasting mechanism of expansion. Understanding the caliber of political backlash to rights expansion will help those continuing to fight for equality in this country in understanding how to create lasting change and what reaction to expect from our politics after that change.