The Effects of Dehumanizing Attitudes about Black People on Whites’ Voting Decisions

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Ashley Jardina ◽  
Spencer Piston
Keyword(s):  
Racial Attitudes ◽  
Black People ◽  
Racial Prejudice ◽  
First Century ◽  
White Americans ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Political Effects ◽  
2016 Election ◽  
Candidate Evaluations ◽  
Voting Decisions

Abstract Political scientists have long noted the key role racial attitudes can play in electoral politics. However, the 2016 election of Donald Trump raises questions about prevailing theories of racial attitudes and their political effects. While existing research focuses on ‘cultural’ or ‘modern’ forms of racial prejudice, this article argues that a sizeable portion of White Americans, disturbingly, dehumanize Black people: that is, they view Black people as less than fully human. Unsurprisingly, given the blatant racism of Donald Trump's campaign, this study also demonstrates that dehumanizing attitudes toward Black people are more strongly associated with support for Trump than with support for other candidates in the 2016 Republican primary. The authors also find evidence that dehumanizing attitudes toward Black people bolstered Donald Trump's vote share among Whites in the 2016 presidential election. Finally, dehumanizing attitudes are negatively associated with Whites' evaluations of Barack Obama, even after holding standard measures of racial prejudice constant. These findings suggest that a fundamental form of racism – dehumanizing attitudes toward Black people – can powerfully shape candidate evaluations and voting decisions in the twenty-first century.

The Rise of Trump, The Fall of Prejudice? Tracking White Americans’ Racial Attitudes Via A Panel Survey, 2008–2018

2020 ◽  
Vol 84 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel J Hopkins ◽  
Samantha Washington
Keyword(s):  
African Americans ◽  
Racial Attitudes ◽  
Population Based ◽  
Racial Prejudice ◽  
Presidential Rhetoric ◽  
White Americans ◽  
Panel Survey ◽  
Lead White ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Rule Out

Abstract In his campaign and first few years in office, Donald Trump consistently defied contemporary norms by using explicit, negative rhetoric targeting ethnic/racial minorities. Did this rhetoric lead White Americans to express more or less prejudiced views of African Americans or Hispanics, whether through changing norms around racial prejudice or other mechanisms? We assess that question using a thirteen-wave panel conducted with a population-based sample of Americans between 2008 and 2018. We find that via most measures, White Americans’ expressed anti-Black and anti-Hispanic prejudice declined after Trump’s political emergence, and we can rule out even small increases in the expression of prejudice. These results suggest the limits of racially charged rhetoric’s capacity to heighten prejudice among White Americans overall. They also indicate that rather than being a fixed predisposition, prejudice can shift by reacting against changing presidential rhetoric.

Officers, Servants, and Race

2018 ◽  
pp. 83-105
Author(s):  
Kristopher A. Teters
Keyword(s):  
Black Men ◽  
Racial Attitudes ◽  
Black People ◽  
Black Population ◽  
Racial Prejudice ◽  
Information Resources ◽  
Union Army ◽  
White People ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Individual Level

While many western Union officers came to support emancipation and even the enlistment of black troops, their racial attitudes changed very little. On the whole, officers continued to view black people as inferior, exotic, incapable, and even subhuman. Interactions with former slaves reinforced racial stereotypes. This intense prejudice was especially prominent in the Midwest where there were many discriminatory laws. Freeing the slaves, which many officers only supported as a practical necessity to win the war, was very different from seeing black people as anything close to equal with white people. But experiences with black men and women, particularly servants with whom Federals formed long-lasting personal bonds, often tempered racial prejudices on an individual level. Black men and women who assisted the Union army by providing information, resources, and aid in dangerous circumstances also won positive comments from officers. This softening of racial attitudes, however, almost never extended to the black population as a whole, and even ardent supporters of emancipation showed little sympathy for expanding black rights. The Civil War had eliminated slavery but had hardly solved the problem of racial prejudice.

The Jeffersonian Electoral College in the Twenty-First Century

2020 ◽  
pp. 110-118
Author(s):  
Edward B. Foley
Keyword(s):  
First Century ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Electoral College ◽  
Rust Belt ◽  
Hillary Clinton ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Jacksonian Era ◽  
2016 Election ◽  
Winner Take All ◽  
Take All

The 2016 election is, at a minimum, problematic from a Jeffersonian perspective, like 1992, and may have been another systemic malfunction, like 2000. Donald Trump received 107 of his 304 electoral votes in states where he won less than 50 percent of the popular vote—failing to achieve the kind of compound majority-of-majorities consistent with the Jeffersonian vision of how the system should work. 2016 illustrates the system’s inability to handle third-party and independent candidates, like Gary Johnson and Jill Stein, an inability caused by the addition of plurality winner-take-all in the Jacksonian era. It is unknowable whether Trump or Hillary Clinton would have won runoffs in the three pivotal Rust Belt states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. But if Clinton had won runoffs there (and in the states where she was only a plurality winner), then she would have won the Electoral College with an appropriately Jeffersonian majority-of-majorities.

scholarly journals Explaining Support for Trump among White Americans

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carl Stempel
Keyword(s):  
Free Trade ◽  
Asian American ◽  
White Americans ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Policy Positions ◽  
Negatively Associated ◽  
Economic Distress ◽  
2016 Election ◽  
Economic Anxiety ◽  
Election Studies

This fragment uses 2016 American National Election Studies data to explore the influence of a large number of attitudinal and policy positions on support for Donald Trump before and just after the 2016 election. The kitchen sink approach included more than 25 variables/scales in OLS regression explaining Trump support, gradually eliminating non-significant variables. The result is a useful summary of the importance of anti-immigrant, pro-strong man leader, high political cynicism, anti-gay/transgender, anti-Muslim, anti-refugee, anti-Black, generalized economic anxiety (but not personal economic distress), and anti-free trade in explaining support for Trump. It also suggests that many Trump supporters systematically dis-identify with Trump's more virulent racism, sexism, and xenophobia. For example, virulent anti-Black, anti-Asian American stereotypes and immigrant threat are negatively associated with support for Trump when controlling for the more restrained or policy based forms of antagonism. Although, the test is imperfect, virulent anti-Muslim attitudes stand out for their positive strength even after controlling for support for a (Muslim targeting) refugee ban.

scholarly journals Early perceptions of COVID-19 intensity and anti-Asian prejudice among White Americans

2021 ◽  
pp. 136843022110497
Author(s):  
Tara M. Mandalaywala ◽  
Gorana Gonzalez ◽  
Linda R. Tropp
Keyword(s):  
Negative Affect ◽  
Social Distance ◽  
Black People ◽  
Intergroup Contact ◽  
Group Interaction ◽  
Disease Outbreak ◽  
Racial Prejudice ◽  
White Americans ◽  
Perceived Intensity ◽  
Asian People

Anecdotal reports suggested an uptick in anti-Asian prejudice corresponding with the initial outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Examining responses from White U.S. citizens ( N = 589) during the first months of the pandemic, this study tested: (a) whether actual intensity (official number of cases or deaths reported) or perceived intensity (participants’ estimates of the same) of the COVID-19 outbreak predicted indicators of racial outgroup prejudice, particularly those associated with cross-group interaction, (b) whether outgroup prejudice was oriented toward Asian people specifically, or toward racial outgroups more broadly (e.g., toward both Asian people and Black people), and (c) whether contact with racial outgroups moderated relations between COVID-19 intensity and racial prejudice. Results showed that perceived COVID-19 intensity was associated with prejudice indicators representing the desire for social distance from Asian people, as well as from Black people, yet it was unrelated to reports of negative affect toward either racial outgroup. These patterns support the idea that prejudice during periods of disease outbreak might functionally serve to reduce willingness for interaction with, and likelihood of infection from, racial outgroups. Contact moderated the relation between official reports of COVID-19 intensity and support for anti-China travel policies, such that greater contact with Asian people was associated with less support for exclusionary, anti-China travel policies when actual COVID-19 intensity was high. Overall, these results suggest that intensity of disease threat can exacerbate racial outgroup prejudice and reduce willingness for cross-group interaction, but that intergroup contact may sometimes provide a prejudice-attenuating effect.

scholarly journals A Puzzle of Racial Attitudes: A Measurement Analysis of Racial Attitudes and Policy Indicators

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 237802311984273
Author(s):  
J. Micah Roos ◽  
Michael Hughes ◽  
Ashley V. Reichelmann
Keyword(s):  
Alternative Model ◽  
Racial Attitudes ◽  
Preliminary Evidence ◽  
Racial Prejudice ◽  
White Americans ◽  
Policy Attitudes ◽  
Measurement Analysis ◽  
Racial Resentment ◽  
Primary Determinant ◽  
Racial Policy

In the 1970s and 1980s, researchers argued that a new dimension of racial prejudice, termed “symbolic racism” and later “racial resentment,” emerged among white Americans as their endorsement of traditional prejudice declined. Recently, Carmines, Sniderman, and Easter have challenged this conceptualization. Relying on American National Election Surveys data, they argue that racial resentment and the attitudes about racial policy that it presumably explains are part of the same latent construct (labeled racial policy attitudes). This conclusion undermines theories that racial prejudice among white Americans is a primary determinant of their continued opposition to racial policies. We replicate their analyses and test an alternative model using five additional samples. We find that an alternative model that specifies racial resentment as distinct from racial policy attitudes was a better fit to the data, and additionally, we find preliminary evidence that it is inappropriate to consider racial policy attitudes as a single dimension using traditional indicators.

RACIAL APATHY AND HURRICANE KATRINA: The Social Anatomy of Prejudice in the Post-Civil Rights Era

2006 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 175-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tyrone A. Forman ◽  
Amanda E. Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Hurricane Katrina ◽  
Racial Inequality ◽  
Racial Attitudes ◽  
Black People ◽  
Racial Prejudice ◽  
Civil Rights Era ◽  
The Social ◽  
White Ignorance ◽  
Post Civil Rights

During the crisis that followed Hurricane Katrina, many Americans expressed surprise at the dramatic levels of racial inequality captured in the images of large numbers of poor Black people left behind in devastated New Orleans. In this article we argue that, to better understand both the parameters of contemporary racial inequality reflected in the hurricane's aftermath and why so many were surprised about the social realities of racial inequality that social scientists have known about for decades, it is essential to recognize the shifting nature of Whites' racial attitudes and understandings. There is widespread evidence that in the post-civil rights era the expression of White racial prejudice has changed. In fact, during the post-civil rights era subtle and indirect forms of prejudice have become more central to the sustenance and perpetuation of racial inequality than are overt forms of prejudice. We draw on both survey and qualitative data to investigate current manifestations of White racial attitudes and prejudices. Our results indicate that racial apathy, indifference towards racial and ethnic inequality, is a relatively new but expanding form of racial prejudice. We further show that Whites' systematic “not knowing” about racial inequality (White ignorance), which was manifest in the reaction to the crises after Hurricane Katrina, is related to this racial indifference. Racial apathy and White ignorance (i.e., not caring and not knowing) are extensions of hegemonic color-blind discourses (i.e., not seeing race). These phenomena serve as pillars of contemporary racial inequality that have until now received little attention. We conclude with a discussion of the theoretical and the practical implications of our results for understanding racial dynamics in the post-Katrina United States.

scholarly journals Changes in perceptions of media bias

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 205316802098744
Author(s):  
Kirby Goidel ◽  
Nicholas T. Davis ◽  
Spencer Goidel
Keyword(s):  
Attitude Change ◽  
Media Bias ◽  
Congressional Election ◽  
Election Study ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Change Perceptions ◽  
Individual Perceptions ◽  
2016 Election ◽  
The Media

In this paper, we utilize a module from the Cooperative Congressional Election Study to explore how individual perceptions of media bias changed over the course of the 2016 presidential campaign. While previous literature has documented the role of partisan affiliation in perceptions of bias, we know considerably less about how these perceptions change during a presidential election. Consistent with existing theories of attitude change, perceptions of bias polarize with strong Democrats moving toward believing the media were biased against Hillary Clinton (and in favor of Donald Trump) and independent-leaning Republicans moving toward believing the media were biased against Donald Trump. At the end of the 2016 election, more individuals believed the media were biased against their side. These effects were moderated by how much attention individuals paid to the campaign.

“I’m Not going to the f***ing White House”: Twitter Users React to Donald Trump and Megan Rapinoe

2020 ◽  
pp. 216747952095077
Author(s):  
Evan L. Frederick ◽  
Ann Pegoraro ◽  
Samuel Schmidt
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Black People ◽  
The United States ◽  
Critical Race ◽  
Race Theory ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
White House ◽  
Twitter Users ◽  
Inductive Analysis

When asked if she would go to the White House if invited, Megan Rapinoe stated, “I’m not going to the fucking White House.” The next morning, President Donald Trump posted a series of tweets in which he criticized Rapinoe’s statements. In his tweets, Trump introduced issues around race in the United States and brought forth his own notion of nationalism. The purpose of this study was to conduct an analysis of users’ tweets to determine how individuals employed Twitter to craft a narrative and discuss the ongoing Rapinoe and Trump feud within and outside the bounds of Critical Race Theory (CRT) and nationalism. An inductive analysis of 16,137 users’ tweets revealed three primary themes: a) Refuse, Refute, & Redirect Racist Rhetoric b) Stand Up vs. Know your Rights, and c) #ShutUpAndBeALeader. Based on the findings of this study, it appears that the dialogue regarding racism in the United States is quickly evolving. Instead of reciting the same refrain (i.e., racism no longer exists and systematic racism is constructed by Black people) seen in previous works, individuals in the current dataset refuted those talking points and clearly labeled the President as a racist. Additionally, though discussions of nationalism were evident in this dataset, the Stand Up vs. Know Your Rights theme was on the periphery in comparison to discussions of race. Perhaps, this indicates that some have grown tired of Trump utilizing nationalism as a means to stoke racism.

White Americans’ Opposition to Affirmative Action, Revisited: New Racism, Principled Objections, or Both?

2021 ◽  
pp. 232949652110246
Author(s):  
Matthew O. Hunt ◽  
Ryan A. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Affirmative Action ◽  
General Social Survey ◽  
First Century ◽  
White Americans ◽  
Short Article ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Mixed Support ◽  
Primary Determinant ◽  
Preferential Hiring ◽  
Key Aspects

In this short article, we provide an update and extension of Thomas C. Wilson’s study, “Whites’ Opposition to Affirmative Action: Rejection of Group-based Preferences as well as Rejection of Blacks.” Wilson drew on data from the 1996 General Social Survey (GSS) to revisit a long-standing debate in the racial attitudes literature concerning whether anti-black prejudice (e.g., “new racism”) or ostensibly race-neutral opposition to group-based policies generally (i.e., “principled objections”) is the primary determinant of whites’ opposition to affirmative action in the form of “preferential hiring and promotion for blacks.” We analyze data from the 2000–2018 GSS to replicate and extend key aspects of Wilson’s work. As in the prior study, we find mixed support for the new racism and principled objections perspectives, providing an important update on white Americans’ beliefs about affirmative action for the twenty-first century.

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