{"id":619,"date":"2017-01-07T13:27:42","date_gmt":"2017-01-07T18:27:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/l-stires.com\/thinking-slowly\/?p=619"},"modified":"2017-01-07T13:27:42","modified_gmt":"2017-01-07T18:27:42","slug":"so-far-it-looks-like-it-was-the-racism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/l-stires.com\/thinking-slowly\/so-far-it-looks-like-it-was-the-racism\/","title":{"rendered":"So Far, It Looks Like It Was the Racism"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>One question has dominated the conversation among political scientists attempting to explain the presidential election: Were Trump\u2019s supporters motivated primarily by economic anxiety or racial resentment?<\/i> So far, I\u2019ve avoided weighing in on this question, hoping that the definitive study would appear. It hasn\u2019t yet, but a new experiment by Michael Tesler<\/a> is interesting enough to warrant giving you a progress report.\n

The corporate media narrative clearly favors the economic explanation. In a typical article<\/a>, we are told (correctly) that the family incomes of working class families have been stagnant for 35 years, that trade agreements and the 2008 recession have caused widespread unemployment and underemployment, and that both political parties have ignored the plight of these Americans. This is followed by interviews with a couple of Trump supporters who express pain and anger over the way they have been treated. However, this is anecdotal evidence<\/a>. The answers given by Trump supporters are partially driven by the questions they are asked. For the media, framing the election in terms of economic anxiety rather than racism\u00a0avoids offending Trump and his supporters.<\/p>\n

Much of the evidence available prior to the election failed to support\u00a0the economic anxiety narrative. Surveys showed that racial attitudes predicted Trump support better than economic attitudes\u2014for example, these two<\/a>, and this one<\/a>. This large sample Gallup poll<\/a> also cast doubt on the economic explanation. The median household income<\/a> of a Trump supporter in the primaries was $72,000, higher than the median income of Clinton supporters ($61,000) and the general population ($56,000). In addition, post-election\u00a0analyses showed\u00a0that Clinton received more votes\u00a0<\/a>in economically-distressed communities\u2014those with a higher percentage of their population below the poverty line.<\/p>\n

Michael Tesler has been studying the racialization<\/em> of politics<\/a> for over a decade. Racialization refers to the tendency of racial attitudes to influence opinions toward a variety of other issues not obviously related to race, such as health care or gay marriage. Tesler embedded an experiment<\/a> within a YouGov\/Huffington Post national survey of 1000 voters conducted on December 6 and 7. Half the participants were asked if\u00a0they agreed with the following statement:<\/p>\n

Over the past few years, Blacks have gotten less than they deserve.<\/i><\/p>\n

Ths is an item from the Symbolic Racism Scale<\/a>, which is used to measure racial resentment. The remaining respondents were presented with this statement.<\/p>\n

Over the past few years, average Americans have gotten less than they deserve.<\/i><\/p>\n

Most people assume an \u201caverage American\u201d is White. In 2005, Devos and Banaji\u00a0conducted a series of five\u00a0studies<\/a> showing that the category \u201cAmerican\u201d is more strongly associated with the category \u201cWhite\u201d than either \u201cAfrican-American\u201d or \u201cAsian-American.\u201d Based on this evidence, Tesler assumed that respondents would interpret the second statement as referring to Whites. He then compared the responses of people who reported that they had voted for Clinton and Trump to these two questions.<\/p>\n

This study pits the economic anxiety and racial resentment explanations against one another. Would Trump voters be more likely than Clinton voters to agree that average Americans have gotten less than they deserve? Or would differences emerge only when\u00a0the question referred to Black Americans?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The results on the left show\u00a0<\/a>a typical racial divide between Black and White respondents. White participants were more than twice as likely to think that average Americans had gotten less than they deserve than to think that Blacks had gotten less than they deserve. Black participants thought everyone had gotten less than they deserve. Since there were more White than Black participants, the averages for the full sample resembled those of Whites.<\/p>\n

The data on the right<\/a> address\u00a0the research question. Clinton voters were almost as likely (57%) to say that average Americans have gotten less than they deserve as Trump voters (64%). Since this was a large\u00a0sample, this 7% difference is probably statistically significant, but it is small\u00a0in comparison to the difference on the racial resentment item. Only 12% of Trump supporters agreed that Blacks had gotten less than they deserved, compared to 57% of\u00a0Clinton supporters\u2014a difference of 45%. The data are more consistent with the racial resentment interpretation of Trump\u2019s victory.<\/p>\n

Tesler frames the\u00a0responses of Trump supporters\u00a0as an example of the\u00a0ultimate attribution error<\/a>. <\/em>Attribution is the processes by which we infer the causes of behavior. The ultimate attribution error is the tendency to take personal credit for our own successful behavior and that of our in-group, and\u00a0blaming our failures on environmental obstacles, while at the same time blaming members of out-groups for their failures, and\u00a0attributing their successes to unfair advantages. Given\u00a0this bias, it follows that Whites have gotten less than they deserve, while Blacks have gotten more.<\/p>\n

Were the election results caused by economic anxiety or racism? \u00a0We still await a more definitive study. It will require a larger sample of voters and a valid measure of economic anxiety, with\u00a0statistical controls for other variables known to influence voting decisions. If I see such a study, I\u2019ll let you know.<\/p>\n

You may also be interested in reading:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s Trump Card<\/a><\/p>\n

What Does a Welfare Recipient Look Like?<\/a><\/p>\n

Framing the Debates<\/a><\/p>\n<\/body>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"