logo
    • Magazine
    • Membership
    • Donate
  • Racial Justice
  • Economic Justice
    • Collections
  • Climate Justice
  • Health Justice
  • Leadership
  • CONTENT TYPES
  • Subscribe
  • Webinars
    • Upcoming Webinars
    • Complimentary Webinars
    • Premium On-Demand Webinars
  • Membership
  • Submissions

Study: Racism-Fueled Electoral Victory—The Challenge to Nonprofits and Philanthropy

Martin Levine
April 20, 2017
Share
Tweet
Share
Email
Print

By Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America (Donald Trump) [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons
April 17, 2017; Washington Post, “The Monkey Cage”

Just hours after Donald Trump was declared the winner of the 2016 presidential election, the search for the reasons we were so surprised was well underway. What forces were at work in our society that had gone so unnoticed that the results were so surprising? Attention quickly fell upon the angst of white, working-class voters who felt left behind and left out. Five months of research into the 2016 election leads to a more nuanced and disturbing understanding: Worker disenfranchisement was a factor, but less important than the growing racial animosity among those white voters.

The American National Election Study has been conducted following every presidential election since 1948. According Ohio State Political Science Professor Thomas Wood, ANES provides an “incredibly rich, publicly funded data source [that] allows us to put elections into historical perspective, examining how much each factor affected the vote in 2016 compared with other recent elections.” Its 80-minute interviews gather information about attitudes and motivations that might otherwise not be available and allow the study to go much deeper than the typical exit poll.

Writing in the Washington Post, Professor Wood shares his take on the ANES dataset in an attempt to better understand underlying cultural forces at play. White working-class voters, especially those in areas hit hard by plant and mine closings, were the wildcard that put enough Electoral College votes in the Trump column to elect him. What motivated them to make that choice? While economics and the growing appeal of authoritarian, “alt-right” ideology played some part, the key factor, the one that makes this election different than others, appears to have been their racial bias.

Comparing the attitudes of white Democratic voters with their Republican counterparts, Professor Wood found that “Since 1988, we’ve never seen such a clear correspondence between vote choice and racial perceptions. The biggest movement was among those who voted for the Democrat, who were far less likely to agree with attitudes coded as more racially biased.”

Democrats seem to have taken the path toward a more racially inclusive culture; those more motivated by their fear of others vote the other way. This jibes with earlier data gathered during the primary campaigns, which Jason McDaniel and Sean McElwee looked at when writing for Salon.

Sign up for our free newsletters

Subscribe to NPQ's newsletters to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

On just about every measure, support for Trump increased along with measured racial animus…increased levels of overt racial stereotyping among white respondents—as measured by belief that black people, Muslims, and Hispanics are “lazy” or “violent”—strongly increases support for Trump, even after controlling for other factors.

While the strength and authoritarian persona of President Trump had some appeal, both factors were overshadowed in the end.

“Finally, the statistical tool of regression can tease apart which had more influence on the 2016 vote: authoritarianism or symbolic racism, after controlling for education, race, ideology, and age. Moving from the 50th to the 75th percentile in the authoritarian scale made someone about three percent more likely to vote for Trump. The same jump on the SRS scale made someone 20 percent more likely to vote for Trump. Racial attitudes made a bigger difference in electing Trump than authoritarianism.”

Three other researchers, John Sides, Michael Tesler, and Lynn Vavreck, just published their conclusions about this election in an article in the Journal of Democracy. They too saw growing racism among the key drivers of the Trump victory: “Three factors…help explain this outcome. First, fundamental economic and political trends favored a Democratic popular vote win. Second, the party coalitions had become more polarized by race and education during Obama’s presidency. Third, Trump’s focus on issues connected to ethnic and social identities made attitudes toward immigration and African Americans more important in voters’ choices in 2016 than they had been in 2012.”

The president’s victory came with a very narrow margin, and the new administration’s first days have been rocky and protest-filled. What we now see is that racism and bias remain key motivators for a significant part of the American population. None of us—politicians, policymakers, anyone concerned about solving the critical human problems we face—can ignore this. Focusing on policy and legislation without directly confronting racial anger and hatred cannot change the landscape.—Martin Levine

Share
Tweet
Share
Email
Print
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Martin Levine

Martin Levine is a Principal at Levine Partners LLP, a consulting group focusing on organizational change and improvement, realigning service systems to allow them to be more responsive and effective. Before that, he served as the CEO of JCC Chicago, where he was responsible for the development of new facilities in response to the changing demography of the Metropolitan Jewish Community. In addition to his JCC responsibilities, Mr. Levine served as a consultant on organizational change and improvement to school districts and community organizations. Mr. Levine has published several articles on change and has presented at numerous conferences on this subject. A native of New York City, Mr. Levine is a graduate of City College of New York (BS in Biology) and Columbia University (MSW). He has trained with the Future Search and the Deming Institute.

More about: Nonprofit NewsPolicy

Become a member

Support independent journalism and knowledge creation for civil society. Become a member of Nonprofit Quarterly.

Members receive unlimited access to our archived and upcoming digital content. NPQ is the leading journal in the nonprofit sector written by social change experts. Gain access to our exclusive library of online courses led by thought leaders and educators providing contextualized information to help nonprofit practitioners make sense of changing conditions and improve infra-structure in their organizations.

Join Today
logo logo logo logo logo
See comments

NPQ_Winter_2022Subscribe Today
You might also like
Cancelling Student Debt Is Necessary for Racial Justice
Kitana Ananda
To Save Legal Aid, Expand Public Service Loan Forgiveness
Zoë Polk
No Justice, No Peace of Mind and Body: The Health Impacts of Housing Insecurity for Black Women
Jhumpa Bhattacharya, Maile Chand and Andrea Flynn
The Human Impact of the Global Refugee Crisis Must Be Understood—And Acted Upon
Anmol Irfan
Black Americans Need Reparations: The Fight for the CTC Highlights the Roadblocks
Jhumpa Bhattacharya and Trevor Smith
Edgar Cahn’s Second Act: Time Banking and the Return of Mutual Aid
Steve Dubb

Upcoming Webinars

Group Created with Sketch.
February 23rd, 2 pm ET

Worker Power in the Social Sector

Register Now
Group Created with Sketch.
March 15th, 2 pm ET

Remaking the Economy

Caring for the Care Economy

Register Now
You might also like
Cancelling Student Debt Is Necessary for Racial Justice
Kitana Ananda
To Save Legal Aid, Expand Public Service Loan Forgiveness
Zoë Polk
No Justice, No Peace of Mind and Body: The Health Impacts of...
Jhumpa Bhattacharya, Maile Chand and Andrea Flynn

Like what you see?

Subscribe to the NPQ newsletter to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

See our newsletters

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

Independent & in your mailbox.

Subscribe today and get a full year of NPQ for just $59.

subscribe
  • About
  • Contact
  • Advertise
  • Copyright
  • Careers

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

 

Non Profit News | Nonprofit Quarterly
Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.