Did Secretary Clinton lose to a ‘basket of deplorables’? An examination of Islamophobia, homophobia, sexism and conservative ideology in the 2016 US presidential election

ABSTRACT

The current study compared attitudes towards LGBTQ individuals, racism, Islamophobia, ambivalent sexism and conservative ideology across Hillary Clinton voters, Donald Trump voters and third party/undecided voters in the 2016 US presidential election. Participants (n = 249) intending to vote for Clinton had significantly lower scores on all attitude measures compared to Trump and third party/undecided voters, with the exception of Islamophobia, where Clinton and third party/undecided voters had significantly lower scores than Trump voters. A multinomial logistic regression was run to assess age, education, attitudes towards LGBTQ individuals, Islamophobia, sexism and social dominance orientation, as predictors of being a Trump, Clinton or a third party/undecided voter. Attitudes towards LGBTQ individuals, Islamophobia, sexism and social dominance orientation were significant predictors of voting behaviour such that those who were less homophobic, less Islamophobic, less sexist and had less of a social dominance orientation were more likely to vote for Clinton than for Trump or a third party candidate. Ambivalent sexism was the strongest predictor of voting for someone other than Clinton, regardless of whether participants identified as Trump or third party/undecided voters. Results are discussed within the context of understanding the role of multiple prejudices in determining the outcome of the 2016 US presidential election.

KEYWORDS:

• Election
• sexual prejudice
• ambivalent sexism
• Islamophobia
• Hillary Clinton
• Donald Trump

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. In the US Election System, each party holds ‘primaries’, in which they elect the person who will receive the party’s nomination. Part of these primaries includes debates between the candidates, and Megyn Kelly, a now former Fox News Anchor, was one of the moderators for one of the Republican Primary Debates.

2. The realm of Internet blogs and the people who read and write them (Dictionary.com, 2017).

3. As assessed by independent samples t-tests. All p values ranged between .42 and <.001, with the majority being <.001. There were no mean differences greater than a single scale point, with the majority being less than half a scale point. Full analyses are available from the author upon request.

4. The 10-item version was used over the original 12-item, due to reports of superior factorial structure with the 10-item version reported in Morrison et al. (2005).

5. ATLG was chosen over MHS due to the level of rhetoric on the election more closely approximating the construct of old-fashioned homophobia as opposed to modern homonegativity and Islamophobia was chosen over modern racism, again, because of the strong views concerning ‘security’ and heightened scrutiny of immigrants and travelers from Islamic nations during the election. Supplemental analyses were run with using alternate predictors (e.g. MHS instead of ATLG) and results were similar to those reported in the manuscript.

6. It is difficult to conceive of any aspect of a Trump presidency being inconsequential, given what has transpired in only the first 8 months of his term: multiple attempts at banning Muslims from specific countries from entering the country, firing of the director of the FBI, attempted repeals of the healthcare programme that provides healthcare insurance to millions of Americans who would otherwise be unable to have health insurance; a ban on transgender individuals in the military; increased hostilities and tensions between the United States and North Korea concerning the potential for nuclear war; repeal of the Dreamer’s act, which provides protection from deportation for children brought to the USA illegally before their 16th birthday; and removal the USA from the Paris Climate Agreement.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Experiment.com under grant [doi: 10.18258/1003], the Canadian Institutes of Health Research: [Grant Number 115499], an American Institute of Bisexuality grant and St. Francis Xavier University: [Grant Number UCR #2015-02]. A complete list of Experiment.com donors can be found here: http://www.drkarenblair.com/pdasponsors.

Notes on contributors

Karen L. Blair

Karen L. Blair, PhD., is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia, Canada, and director of KLB Research. Dr. Blair studies the role that social support for relationships plays in the development, maintenance and dissolution of relationships, LGBTQ Psychology, and the connections between relationships, social prejudices, and health. For more information, please visit: www.DrKarenBlair.com .