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ABSTRACT
This paper seeks to examine the relationship between extremist mobilization and elite cues. Specifically, I explore how political elites can mobilize fringe extremists by looking at a specific example where Trump's 2016 candidacy mobilized members of the White extremist alt-right by appealing to their sense of White in-group identification. It will first be shown how the alt-right was responsive to Trump's rhetoric by performing interrupted time series analyses on blog texts from the prominent extremist Daily Stormer. Then, I will incorporate results from a survey experiment showing how White identity motivates those high in alt-right sentiment to support candidates who use racialized and White identity-related rhetoric. Finally, I connect these observations using data from the 2016 ANES pilot to show how White identity uniquely motivated primary-era support for Trump, showing how Trump was distinct in his appeal to those high in White identity. Across these last three analyses, I also show how out-group animus in the form of racial resentment consistently fails to predict the unique support that Trump received from the alt-right. Overall, this paper shows how White identity can result in White extremist support for a mainstream political candidate.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
4 In many ways this may be the best parallel to the contemporary situation, as formerly fringe groups are becoming politically mobilized, seeking to influence mainstream politics, and amassing larger popular movements while still employing in violence and terrorism.
7 “doesn't give a f**k”