Multiple Baskets: Diverse Racial Frames and the 2016 Republican Primary

Abstract

A strain of racist, xenophobic populism is sweeping through many democracies, jumping from the fringes of political discourse to the mainstream. Understanding how Donald Trump was able to take power while making explicitly racist appeals is vital to understanding this phenomenon. This article examines the 2016 Republican primary, drawing on data from the National Election Study pilot survey to explore how, and why some voters favored Trump over other Republicans. Were Trump voters reacting to the adverse economic effects of globalization, or the 2008 financial crisis? Were they traditional “Southern Strategy” Republicans? Were they white nationalists? While I find evidence that negative attitudes toward Hispanic-Americans, Muslim-Americans, and African Americans strongly predict favorability to Trump, I also find that hostile attitudes toward minority groups are not as strongly concentrated as a “white nationalism” interpretation would conclude. Rather than a single “basket” of racially anxious voters, Trump was able to appeal to a grab-bag of people with distinct anxieties. Insofar as one might be interested in defusing populism, there may not be a single solution, but rather multiple ones aimed at mobilizing diverse targets of racism.

Notes

¹ I do not mean to suggest that Trump is the first American politician to appeal to voters on a basis of race, merely that his rhetoric and policy proposals stand out in their overt embrace of racism.

² It can be a challenge to demarcate what populism is. Right-wing populism can be distinguished from left-leaning varieties in its attempt to use the language of popular sovereignty to limit minority rights. The call for “illiberal democracy” by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán would be a prototypical example. Many contemporary populist movements avoid xenophobia. The Five-star movement in Italy, Podemos in Spain, Syriza in Greece, and the Bernie Sanders campaign in the United States might be thought of as examples of left-leaning populism. Some democratic theorists continue to believe that populism remains an essential element of democracy, for instance see: Laura Grattan, Populism’s Power: Radical Grassroots Democracy in America (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2016).

³ See, for instance: Michelle Lee, “Donald Trump’s False Comments Connecting Mexican Immigrants and Crime,” Washington Post, (July 8, 2015), available online at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/07/08/donald-trumps-false-comments-connecting-mexican-immigrants-and-crime; Brent Kendall, “Trump Says Judge’s Mexican Heritage Presents ‘Absolute Conflict,’” Wall Street Journal, (June 3, 2016), available online at: http://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trump-keeps-up-attacks-on-judge-gonzalo-curiel-1464911442; Glen Kessler, “Donald Trump and David Duke: For the Record,” Washington Post, (March 1, 2016), available online at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/03/01/donald-trump-and-david-duke-for-the-record/; J. M Berger, “How White Nationalists Learned to Love Donald Trump,” Politico, (October 25, 2016), available online at: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/10/donald-trump-2016-white-nationalists-alt-right-214388; Nick Gass, “Trump Defends Telling Black Voters ‘What do You Have to Lose?,’” Politico, (September 21, 2016), available online at: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/trump-what-have-you-got-to-lose-228462.

⁴ Justin Jouvenal, Rachel Weiner, and Ann Marimow, “Justice Dept. Lawyer Says 100,000 Visas Revoked Under Travel Ban; State Dept. Says About 60,000,” (February 3, 2017), available online at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/government-reveals-over-100000-visas-revoked-due-to-travel-ban/2017/02/03/7d529eec-ea2c-11e6-b82f-687d6e6a3e7c_story.html?utm_term=.036e390e5731.

⁵ The Courts used Trump’s own language from the campaign trail as evidence that the executive order was conceived with an explicitly discriminatory intent.

⁶ Southern Poverty Law Center, “Update: More Than 400 Incidents of Hateful Harassment and Intimidation Since the Election,” Southern Poverty Law Center, (November 15, 2016), available online at: https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2016/11/15/update-more-400-incidents-hateful-harassment-and-intimidation-election.

⁷ Reuters, “Trump, Again, Casts Blame on Both Sides for Deadly Violence in Virginia,” New York Times, (August 15, 2017), available online at: https://in.reuters.com/article/virginia-protests/trump-again-casts-blame-on-both-sides-for-deadly-violence-in-virginia-idINKCN1AV0WP.

⁸ Human Rights Watch, “Philippines: Duterte Threatens Human Rights Community,” Human Rights Watch, (August 17, 2017), available online at: https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/08/17/philippines-duterte-threatens-human-rights-community.

⁹ Respectively, the far-right parties are: the Front National in France, Party for Freedom in the Netherlands, the Golden Dawn in Greece, the True Finns in Finland, the Democrats in Sweden, the Danish People’s Party in Denmark, and the Freedom Party in Austria.

¹⁰ Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Times, (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2001).

¹¹ Bensel Richard, Sectionalism and American Political Development (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987).

¹² CNN, “Exit Polls,” CNN (2016), available online at: http://www.cnn.com/election/results/exit-polls/.

¹³ American National Election Studies, American National Election Study: 2016 Pilot Study (Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research, 2016), available online at: http://www.electionstudies.org/studypages/anes_pilot_2016/anes_pilot_2016.htm.

¹⁴ See John Sides, Michael Tesler and Lynn Vavreck, Identity Crisis: The 2016 Campaign and the Battle for the Meaning of America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018).

¹⁵ Peter Gourevitch, Politics in Hard Times: Comparative Responses to International Economic Crises (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986); Kenneth Scheve and Matthew Slaughter, “A New Deal for Globalization,” Foreign Affairs 84:4 (2007), pp. 1–33; Jeff Guo, “Stop Blaming Racism for Donald Trump’s Rise,” The Washington Post, (August 19, 2016), available online at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/08/19/stop-blaming-racism-for-donald-trumps-rise/; Branko Milanovic, Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalization (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016).

¹⁶ David Autor, David Dorn, Gordon Hanson and Kaveh Majlesi, “A Note on the Effect of Rising Trade Exposure on the 2016 Presidential Election,” Working Paper (2016), available online at: http://www.ddorn.net/papers/ADHM-President2016.pdf.

¹⁷ Shannon Monnat, “Deaths of Despair and Support for Trump in the 2016 Presidential Election,” Research Brief, (December 4, 2016), available online at: http://aese.psu.edu/directory/smm67/Election16.pdf.

¹⁸ For instance, see: Mark Lilla, The Once and Future Liberal (New York, NY: Harper Collins, 2017).

¹⁹ CNN. “Exit Polls,” CNN 2016, available online at: http://www.cnn.com/election/results/exit-polls.

²⁰ Philip Klinkner, “The Easiest Way to Guess if Someone Supports Trump? Ask if Obama is a Muslim,” Vox, (June 2, 2016), available online at: http://www.vox.com/2016/6/2/11833548/donald-trump-support-race-religion-economy.

²¹ Katherine Cramer, The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and the Rise of Scott Walker (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2016).

²² The maintenance of a two-tier welfare state, with some programs (like Medicare) framed as entitlements, and others (like food stamps) framed as “welfare” could further notions that the welfare state merely serves others.

²³ Ian Haney Lopez, Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2015).

²⁴ Linda Williams, The Constraint of Race: Legacies of White Skin Privilege in America (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania University Press, 2003); Joe Soss, Richard Fording, and Sanford Schram, Disciplining the Poor: Neoliberal Paternalism and the Persistent Power of Race (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2011).

²⁵ Ian Haney Lopez, Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2015).

²⁶ Facing discrimination in mortgage markets, minorities were more likely to rely on subprime loans even controlling for income levels according to Richard Williams, Reynold Nesiba, and Eileen Diaz McConnell, “The Changing Face of Inequality in Home Mortgage Lending,” Social Problems 52:2 (2005), pp. 181–208.

²⁷ Specifically, Klinkner used data from a 0 to 100 feeling thermometer for Trump and Clinton, subtracting the latter form the former.

²⁸ The variables and methods employed are discussed later. The sample in question included all white ANES 2016 pilot study respondents.

²⁹ T. W. Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel Levinson, and R. Nevitt Sanford, The Authoritarian Personality (Oxford, UK: Harpers, 1950).

³⁰ MacWilliams, Matthew, “Who Decides When the Party Doesn’t? Authoritarian Voters and the Rise of Donald Trump,” PS: Political Science 49:4 (2016), pp. 716–721.

³¹ Paul Sniderman, Louk Hagendoorn, and Markus Prior, “Predisposing Factors and Situational Triggers: Exclusionary Reactions to Immigrant Minorities,” American Political Science Review 98:1 (2004), pp. 35–49; Paul Sniderman, and Louk Hagendoorn, When Ways of Life Collide: Multiculturalism and its Discontents in the Netherlands (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007).

³² Another possible explanation for overlapping prejudices might lie in the connection between views of “the other” and pathogen sensitivity. For instance, Horner and Rule explore the restrictionist presentation of immigrants as sources of “contagion,” at times literally (for example, immigrants suffering from HIV are often subject to additional restrictions and attacks) or morally. Jed Horner, and John Rule, “The Politics of Space and the Spacialisation of Politics: New Directions for Examining the Connections Between Immigration and Contagion,” New Political Science 35:3 (2013), pp. 463–78. Another forthcoming paper finds evidence that anti-immigrant views are best predicted by pathogen sensitivity: Lene Aarøe, Michael Petersen and Kevin Arceneaux, “The Behavioral Immune System Shapes Political Intuitions,” American Political Science Review 111:2 (2017), pp. 277–294.

³³ Donald Kinder, and Cindy Kam, Us Against Them: Ethnocentric Foundations of American Opinion (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2009).

³⁴ See Nancy Love, Trendy Fascism: White Power Music and the Future of Democracy (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2016); Nancy Love, “Singing Alone is Not Enough: A Response to Reviewers,” New Political Science 39:2 (2017), pp. 295–97.

³⁵ Bruce Baum, “Music to Their Ears: Nancy Love’s Trendy Fascism, White Nationalism, and the Future of Whiteness,” New Political Science 39:2 (2017), pp. 269–77.

³⁶ María Pía Lara, “On Trendy Fascism,” New Political Science 39:2 (2017), pp. 283–288.

³⁷ In contrast with most other post-9/11 Republicans, Trump frequently avoids the rhetoric of American exceptionalism and nationalism.

³⁸ J. M Berger, “How White Nationalists Learned to Love Donald Trump,” Politico, (October 25, 2016), available online at: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/10/donald-trump-2016-white-nationalists-alt-right-214388.

³⁹ See John Sides, Michael Tesler and Lynn Vavreck, Identity Crisis: The 2016 Campaign and the Battle for the Meaning of America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018).

⁴⁰ Whether President Trump and his staff espouse white nationalist views is a separate question—the aim here is simply to examine what drove his support.

⁴¹ Respondents were considered more resentful if they agreed with statements that “Irish, Italians, Jewish and many other minorities overcame prejudice and worked their way up. Blacks should do the same without any special favors,” and “It’s really a matter of some people not trying hard enough; if blacks would only try harder they could be just as well off as whites.” Disagreement with statements that “Generations of slavery and discrimination have created conditions that make it difficult for blacks to work their way out of the lower class,” and “Over the past few years, blacks have gotten less than they deserve,” was also considered more resentful.

⁴² ANES respondents were asked different questions about favoritism from a Latino president.

⁴³ R. Branton, EC Cassese, and BS Jones, “All Along the Watchtower: Acculturation Fear, Anti-Latino Affect, and Immigration,” Journal of Politics 73:3 (2011), pp. 664–79.

⁴⁴ D J. Hopkins, “The Upside of Accents: Language, Skin Tone, and Attitudes Toward Immigration.” British Journal of Political Science 45:3 (2015), pp. 531–57.

⁴⁵ See, for instance, John Sides, Michael Tesler, and Lynn Vavreck, “How Trump Lost and Won,” Journal of Democracy 28:2 (2017), pp. 34–44; Brian Schaffner, Matthew MacWilliams and Tatishe Nteta, “Understanding White Polarization in the 2016 Vote for President: The Sobering Role of Racism and Sexism,” Political Science Quarterly (forthcoming).

⁴⁶ John Hultgren, “The ‘Nature’ of American Immigration Restrictionism,” New Political Science 36:1 (2014), pp. 52–75.

⁴⁷ Alexander Rose, “How did Muslims Vote in 2000?” Middle East Quarterly 8:3 (2001), pp. 13–27.

⁴⁸ Admittedly, exit polls should be taken with a grain of salt. Not only do they have small sample sizes, they may also exhibit sampling bias. For historical exit polls, see: Roper Center, “How Groups Voted,” Roper Center for Public Opinion Research, available online at: http://ropercenter.cornell.edu/polls/us-elections/how-groups-voted/.

⁴⁹ CNN, “Exit Polls,” CNN (2004), available online at: http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/US/P/00/epolls.0.html.

⁵⁰ New Republic, “Ted Cruz: Invasion,” New Republic Campaign Ad Archive (January 5, 2016), available online at: https://newrepublic.com/political-ad-database/ted-cruz-invasion/MS81LzE2OkludmFzaW9u.

⁵¹ Democracy Corps is run by James Carville, a Democratic Party strategist. Nonetheless, it is striking how closely the talking points found among “Tea Party” and “Evangelical” participants resembles increasingly common discourses about immigration in the United States. Democracy Corps, “Inside the GOP: Report on Focus Groups with Evangelical, Tea Party and Moderate Republicans,” Democracy Corps, (October 3, 2013), available online at: http://www.democracycorps.com/Republican-Party-Project/inside-the-gop-report-on-focus-groups-with-evangelical-tea-party-and-moderate-republicans/.

⁵² The effects of an actual increase in immigration are less clear. Sides and Citrin found that friendship with immigrants predicted less support for anti-immigrant politicians. Hainmueller and Hopkins, in turn, summarize conflicting findings about the impact of contact with immigrants in the American political context, with effects hinging on whether individuals expect to encounter out-group members or not, and whether contact is personal or not. John Sides and Jack Citrin, “European Opinion About Immigration: The Role of Identities, Interests and Information,” British Journal of Political Science 37:3 (2007), pp. 477–504; Jens Hainmueller and Daniel Hopkins, “Public Attitudes toward Immigration,” Annual Reviews of Political Science 17 (2014), pp. 225–49.

⁵³ Ryan Enos, “Causal Effect of Intergroup Contact on Exclusionary Attitudes,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 111:10 (2014), pp. 3699–704.

⁵⁴ Jeb Bush had even listed himself as “Hispanic” on a voter form. See: Alan Rappeport, “Bush Marked Himself ‘Hispanic’ on 2009 Voting Form,” New York Times, (April 6, 2015), available online at: https://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/04/06/jeb-bush-listed-himself-as-hispanic-on-voter-form/.

⁵⁵ Some caution is, doubtless, in order. The ANES pilot study is smaller than the CCES. However, it was conducted during the 2016 primary, a time when preferences toward Republican primary contenders was relatively high-profile.

⁵⁶ For background on the appropriateness of Tobit models see Lee Sigelman, and Langche Zeng, “Analyzing Censored and Sample-selected Models with Tobit and Heckit Models,” Political Analysis 8:2 (1999), pp. 167–82.

⁵⁷ The ANES asked different people different questions about a Latino president. Half of respondents were asked if they felt a Latino president would favor immigrants, the other whether a Latino president would enact policies favoring Latin America. In my analysis I show the two questions both jointly and separately.

⁵⁸ I have run this model using racial identity instead of American identity. When controlling for hostile frames, racial identification loses its statistical significance.

⁵⁹ Yotam Margalit, “Lost in Globalization: International Economic Integration and the Sources of Popular Discontent,” International Studies Quarterly 56:3 (2012), pp. 484–500.

⁶⁰ Ma Tianjie, “Western Liberalism is Dying in China: Why educated Chinese are Embracing Donald Trump’s Winner-Take-All Worldview,” Foreign Policy, (November 16, 2016), available online at: http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/11/16/the-peoples-republic-of-donald-trump-why-educated-chinese-are-spurning-western-liberalism/.

⁶¹ All binary variables were held at 1 (essentially assuming a white male). Although this changes the predicted level of support for Trump and Rubio, it does not alter the gap between the two.

⁶² In model 3 (just white respondents), the impact of a swing from least to most worried about a Latino president, netted Trump 23.586 points. In model 5 (just Republicans), the same swing netted Trump 31.939 points.