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American National Election Study: Racism motivated Trump voters

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LosDaddie

Banned
And? Where do we go from here? No one is going to admit anything. So that leaves us with Democrats needing to get their votes.

Is it possible or do we have to just invest time into getting more Democrats to vote?

There is no progress possible with the Republican party as it currently exists. Or compromise, which they have proven isn't possible.

What did Obama do, that Hillary failed at mostly. It was the turnout. But the dems dropped the ball severely there assuming a w.

Exactly where I'm at.

Have to focus on increasing turnout, and nominating a candidate willing to put in the hard work necessary to win.
 

Enzom21

Member
In order to not be making things up based on emotion, yes, data is important.
Emotion? We saw the rallies and we know what Trump's platform was. You would have to be a fucking idiot to believe it was anything other than racism.
 
No matter how much data is produced there will still be people who swear until their throats are bloody that Trump voters are just misunderstood heroes of America or hapless fools tricked by an expert con man

And those people will also swear up and down that they are "liberals"
 

royalan

Member
While this data is pretty comprehensive, it's not the only data to be released since the election to point to this conclusion.

And, well I mean, a lot of people have eyes and ears. If you were paying attention, it was fairly obvious which statements Trump supporters were responding to the strongest. Well, other than Lock Her Up...

At this point, anybody trying to ignore the huge role race played in this election has a barely concealed agenda of their own. And that goes for both sides.
 

Crocodile

Member
Literally EVERY recent study I've seen of the election data has come to this conclusion yet still people will handwring about this fact. Sigh. The only solace I can take is that the margins were so small last Novemebr and Trump such a disaster that it won't take many voters to flip for us to win next time.

See if only Hillary had campaigned in Michigan and Wisconsin we could have abolished racism.

Hillary, you had one job!

The funny thing about this critique (which I don't think is too unfair as long as it isn't taken too far) is that it ignores that she camped out in states like PA, FL, NC, etc. and still lost them. It certainly wouldn't have hurt but its far from clear it would have been the difference maker.
 

Cipherr

Member
PtreU1O.gif


Was super obvious the entire campaign.
 

Bucca

Fools are always so certain of themselves, but wiser men so full of doubts.
I saw a dude riding around today with a Trump/Pence campaign bumper sticker, a "Hillary for Prison 2016" sticker, and an InfoWars (yes, seriously) sticker right next to it.

I was dumbfounded.
 

cdyhybrid

Member
Exactly where I'm at.

Have to focus on increasing turnout, and nominating a candidate willing to put in the hard work necessary to win.
The problem is that some will claim that the way to do that is to shift away from identity politics and focus on economic issues...but data like this clearly points out that identity politics won Trump the election, not his stance on the economy.
 
So a few things to note.

While this is indeed a study and shows study results. The article is a commentary analysis. A lot of people are responding to this and not recognizing that it is a commentary analysis. When you read the WaPo article, you can't even begin to understand how the study was conducted, or what the answers to that question means, because it's not reporting on the study, it's analyzing results and framing a narrative. They're literally numbers floating in a graph that don't have any explanation. For the racism related questions, you have this flow chart with a 4.2 and a 4.3. I can't tell you what those numbers mean, and while there is an implied association by color, there isn't even a freaking key to explain which line means what! All I can tell you is it's on a scale of five, this only involves white voters, I'm not sure of if this means Democratic vs GOP votes, or Trump votes v S. Clinton votes, and I'm not sure if 4.2 is a statistically significant compared to a 4.3.

And if you take the commentator's analysis, the trend of both white Trump and white S. Clinton voters is largely the same, as LESS RACIST, but to different magnitudes; with white Clinton voters agreeing less with coded phrases. You can even argue that white Democrats voters became more racist in 2012. Anyone here want to raise their hand to that one? That information is there in the graphs supported by half of the listed examples. Can I, as a fellow Obama voter, call you, as a fellow Obama voter, more racist, and have you feel comfortable with it? If no, do you think Trump voters want to be called racist? Do you think calling Trump voters racist is going to help change the political scene, or make them more open to voting for a Dem candidate in the future?

It isn't even an accurate extrapolation of the parties, because this is white voters only. I'm also not sure if it's segregated by party or support for one candidate or the other, because that information isn't explicitly provided, and the author doesn't delineate it well.

It's an awful commentary analysis. [There is literally no key on the below image]

https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-a...2017/04/WOOD-Fig-3-racism-796x1024.png&w=1484


I already addressed this elsewhere and will just repost my thoughts on it. Frankly, it runs in very similar tones to what I've stated since the election, and this doesn't change anything.

It looks like a mistake to use this trend as an indication of [white] people voted for Trump because they're racist. We just had a politician that campaigned on ideas that were crossover between xenophobic and racist with economic subtext. We had a president who campaigned hard against the ACA. Both of these ideas had pundit and advertisement context.
With the removal of the ACA advertisements, plus the addition of knowledge of what if it would mean if the ACA went away, the support for the ACA, unsurprisingly went up. That same coverage of what the Wall would mean hasn't been tied as strongly in media coverage, and therefore you haven't seen the same drop in support among Trump supporters.


When looking at states, I use South Dakota a lot, as a super white state that voted the following.
2008: 45% Obama 2012: 40% Obama [after birthering] 2016: 31% Clinton


If racism was as high of a voting priority as people are looking at this commentary analysis suggests, then I don't see how Obama could have fared as well in 2008, or especially 2012, even in more red states.
I think it's dangerous to look at this and then just call Trump voters racists, nor does I think it does anything to help any reasonable Democratic or Republican administration.
One thing you could possibly take away from this, as a Democrat, is that you have to target larger population bases. Whether or not you want to infer racism was a factor, it's clear that highlighting the plights of smaller voting powers disproportionately, no matter how ethically correct, didn't work in this election. A change I would do is to bundle economic justice for all; and less so for targeting small groups of voters. In this case, Sec. Clinton's campaign targeted black voters very specifically, but black voter turn out was down by 2 million, and this especially hurt in Trump flipped states. Trump campaigned towards a reliable voter turn out base of white voters, and he was frankly rewarded for it, and his campaign correctly recognized a "forgotten people".


Senator Sanders, President Obama, Senator Reid, and to a perhaps lesser extent President Clinton were all people who recognized this and commented on it immediately after the election. Senator Sanders, btw, also went out to engage black voters during his campaign, and he had to give up on it because he made little traction with it. Now he is going out and looking at the Trump voter population and trying to listen to their concerns and engage in dialogues with them. Van Jones is someone who also is going out of the way to find Trump voters, listen to them, and engage them. This is something Sec. Clinton frankly didn't do. She chose to skip so many states unlike President Obama, Senator Sanders, and President Clinton. South Dakota is one of those states that she skipped.

Lesson: If you don't target a voter group based on their consistency with voting, then don't expect to perform strongly with that group.
 

wildfire

Banned
The next chart shows how white GOP presidential voters have answered these questions since 2000. As we can see, Trump's voters appear a little less authoritarian than recent white Republican voters.

That is very chilling assessment. When the articles about the rise of more authoritarian people flocking to Trump came out in Jan and Feb 16 I thought his core supporters weren't the typical Republicans. But there was no concrete analysis back then about the party in general so this makes me feel the party is even less redeemable than before.


Emotion? We saw the rallies and we know what Trump's platform was. You would have to be a fucking idiot to believe it was anything other than racism.

Well TBF the campaign was also sexist and anti-reality.
 

jacobeid

Banned
Missing "shocking news" in the title. Nothing against you OP, and thank you for posting this. Just saying that this was obvious to anyone with half a brain for the entirety of his campaign.
 
What did Obama do, that Hillary failed at mostly. It was the turnout.
Obama was our first Black President, at the time of his election I could care less about politics. All I know is "oh cool I could be part of history by voting Obama, plus he shoots a mean 3 he got my vote"

I won't lie, most people I know who voted for trump, voted for Obama because they thought he would make marijuana legal simply based off the ridiculously high statistics that showed black men incarcerated for marijuana. Here was a guy who was going to right the ship, here is a guy that not only smoked in college but he inhaled as well.

Yeah well that didn't happen but it was a pretty good 8 years in my book. Hillary lost because it was Hillaty, I truly believe you put any other woman in that position and she would have destroyed Trump with out even doing much.
 
On the bright side, those last graphs in the OP show that there has been some decent progress made in reducing racial animosity from whites who vote democrat.

Or is that drop off just from the Democrats who switched for Trump in the rust belt?

It shows that Democrats are gaining rich white voters and losing poor white voters, more specifically.
 

tbm24

Member
I saw a dude riding around today with a Trump/Pence campaign bumper sticker, a "Hillary for Prison 2016" sticker, and an InfoWars (yes, seriously) sticker right next to it.

I was dumbfounded.
I parked behind one yesterday that has similar but it was all surrounded by NRA stickers.

The more studies hat are released its make me more upset with the bullshit I've read since the election ended.
 
2016 convinced me that there are two problems in America

White people who are racists

White people who ignore racists


Three actually.

Progresssives who would sit back and then cheer the resultant dumpster fire because they didn't get their way. Then say they were right and that both sides are the same in regards to reactions.
 
Many of us have been saying this since day 1 after the election, but some of you are obsessed with the whole economy anxiety angle. Is it just because Bernie said so?! I'm going to start calling you guys BernieKnows, because apparently his thoughts Trump data for some of you
 
This corroborates findings from the 2016 election study from "the Nation" I saw a few months ago (they too concluded that racial animus, not economic anxiety or even wealth, was the most reliable indicator of Trump support) and it supports all the data about the statistically higher level of racial animus that polls (and our own two eyes & ears) were detecting among Trump supporters during the primaries.
 

Dude Abides

Banned
But Obama won twice and it is literally impossible for someone to both be racist and have voted for Obama. It is like squaring a circle.
 

Magwik

Banned
And? Where do we go from here? No one is going to admit anything. So that leaves us with Democrats needing to get their votes.

Is it possible or do we have to just invest time into getting more Democrats to vote?

There is no progress possible with the Republican party as it currently exists. Or compromise, which they have proven isn't possible.

What did Obama do, that Hillary failed at mostly. It was the turnout. But the dems dropped the ball severely there assuming a w.
Obama campaigned on hope and change
That idea of change was enough for a difference of voters to also vote for Trump because it would be "change" and not "more of the same". Then you also have people who didn't vote because they're idiots who believe their vote doesn't matter anyways. And also Russian propaganda this election cycle. Shit sucks man.
 

ISOM

Member
I don't know how many articles and data has been released since the election has been over to prove that it wasn't economic anxiety but racism. A lot of people on this forum embarrassed themselves trying to minimize the racist appeal Trump had on this election the weeks following the results, or shifting blame entirely to Hillary. I'm glad these studies keep coming out and proving the most obvious answer was the most obvious.
 
Oh wow I totally didn't know this.

Wait, no I already knew this.

But hey you won't get the contrarians even with the pie charts.

People either are A: Are ambivalent or apathetic about racism and inequality which means "hey if it doesn't effect me or fuck up my netflix, I'm cool" or any other kind of cop out middle of the road centrist/moderate statements. Or like I said, just complete fucking apathy.
or B: Are themselves racist when it comes to voting for trumpler and his band of neonazi populist businessmen.

Or A and B.
 

Kyzer

Banned
Emotion? We saw the rallies and we know what Trump's platform was. You would have to be a fucking idiot to believe it was anything other than racism.

You could strongly suspect that it was racism, im just being technical. Just saying, its true for everything. Without evidence and data it cannot be a fact.

Now its a fact. With pie charts
 
bernie is the democratic party's head of outreach. it's literally his job to try and get people who voted for trump or didn't vote on board.

you don't do that by berating them for attitudes they might have.


Right. We should actually make them feel their racism is totally ok so we can get their votes. Nothing sleazy about that

2016 convinced me that there are two problems in America

White people who are racists

White people who ignore racists

See above
 

hawk2025

Member
I don't know how many articles and data has been released since the election has been over to prove that it wasn't economic anxiety but racism. A lot of people on this forum embarrassed themselves trying to minimize the racist appeal Trump had on this election the weeks following the results, or shifting blame entirely to Hillary. I'm glad these studies keep coming out and proving the most obvious answer was the most obvious.


There's still a fair number of people running on that hamster wheel around here.
 

guek

Banned
Y'all realize the only comment the article makes about economic factors is that there was an inverse correlation between increasing wealth and likelihood of voting Trump, right?


Anywho, yeah, racism was pretty pivotal last year.
 
Right. We should actually make them feel their racism is totally ok so we can get their votes. Nothing sleazy about that



See above

Seriously, what do you want to do to get Democrats to win then? Do you just want to lose over and over and over and then not get the social change we want?

There is this consistent and stupid push to have purity tests for progressive causes. If you want to lose, push for purity tests.

If you don't want to lose, you can accept candidates that don't take the ethically best positions in public. Candidate Barack Obama stated "I believe marriage is between a man and a woman". He didn't campaign for gay rights. He took a neutral at best position.

It's not about ignoring that racists exists, it's about recruiting as broad of a tent possible to a platform where we can make social changes to help people eliminate the idea of being racists. Maybe they won't happen as fast as a light switch, but it's better than having them not occur at all.
 
I don't need studies and polls to know that racism played a role, and the people who do think data, evidence, charts and science are liberal elitism at work, so *shrugface*.
 
But how can you be racist if you voted for a black president just like how can you be racist if you have one, just one black friend??

I don't even get why people who obviously are racist get so offended when facing a statement of fact. At least be proud of what you are. At least that would make some sense.
 
Seriously, what do you want to do to get Democrats to win then? Do you just want to lose over and over and over and then not get the social change we want?

There is this consistent and stupid push to have purity tests for progressive causes. If you want to lose, push for purity tests.

If you don't want to lose, you can accept candidates that don't take the ethically best positions in public. Candidate Barack Obama stated "I believe marriage is between a man and a woman". He didn't campaign for gay rights. He took a neutral at best position.

It's not about ignoring that racists exists, it's about recruiting as broad of a tent possible to a platform where we can make social changes to help people eliminate the idea of being racists. Maybe they won't happen as fast as a light switch, but it's better than having them not occur at all.

Why are you acting like Democrats were completely destroyed and that Trump didn't have one of the smallest wins in US history? I'd say the distrust and hate towards Hillary Clinton contributed waaaay more than racist snowflakes being turned off by her identity politics heavy platform. Dems need to go back to their 50 state strategy instead of just targeting areas that already lean blue, but that does not mean they need to tailor their platform to be accepting of bigotry
 
Seriously, what do you want to do to get Democrats to win then? Do you just want to lose over and over and over and then not get the social change we want?

There is this consistent and stupid push to have purity tests for progressive causes. If you want to lose, push for purity tests.

If you don't want to lose, you can accept candidates that don't take the ethically best positions in public. Candidate Barack Obama stated "I believe marriage is between a man and a woman". He didn't campaign for gay rights. He took a neutral at best position.

It's not about ignoring that racists exists, it's about recruiting as broad of a tent possible to a platform where we can make social changes to help people eliminate the idea of being racists. Maybe they won't happen as fast as a light switch, but it's better than having them not occur at all.

I do not think abandoning civil rights issues for "economic" issues is a great long term strategy, nor do I think pointing this out makes me in support of party purity. For instance, I wish liberals would drop the gun stuff
 
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