Issue 6: Election Post-Mortem, Part 2

Dear Runners,

This is Part 2 of my post-election analysis. I know a lot of you are new (welcome!) and you can read Part 1, and all my wacky conclusions, here. Remember what I said last week about being wrong, and how generally terrible post-mortems actually are. We all want to be like this:

But in reality we’re going to be like this:

It’s not just us. Don’t sweat it too much, and instead focus on what you can do, which I’ll get to in a minute.

Part 1 is about the white working class and how they didn’t influence this election the way people think they did. My point wasn’t that we should ignore these people, or that they weren’t important in this election at all, but I was trying to curtail what I see as some panic on the part of my fellow Democrats. We don’t need to completely change our strategy to appeal more to white voters; we don’t need to abandon “identity politics” (which is just another way of saying “sell out people of color and women”); and we don’t need to have all the answers. Obviously I believe you are all good people, and maybe you never wanted to step away from progressive messaging on race and gender; but maybe you felt like you had to anyway. I certainly did after the election. I had this “look, if I need to sell my progressive soul to keep Trump from winning again in 2020, I will. I won’t like it, but I’ll do whatever it takes” attitude. We were being bombarded with messages about everything we did wrong, about how out of touch we were, how un-empathetic to certain types of people. That’s what panic looks like. And soul-searching is one thing but freaking out is another.

Today I want to make the case that racism and sexism were a big part of this election. In concert with Part 1, I believe I make a pretty strong case that they racism and sexism were more important than economic concerns, and that initial analyses ignoring these as significant factors were wrong. I’m going to use more data, just to give you analytical folks, including myself, a leg to stand on.

I shouldn’t even have to SAY that I don’t think every single person in the white working class, or in the Republican Party, or in rural America is a racist; and anyone who is making you make that argument is straw-manning you. Anyone who says “well not all white people” is derailing the conversation. Don’t let them. Acknowledge, if you must, that you don’t mean “all white people” and let them know you think it’s ridiculous of them to suggest otherwise. Also, perhaps, point out to them that the fact that working class people of EVERY other racial group voted overwhelmingly Democrat, when in fact they are worse off on average than their white working class counterparts, indicates very strongly that something racially-motivated is going on.

But now that we’ve gotten that disclaimer out of the way, let’s be real here. According to polling by YouGov, 58% of surveyed Trump supporters ranked in the highest quartile of racial resentment in the country. Over half of Trump voters were among the highest quarter of most racially resentful people in the United States. And 91% of Trump supporters scored above the national average for racial resentment.

Racial resentment is based on a series of questions used by social scientists. Many people are unwilling to answer obvious questions about racism honestly, so instead researchers ask proxy questions. In other words, people would be very unlikely to put “yes” on a survey to the question “I am racist” or “I dislike Black people”. So instead they ask subtler questions like: how much do you agree with the statement “generations of slavery and discrimination have created conditions that make it difficult for blacks to work their way out of the lower class”? The more someone disagrees, the higher their racial resentment score on that particular question. The total score is based on all questions asked.

Polls show strong correlation between racial resentment and sexist resentment and support for Trump, much stronger than the correlation between economic satisfaction and Trump support:

There are multiple pieces of research showing that sexism was a very strong factor in supporting Trump. This research was conducted using a similar analysis to the racial resentment questions. Instead of asking people “are you sexist?”, researchers ask subjects questions such as how much they agree or disagree with the statement “Many women are actually seeking special favors, such as hiring policies that favor women over men, under the guise of asking for equality.” If they agree strongly, that’s an indicator of sexism. There are another set of questions that measure what’s called “benevolent sexism”, the attitude more along the lines of “women are special and precious and I want to preserve traditional family roles” more so than “women are devious and terrible.” Benevolent sexism had virtually no effect on Trump support; only overtly hostile sexism did.

This isn’t even business as usual for Republicans. We young liberals might think of the GOP generally as the party of bigots, but in 2008 and 2012, racial resentment, for example, had a slightly negative correlation on votes for Romney or McCain (in other words, the most racially resentful were actually slightly LESS likely to vote for McCain or Romney than the least racially resentful):

This is true in preliminary analyses on sexism as well. For example, in New Hampshire, sexism correlated MUCH more strongly with support for Trump than it did with support for Romney:

The slope of Romney’s line is pretty flat, meaning there was little difference between the most sexist and the least sexist voters in terms of whether or not they voted for Romney. With Trump, the probability of the most sexist voters in New Hampshire voting for him was almost twice as high as it was among the least sexist voters.

Why would racism and sexism be showing up as stronger indicators now than in 2012? Trump and Clinton both spoke more openly about race this election than in past elections. Trump obviously felt no qualms about supporting stop and frisk openly, calling for the deportation of all “illegals”, etc. He appealed DIRECTLY to racist and sexist thinkers. On the other side, Hillary Clinton’s discussion of implicit racial bias during the debates was much more direct than Obama was usually willing to be, despite the fact that he is black. In the same way that Clinton didn’t talk about gender in 2008, Obama didn’t talk much about race during the 2008 or 2012 race, or too much during his presidency. When he did, the backlash was fierce. Ta-Nehisi Coates discusses this in his wonderful Atlantic piece “My President was Black”:

“In those rare moments when Obama made any sort of comment attacking racism, firestorms threatened to consume his governing agenda. When, in July 2009, the president objected to the arrest of the eminent Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. while he was trying to get into his own house, pointing out that the officer had “acted stupidly,” a third of whites said the remark made them feel less favorably toward the president, and nearly two-thirds claimed that Obama [himself] had “acted stupidly” by commenting.”

This is supported by other research which suggests that support for Trump increased when people were openly reminded of racial issues. In a study called “The Threat of Increasing Diversity”, authors concluded that

“Reminding White Americans high in ethnic identification that non-White racial groups will outnumber Whites in the United States by 2042 caused them to become more concerned about the declining status and influence of White Americans as a group (i.e., experience group status threat), and caused them to report increased support for Trump and anti-immigrant policies, as well as greater opposition to political correctness.”

In other words, Whites who strongly identify with Whiteness increased support for Trump when they felt that the White Race was being threatened directly. Additionally, when people are made more aware of race, across political parties, studies show that they become more conservative on racial politics. The same is true for sexism. In the sexism study I cited above, they concluded that anger increases the impact of sexism on Trump support, so those who were made to feel angry expressed more sexist views AND stronger support for Trump, stronger than those who were made to feel afraid. So racism and sexism were likely galvanized by the charged language of this election.

This is mainly a surface level examination of the evidence that shows racism and sexism lead to Trump support, even when controlling for a variety of other factors. There’s a lot more out there. (I haven’t even touched on voter suppression, which likely had large impacts in both Michigan and Wisconsin, and even larger ones in North Carolina, and which largely effects minorities.) You might not have needed that evidence, given the way Donald behaved, but sometimes it’s nice to be validated by the data. This data, however, isn’t going to convince most people who aren’t already convinced. You can show people all the charts you want and they likely won’t either admit to being racist themselves or condemn their neighbors or their votes as doing so. The way to combat racism isn’t through charts.

Instead, here are some things you can do right now and all the time, by yourself, the fate of the Democratic Party be damned, to fix bigotry (focusing mostly on racism, though many techniques can be broadly applied. I will be doing future issues on other types of bigotry):

1. Talk about white supremacy and misogyny and let others do so. It is OBVIOUS that racism and sexism were a big part of this election, and for many of us they are a part of our daily lives. Don’t derail your conversations into how we talk to white people. Don’t merely say “yes, there was racism, but….”. Do not do this when your friends of color and female friends are in the room, and do it even less when they aren’t. If you follow black journalists on social media, they have been discussing how quickly so-called allies have abandoned the racism narrative. It’s embarrassing, and I don’t want us to be those people. Keep talking about it. Don’t have a “post-mortem” conversation without it. Allow your female friends, friends of color, LGBTQ friends, and others hurt by this election to speak more often, and don’t correct them when they say this election was about racism. Don’t say discussing racism isn’t a productive way forward. Even if it isn’t, which I dispute thoroughly, marginalized groups deserve to be able to call out racism when they see it.
2. Make a commitment to confront racism and sexism in everyday life more often (and homophobic language, and xenophobic language, etc). You don’t need to scream at anyone; you don’t need to do it every time. But do it. Come up with a strategy. What would you say if it was seemingly “polite” racism at, say, a dinner party? What if it was someone outright rude or hostile on the street? What if it’s a family member? There is a lot out there on this. This Twitter thread on how to be an ally has many suggestions, as does this article with tips specifically for white women from the wonderful advice website posttrump.help. Read this Atlantic piece on why people of color should be able to call out racism any way they want, regardless of whether it actually results in changing someone’s mind (the title is “Sometimes there are more important goals than civillity,” which is very true). If you’re a person of color or a woman, feel free to call someone a racist or a misogynist sometimes, even if it re-trenches their view; if you’re a white male, don’t lecture your friends not to do this. Again, don’t tell them it’s not productive. Sometimes it’s the way we have to deal with it that day. However, as a white person, learn the most proven ways to deal with racists long term, as discussed in this piece on the concept of “deep canvassing”. List to this NPR Code Switch episode on dealing with casual racism in different scenarios. Read this guide for non-violent intervention in the face of Islamophobia but apply it to all groups. Consider how much of your own safety you’re willing to risk to confront public racism and/or sexism. Again, make specific plans. Take a self-defense class if you are worried about a physical confrontation. My old martial arts school has a branch in College Park that teaches one starting early in the New Year, and I know these guys. They’re good teachers.
3. Educate yourself. Make a goal to read only books written by people of color in 2017 perhaps. It’s not that hard, there are a lot. Read books on the history of racial and gender oppression, even if you think you know it already. Ask a local bookseller (hint hint Michael) or librarian for help.
4. Actively promote anti-bigotry groups. Donate your time, money, knowledge, whatever. Stand Up for Racial Justice (SURJ)-DC is a group specifically for white people to help combat racism, and they occasionally do deep canvassing as mentioned above. They also have specific subgroups you can join on policing, immigration, etc. Pick an interest. Michael is on the Immigration Team for those of you that know him. Get involved in Black Lives Matter (that link is for the DC area chapter). Find other local groups or start your own if you are a person of color. Invite your friends of color to come with you when you go to these events, and as a white person sit in the back and listen when you go.

I don’t agree with the dichotomy repeated often in the last few weeks that we have a choice to make between white moderates and progressive people of color and women and etc. The reason people think we have to choose whites is due to, I think, a misreading of the situation. That was part of why I made my case last week all about the White Vote (TM). I think we can make gains in both groups. Remember we lost hundreds of thousands of votes in the Rust Belt among whites and people of color. If people of color are not excited about the Democratic Party either, the solution is not to move further away from them. If for every white vote we gain we lose one or more votes from the progressive base we’ll still lose. And besides that it’s wrong. Just as an example, the Black Lives Matter movement was never comfortable with Hillary Clinton. It’s possible that Hillary, being white, was never going to generate the excitement among black voters that Barack Obama did, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t make any mistakes in that category. That doesn’t mean we couldn’t have tried even harder. Again, Dems lost over 400,000 voters of color in the Rust Belt this election. Why does it always have to be about white votes? Let’s have strategies to gain back losses in both groups.

I also think that as academic-minded people, we are looking to find the answers from a PARTY level. And while this may be an interesting thought experiment, or just unavoidable for those of us who overthink things, none of us is the institution of the Democratic Party and what we choose to do as individuals doesn’t have to be based on a strategy we hope will become the platform of the National Progressive Movement. I’m not trying to diminish our power here — your power, my lovely readers — but the scope of our knowledge and awareness is eclipsing the scope of what we are capable of changing. Instead of focusing on how to change the Party by looking at national level turnout numbers, over which we have pretty much zero control, we should focus on what to change in our own lives. There are ways we can influence Party politics, and the hope is that individual actions will create mass change, but your views on the election don’t need to always have an eye toward winning the 2020 White House.

We don’t need to be that fatalist that I was tempted to be for a few days. We do not have to participate in the harming of others in order to survive, either as a Party or as individuals. We made mistakes, but let’s not lose our heads. Let’s actually stop needing to read twenty different thinkpieces on the election before we decide to actively combat racism. Let’s just make it our default position to be more concerned about women and POCs and immigrants. Poor whites need our help too, and I am going to talk about that, but it should be alongside our increased efforts for ALL poor people; ALL marginalized people. That should be who we are. At that same CNN panel I mentioned last week, I also asked whether they thought Democrats should even try to win back the white working class, given how thoroughly we lost it, and the Democratic commentator said “yes” because Bill Clinton won them. Well Bill Clinton ran for president over 20 years ago, and he is an old white man. If the only viable strategy to win back whites is to become the party of the ’90s, to run only candidates that look like Bill Clinton forever, then I’ve changed my mind. I say no thank you to that. I won’t do whatever it takes to win, because I won’t do that. And neither should you.

Good Night and Good Luck

-North Carolina Republicans went completely batshit crazy this week and seized a ton of executive power from the incoming Democratic governor, continuing an alarming trend among Republican lawmakers nationwide. The NC GOP also reneged on a promise to repeal HB2 (the so-called “bathroom bill”) in exchange for Dems withdrawing an LGBTQ+ non-discrimination bill. After the Dems held up their end, it appears the legislature has adjourned for the year without HB2 being repealed.

-DC passed the Universal Paid Leave Act on Tuesday, with a 9–4 (veto-proof) majority in the Council! In a few years most of you will now have access to 8 weeks of paid parental leave (dads and adopted parents too), 6 weeks of paid family care, and 2 weeks of personal medical leave through the DC insurance fund

-The Electoral College officially voted for Donald on Monday. You might be interested in reading about how the Electoral College was originally developed as a concession to slave holders, and its many other failings if you don’t already know them

-President Obama places a ban on oil drilling in large sections of the US’s Arctic and Atlantic Ocean waters; experts dispute whether this ban, designed to be permanent, can in fact be lifted by Trump

-The awful fetal remains burial law in Texas, which would require aborted fetal remains to be given funerals, has been blocked by a Federal judge

-Dylann Roof, the person who killed several black parishioners in Charleston, SC last year was found guilty this week, with sentencing beginning on January 3. You might enjoy, in a bad way, the Times’ phrasing of Roof as “self-radicalized”, as if no outside forces played a part. This piece on “What gave us Donald Trump gave us Dylann Roof” from Jamelle Bouie on Slate is, I think, much more aptly phrased

-Ted Cruz and others are planning to introduce a bill that would completely devastate LGBTQ+ rights, prohibiting the government from taking any action against businesses or work places that discriminate against them, called the “First Amendment Defense Act” (gag me)

And that’s it folks! Next week’s newsletter will be very light on content due to the holidays and then I will wrap up my Post-Mortem after that. As usual, check out my Pinterest board for links to most of my articles, and my Medium page if you’d prefer a blogged version of this newsletter. Sometimes I post mid-week tidbits on there as well. Fill out my anonymous Google feedback form to suggest a topic or critique my spelling. Follow me on Twitter, at @speaknojessica. Subscribe to The ForeRunner at http://tinyletter.com/theforerunner or read my back issues, all of which are public, at http://tinyletter.com/theforerunner/archive. Tell your friends to sign up, because every time you get someone to subscribe, a woman listening to a boring man at a Holiday party is rescued by a reindeer.

In solidarity and Happy Holidays to everyone,
JM

Maple is queen of the couch….

“I am queen of this land, and all the other lands.” — Maple

Event link round up (local to DC unless otherwise noted)*:

December 22: Rapid Response Team and Active Bystander Training hosted by Stand Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) DC (facebook link)

Political events are pretty thin on the ground here in DC this week, so instead I’ve listed some charitable organizations who are asking for volunteers around the holidays.​
-Food and Friends, who I often volunteer with at Thanksgiving, always needs Holiday volunteers to help package and deliver meals. You have to go through a background check to volunteer with them, but they are quick and efficient.
-Playtime Project for Homeless Youth still needs 6 people (as of Tuesday) to help reorganize their pre-teen/teen room for two hours on Christmas Day
-The Holiday Project arranges for visits to nursing homes and hospitals in the DMV around the holidays
-The Morris Cafritz Center for Community Service (MCCCS) organizes high-impact volunteer campaigns in the DC area, including the 25th Annual Day of Service on Christmas Day, which has over 10 projects on it
-Give blood; I promise it’s not as scary as you think. That link is for a particular day blood drive, but give at any time through the Red Cross. Or register to become a bone marrow donor with Be the Match
-Sign up to be a Snow Team Hero in DC and help shovel snow for those who can’t
-Volunteer with the Capital Area Food Bank or Martha’s Table