The 2016 Presidential Election: Is Calling Out Racism An Effective Strategy?

• In Event: Racial Animus and the 2016 Election

Abstract

Our paper examines whether politicians calling out racism deactivates whites’ racial biases. We suspect that making race explicit is no longer an effective strategy in reducing the role of racial prejudice. To test this prediction, we ran an experiment where we vary the politician (by party and race) calling an implicit racial appeal by Donald Trump racist. We find that calling out (no matter the politician) Trump for being biased does not reduce racially prejudiced whites’ support for him. Instead, it significantly moves racially liberal whites to be more opposing of Trump. Although politicians from both political parties criticized Trump’s tone on race, our results help us understand why racial prejudice still played an important role in whites’ decision to support him.

Authors

• Antoine J. Banks, University of Maryland

• Heather Hicks, University of Maryland, College Park