The Salience of Racial Threat and its Attachment to Democratic Backsliding

• In Event: Social Identity, Power, and Mis- and Disinformation

Abstract

The United States has been undergoing democratic backsliding in its recent era. This idea captures the shift away from democratic norms, the erosion of trust in democratic institutions, and a general lack of confidence in the rule and function of democracy as a system of government. Racial threat, scholars have found, is a core driver of anti-democratic attitudes in the public. But how pervasive is racial threat? In this project, I argue that racial threat is chronically salient among the American public. It is an idea that has come to be so activated in the minds of Americans that different, non-threatening information and ideas generate the same threatened reactions. I use multiple complex and simple primes across a series of experiments to show racial threat is chronically salient, and importantly for those concerned with democratic backsliding – when that threat is primed it also causes Americans to express more anti-democratic views.

Author

• Andrew I Thompson, University of Pennsylvania