Trump v. Clinton and the Black Lives Matter Movement: Race, the Police, and the Election

• In Event: Race and Police Violence

Abstract

The 2016 election was a paradox for our understanding of public views of race and the police. On the one hand, the Black Lives Matter movement was successful in drawing public and political attention to the issue of police mistreatment of black citizens. On the other, the election witnessed the re-emergence of racially-coded calls for law and order. Building on a theoretical model drawn from conflict theory and work on perceptions of criminal injustice, we explore and compare views of those who voted for Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, a third party candidate, as well as respondents who did not vote at all. We analyze questions we designed for inclusion in the 2016 American National Election Studies about race and the police, conducted in two waves before and after the presidential election. Building on our pre-election analysis (Drakulich, Hagan, Johnson, and Wozniak 2016), we further investigate contrasting views of the police—affective support for the police versus perceptions of police racial injustice—as well as the role of contact with the police. Importantly, we investigate responses to the involvement of the Black Lives Matter movement in the election, including clashes with protesters at political rallies.

Authors

• Kevin Drakulich, Northeastern University

• John Hagan, Northwestern University

• Devon Johnson, George Mason University

• Kevin Wozniak, University of Massachusetts Boston