Racism in Trump's America: reflections on culture, sociology, and the 2016 US presidential election

Abstract

Despite much positive change in the post civil rights era, U.S. notions of racism and white supremacy remain powerful elements of American culture. The adaptability and enduring power of these forces can be seen in the emergence of a new historical epoch best describe as the era of Laissez Faire Racism. Prevalent attitudes among white Americans, certain theoretical arguments and hypotheses in American sociology, as well the election of Donald Trump rest upon the on‐going operation of racism. In particular, I attribute Trump's electoral success to three critical dilemmas of race that defined contours of the 2016 presidential election: (1) worsening economic inequality in the presence of rapidly changing ethno‐racial demography; (2) intensified political partisanship in the presence of well‐institutionalized racially coded campaign strategies and rhetoric; and (3) the failure of the Clinton campaign to simultaneously champion the interests of working and middle class families and galvanize the previously powerful multiracial Obama coalition. I speculate on how to forge more effective multiracial coalitions in the future.

The Partisan Sorting of “America”: How Nationalist Cleavages Shaped the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election

“…For instance, Islamophobia is useful for understanding the successes of the National Front (now the National Rally) in France, but xenophobia against Polish immigrants is more relevant for making sense of the Brexit referendum in the United Kingdom. In the U.S. case, the vilification of Mexican migrants was centrally important to the Trump campaign while overt racial claims were less prominent than racial dog-whistles (Bobo 2017;Lamont et al 2017)-and yet, both racism and anti-immigrant sentiments were highly predictive of people's decision to vote for Trump (Sides et al 2018).…”

Political to Personal: Shifts in Youths’ Attitudes Following the 2016 U.S. Presidential Race and Election

“…Such differences may lead to feelings of political alienation from other Republicans or elders, with the salience of such differences growing following the presidential election. Alternatively, it may be that some Republican youth did buy into the president’s rhetoric, which largely focused on stoking the social and political insecurities of his supporters by drawing attention to external forces that purportedly threaten the American way of life (Bobo, 2017; Johnson, 2019). In this way, the president’s rhetoric itself could have played a role in externalizing young Republicans’ locus of control.…”

Merit and ressentiment: How to tackle the tyranny of merit

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