Response to Morgan: On the Role of Status Threat and Material Interests in the 2016 Election

Mutz, Diana C.

doi:10.1177/2378023118808619

Cited by 15 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 67 publications

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“…However, increases in Social Dominance Orientation (SDO), which is related to preference for group-based dominance, positively predicted voting for Trump. The results of Mutz's study are congruent with Inglehart and Norris' cultural backlash hypothesis and, as in our study, they diminish the importance of economic uncertainty in predicting preference for Trump over Clinton (but see debate about the correct way to analyse and interpret the data; Morgan, 2018aMorgan, , 2018bMutz, 2018a).…”

Section: 4-discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

When Do People Prefer Dominant over Prestigious Political Leaders?

Jiménez¹,

Flitton²,

Mesoudi³

2020

Preprint

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Previous research has sought to explain the rise of right-wing populist leaders in terms of the evolutionary framework of dominance and prestige. In this framework, dominance is defined as high social rank acquired via coercion and fear, and prestige is defined as high social rank acquired via competence and admiration. Previous studies have shown that right-wing populist leaders are rated as more dominant than non-populist leaders, and right-wing populist / dominant leaders are favoured in times of economic uncertainty and intergroup conflict. In this paper we explore and critique this application of dominance-prestige to politics. First, we argue that the dominance-prestige framework, originally developed to explain inter-personal relationships within small-scale societies characterised by face-to-face interaction, does not straightforwardly extend to large-scale democratic societies which have frequent anonymous interaction and complex ingroup-outgroup dynamics. Second, we show that economic uncertainty and intergroup conflict predict not only preference for dominant leaders, but also prestigious leaders. Third, we show that perceptions of leaders as dominant or prestigious are not fixed, and depend on the political ideology of the perceiver: people view leaders who share their ideology as prestigious, and who oppose their ideology as dominant, whether that ideology is liberal or conservative. Fourth, we show that political ideology is a stronger predictor than economic uncertainty of preference for Donald Trump vs Hillary Clinton in the 2016 US Presidential Election, contradicting previous findings that link Trump’s success to economic uncertainty. We conclude by suggesting that, if economic uncertainty does not directly affect preferences for right-wing populist leaders, other features of their discourse such as higher emotionality might explain their success.

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Section: 4-discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

When Do People Prefer Dominant over Prestigious Political Leaders?

Jiménez¹,

Flitton²,

Mesoudi³

2020

Preprint

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“…Still, it is possible that Trump's identity rhetoric was convincing in a new way in 2016, perhaps because of the appeal of his bombast, and that some Obama-to-Trump voters supported him primarily because of it. The only thing we are absolutely certain of is that we are not among those convinced by arguments of the sort advanced by Mutz (2018aMutz ( , 2018b, which suggest that many white Obama voters came to regret their 2012 votes, fell into an affective trap in defense, and then were transformed in 2016 because Trump brought out their latent feelings of status threat. 9…”

Section: Possible Answer: Surging White Nativismmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…At one end of the distribution are those who appear to strongly favor explanations based on white nativism, racial resentment, and notions of status threat (see Mutz 2018aMutz , 2018b, even if the argument is sometimes indirect (see Jardina 2019). If there is an opposite end of the spectrum, it would have to be those who focus on economic populism, inflected by place-based economic interests, while holding aside whether racial attitudes might be a complementary narrative (see McQuarrie 2017; see also Judis 2016 for the primary election; cf.…”

Section: Competing Explanations For the 2016 Election Outcomementioning

confidence: 99%

Economic Populism and Bandwagon Bigotry: Obama-to-Trump Voters and the Cross Pressures of the 2016 Election

Morgan

Lee

2019

Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World

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Through an analysis of validated voters in the 2016 American National Election Study, this article considers the voters who supported Obama in 2012 and Trump in 2016. More than 5.7 million in total, Obama-to-Trump voters were crucial to Trump’s victory in the Electoral College. They were more likely to be white, working class, and resident in the Midwest. They had lower levels of political interest, were centrist in both party affiliation and ideology, and were late deciders for the 2016 election. On economic interests, they were centrists, except for trade policy, which they viewed, on average, as a greater threat than other voters. They claimed to have more experience with economic vulnerability than Democratic loyalists of comparable social standing. On racial attitudes, including the racialized economic topic of immigration, they had a profile similar to Republican loyalists. While their support of Trump may be attributable to surging white nativism, this article argues for an alternative explanation. Voters who were attracted by Trump’s economic populism only joined his coalition if they could accept his racialized rhetoric. As a result, the Trump bandwagon predominantly attracted generically bigoted voters with racial attitudes similar to Republican loyalists.

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“…There are at least three reasons to doubt this claim up front (see also Mutz 2018b). First, some of the evidence for this claim is based on surveys conducted in 2016 that asked voters how they voted in 2012 (Morgan and Lee 2018).…”

Section: Claim 3: Working-class Voters Switched From Obama To Trump Amentioning

confidence: 99%

The White Working Class and the 2016 Election

Carnes¹,

Lupu²

2020

Perspect. polit.

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Academics and political pundits alike attribute rising support for right-wing political options across advanced democracies to the working classes. In the United States, authors claim that the white working class offered unprecedented and crucial support for Donald Trump in the 2016 election. But what is the evidence for this claim? We examine all of the available academic survey data gathered around the election, along with a number of surveys from prior elections. We test four common claims about the white working class in 2016: (1) that most Trump voters were white working-class Americans; (2) that most white working-class voters supported Trump; (3) that unusually large numbers of white working-class voters switched from Obama in 2012 to Trump in 2016; and (4) that white working-class voters were pivotal to Trump’s victory in several swing states. We find that three of the four are not supported by the available data, and the other lacks crucial context that casts doubt on the idea that Trump uniquely appealed to working-class Americans. White working-class Americans have been supporting Republican presidential candidates at higher rates in recent elections, but that process long predates 2016, and narratives that center on Trump’s alleged appeal obscure this important long-term trend.

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Response to Morgan: On the Role of Status Threat and Material Interests in the 2016 Election

Cited by 15 publications

References 67 publications

When Do People Prefer Dominant over Prestigious Political Leaders?

When Do People Prefer Dominant over Prestigious Political Leaders?

Economic Populism and Bandwagon Bigotry: Obama-to-Trump Voters and the Cross Pressures of the 2016 Election

The White Working Class and the 2016 Election

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