Thread by @ZeeshanAleem

Do riots help Trump? [A thread]

Every time there's a wave of riots, there's a corresponding wave of liberal hand-wringing over whether they'll empower the opposition.

I spoke to experts about the possible electoral effects of riots in Kenosha and the answer was ...

...it's complicated. Riots can alienate voters and strengthen the opposition, but they can also mobilize sympathizers & inspire nonviolent amplifying actions that shift focus away from the potentially polarizing effects of riots.

A *lot* of this is shaped by media narratives.

.@owasow's much-discussed new study found that in 1968 “violent protests likely caused a 1.5–7.9% shift among whites toward Republicans and tipped the election” in favor of racist "law-and-order" champion Richard Nixon.

cambridge.org/core/journals/…

Wasow found that when the state used violence against nonviolent protestors, it elicited sympathy from the public; but when protestors engaged in violent resistance, it tended to move public opinion in the opposite direction and alienated white moderates.

Crucially, the major mechanism for this was narrative formation in the press. When protestor violence enters the picture, “the focus in reporting tends to shift from a justice frame to a crime frame,” Wasow told the New Yorker.

A recent Spanish study also showed how violence can hurt social movements. The outbreak of a 2016 riot linked to the Spanish 15-M anti-austerity movement found that violence “reduced support for the 15-M movement by 12 percentage points on average.” journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00…

In that study, @jordimunozm and @Evaanduiza found that violent tactics don't faze core supporters but "risk losing the sympathy of less committed citizens, alienate those who display lower support levels, & increase antagonism of those that are already distant from the movement."

But there are of course limitations to how much one can extrapolate from those findings, which took place in specific sociopolitical milieus and historical contexts.

Whitelash in 2020 is not the same as in 1968.

(Screenshot is from my newsletter, which is basis for thread)

Historian @rickperlstein recently wrote an op-ed detailing the many reasons '68 and 2020 don't line up. I recommend reading it! nytimes.com/2020/08/27/boo…

But if you don't have time to read it, here are some of the key points he makes on why 2020 is different from '68. Biggest red flag for the right might be that "when disorder is all around them, voters tend to blame the person in charge" and that law and order didn't work in '70.

I also asked Wasow — the author of the big Nixon election study— to weigh in on whether Kenosha unrest could influence Election Day, and he wrote me an extended response which could be summed up as “it depends” — a lot of that has to do with media framing and allegories.

So we know riots can alienate, but that extrapolating from past historical episodes is complicated.

On top of all that there’s ALSO scholarship suggesting that riots can in fact mobilize voters who sympathize with the political grievances of rioters.

.@RyanDEnos, @aaronrkaufman, and @melissaleesands published a study last year showing the 1992 Los Angeles riot “caused a marked liberal shift in policy support at the polls” among both Black and white voters.

scholar.harvard.edu/files/renos/fi…

Proximity to the riot in LA caused voters (especially Black voters) to register as Dems and increased support for spending to improve public schools on a ballot initiative. So the riot mobilized new voters, both white and Black, who then took a liberal policy position.

Remarkably, the mobilization endured over a decade later.

The authors argue it’s possible that a progressive search for social stability was at play, and/or that people were persuaded of the needs framed by rioters:

I asked the authors of the study if they believed the Kenosha riots could mobilize liberal whites and people of color in greater numbers. Enos wrote back that it could:

Another often overlooked dynamic surrounding riots is that that there’s good reason to think they can inspire other nonviolent dissent that will keep racial justice in the news and keep citizens mobilized.

While the image of burning cities might scare off some moderates, it’s also an expression of anger that can motivate sympathizers to protest nonviolently out of solidarity, concern, and a gnawing desire to do *something.* And THAT diversifies protest tactics away from riots.

For example, the Kenosha riots might have motivated _more_ citizens to rally and march peacefully this last weekend, or might have made the Milwaukee Bucks’ strike more likely. That strike was high-profile and very popular:

https://twitter.com/YouGovAmerica/status/1299343090612920322

There's also reason to believe that today's political climate is uniquely sympathetic to or forgiving of limited violence in name of antiracism.

Early summer poll found *53%* of Americans who thought protests were mostly violent still supported them. washingtonpost.com/politics/big-m…

What are the big takeaways here?

1) Riots' effects on the electoral scene are complicated and hard to predict. There are many variables and many complex mobilizing dynamics at play.

2) The narrative that "this will only strengthen Trump" is way too simplistic.

3) That there could be a self-fulfilling prophesy if too many Dem/liberal influencers in politics and media fixate on riots at the expense of discussing the broader dynamics that give rise to them; other kinds of protest; right-wing violence; and Trump's provocations.

Overall take: limited rioting should prob not be seen as a major electoral liability per se in the scheme of America's many crises, evidence that even some of Trump’s supporters disliked his handling of the Floyd episode & the fact that Biden’s popularity isn’t tracking with BLM.

I explore this in more careful detail in my newsletter - give it a read! zeeshanaleem.substack.com/p/could-the-ri…

Yes, this is key. I used the somewhat awkward term "influencer" above, but the framing in hard news reportage is crucial. I've seen a mix in "justice" vs "crime" orientations so far.

https://twitter.com/tomstreithorst/status/1301589505745580033

e.g. I read a Guardian piece which discussed riots in middle of story, gave broader context of other kinds of protest / wide range of citizen reactions, and didn't make it a headline.

But I think @brianbeutler's warning is very important: Trump "has gamed the mainstream press into portraying ["law and order"] as a substantively meaningful appeal to voters rather than the obfuscatory fog it is."

crooked.com/articles/media…

Anyway ccing some folks I discussed related issues with last week on Twitter @lwoodhouse, @DKThomp, @DLind, @mattyglesias, @lhfang.