I have a few comments I'd like to make on the Mutz article: "Status threat, not economic hardship, explains the 2016 presidential vote"
pnas.org/content/early/…
pnas.org/content/early/…
1) Her thesis is that threat of lost domination is the principle reason why so many white voters became nationalist between 2012 & 2016; She explains that media accounts of a minority white country, China’s rising power, and Obama were the principle causes
2) Her method puts all the theoretical weight on explaining changes from 2012 to 2016 in preferences with respect to candidates in a sample size of roughly 1000 and seeing that candidate positions on trade and China are most significant in explaining changes.
3) That could yield some insights, but the biggest problem is that many people already harbored nationalist views in 2012, and obviously prejudice was not born in 2012. There is no explanation of where people’s 2012 views came from.
4) She does not analyze how exposure to minorities predicts preferences, nor take seriously relative deprivation or perceptions—however misplaced--of economic threat, despite rising income inequality & the relatively low educational attainment (but not income) of Trump voters
5) She does assess education but only shows that the effect in predicting changing voting patterns becomes small after controlling for social dominance orientation, which may very well be endogenous to education & doesn't address effect of edu on baseline preference
6) She minimizes opposition to Mexican immigrants b/c, she says, whites are not threatened by poor, uneducated workers, only minorities with high skills/status, like Obama. Yet, she cannot account for overwhelming support for high-status surgeon Ben Carson among Trump supporters.
7) Alt view: Trump voters are deeply misinformed about the neg effects of imports/immigration, and one reason is prejudice, sustained by geographic isolation, ignorance, and the still prevalent doctrine of white superiority, which has varying effects on individual voters. . .
8) But Trump voters genuinely believe that their nationalist political preferences are utilitarian--good for all US residents; they are not cynical attempts to hold back other groups; for a deeper analysis, see T Pettigrew’s “Social Psychological Perspectives on Trump Supporters”
