Sean McElwee | Vox

There’s powerful evidence that racial attitudes drive Tea Party support

2019-03-05T21:06:56-05:00

Sarah Palin is a Tea Party favorite. | Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Images

The success of Donald Trump and other “outsider” candidates this election cycle picks up on a trend perhaps best pioneered by the Tea Party.

Though the Tea Party has moved back to the margins under the shadow of Trump’s success, it has demonstrated the enduring power of racial resentment in American politics. For decades, social scientists have found that attitudes about race, particularly toward African Americans, persistently impact political attitudes and opinions toward government services, spending, and welfare.

Trump does not fit the profile of a Tea Party candidate, but he does build on their anti-establishment attitudes and rhetoric surrounding people of color. Trump also recently won the endorsement of Sarah Palin, a Tea Party favorite, and polls that include Tea Partiers show that Trump has consistently been a favorite among the group.

Amid this, we present new and powerful evidence that support for the Tea Party, opposition to government spending, and opposition to aid to the poor are motivated by racial attitudes, not economic anxiety.

How to measure racial resentment and economic peril

Tea Party support versus racial resentment and economic peril.

We analyzed individual Tea Party support using data from the 2012 American National Election Study, which surveyed the political attitudes and behaviors of more than 5,000 respondents before and after the 2012 presidential election. We created a five-question scale to measure each individual’s level of racial resentment — a subtle form of racism that hinges on the belief that African Americans tend to get “more than they deserve,” that they should “try harder” and should not be granted “special favors,” and disagreement about the level of discrimination faced by blacks.

For economic insecurity, we created a scale from five questions that asked whether each respondent knew anyone who had lost a job, worried about his or her financial situation, and whether he or she would be able to make necessary housing and health care payments. The analysis included statistical controls for a variety of individual characteristics and beliefs that tend to be related to political attitudes, such as race/ethnicity, partisanship, ideology, income, education level, gender, age, and religiosity. The model also included controls for overt racial stereotypes and attitudes toward illegal immigrants.

The graph illustrates a comparison of the effects of racial resentment and economic peril.

As racial resentment increases, there is a sharp increase in support for the Tea Party. At the highest levels of racial resentment, Tea Party support is strong. While economic peril does appear to have a modest effect in increasing support for the Tea Party, the effect is not statistically significant. At the highest levels of economic peril, Tea Party support is in line with national averages, closer to opposition than support. Those like Thomas Frank who want to chalk up the success of the Tea Party to economic anxiety are missing the key variable: race.

It’s worth noting what else the model suggests: Ideological conservatism (based on self-response), more than identifying as a Republican, strongly predicts Tea Party support. Even more important, however, is partisan independence.

It has been shown that partisan independents tend to behave just like strong partisans. Nonetheless, it is those who identify as independents who are most likely to strongly support the Tea Party.

Tea Party support by party identification and ideology.

Next we examined attitudes toward government spending, with the same controls. Here we find that black voters are far more likely to support larger government, while independents and Republicans support a smaller government.

Again, we find that racial resentment has significant explanatory power; higher levels of racial resentment are correlated with a preference for decreased government spending and services. Increased economic insecurity does appear to move people toward a preference for increased government spending and services, but the effect is not statistically significant.

According to these results, if we compare the government spending preferences of a person who expresses zero economic peril with those of a person at the highest level of economic peril, we cannot be certain that there is a real difference of opinion between the two.

Government services versus government spending trade-offs when layered with economic peril and racial resentment.

What all this tells us about economic anxiety versus racism

These findings suggest that economic peril, or economic anxiety more broadly, are not driving opposition to government and the Tea Party. Instead, these views are rooted in racialized views on who is helped by government programs. Our findings may seem surprising, but they are rooted in a wide literature.

Racism strongly correlates with state-level TANF benefits, even after controlling for state-level revenues and ideology. Political scientists Richard Fording, Sanford Schram, and Joe Soss note in their book Disciplining the Poor, “Concerns over welfare were significantly more likely to be activated among respondents who perceived ‘most blacks’ as lazier than ‘most whites.’”

Political scientist Martin Gilens also finds that “racial considerations are the single most important factor shaping whites’ views of welfare.” He finds that whites hold far more negative stereotypes of black mothers on welfare than white mothers on welfare.

It’s worth noting that the research above examines the effect of racial stereotyping (i.e., “are black people lazier than whites”), which does not have a significant effect after controlling for other factors. This is likely because outright stereotyping has declined and “colorblind” racism has become the main way racism is expressed. By examining measures of resentment, we can see how racism has mutated as a political weapon. These days those who oppose welfare don’t say, “Black people are lazy,” but rather, “Black people need to work harder to be as successful as whites.”

Why might racial resentment be the cause?

Why does race so strongly affect attitudes toward government but not economic peril? It is certainly the case that right-wing politicians have opportunistically exploited race to weaken the welfare state, as legal scholar Ian Haney-López has shown. Attitudes of racial resentment are more prevalent on the right, though they also certainly exist among Democrats.

Mass media is certainly part of the explanation. In another paper, Gilens finds, “Network TV news and weekly newsmagazines portray the poor as substantially more black than is really the case.” He also finds that black people are most frequently shown when discussing the “undeserving” poor, while white people are shown when discussing the working poor.

He notes, “I found that the elderly constitute less than 1 percent of the black poor shown in these magazines (compared with 5 percent of the nonblack poor) and the working poor make up only 12 percent of poor blacks (compared with 27 percent of poor nonblacks).”

One big reason Congress ignores the poor: they don’t vote

2019-03-05T07:32:21-05:00

Not that many people vote in midterm elections. While 57.5 percent of eligible voters cast ballots in the 2012 presidential race, a mere 41.9 percent did in 2014, according to data from the Census Bureau. Midterm turnout isn’t just low, though. It’s falling. It tumbled from 47.8 percent in 2006 to 45.5 percent in 2010 before falling yet further to 41.9 percent in 2014.

This has a real impact on who we elect. Americans who vote are different from those who don’t. Voters are older, richer, and whiter than nonvoters, in part because Americans lack a constitutional right to vote and the various restrictions on voting tend to disproportionately impact the less privileged. In 2014, turnout among those ages 18 to 24 with family incomes below $30,000 was 12 percent. Turnout among those older than 65 and making more than $150,000 was 65 percent. The result is policy that is biased in favor of the affluent. As I argue in a new report, “Why Voting Matters,” higher turnout would transform American politics by giving poor, young, and nonwhite citizens more sway.

Nonvoters and voters disagree on economic issues

People’s opinions on policy issues vary considerably based on age, income, and race, so it’s perhaps unsurprising that their opinions diverge quite a bit from those of voters. The chart below, created with data from the American National Election Studies 2012 survey, shows net support (percent against subtracted from percent in favor) for various economic policies. It shows that voters and nonvoters have dramatically different preferences: Nonvoters support more services, a job guarantee, and government action to reduce inequality, while voters oppose these policies. While both voters and nonvoters support boosting spending on the poor, nonvoters are far more favorable to it.

But would boosting turnout actually change policy? We have reason to think so. Research suggests that voters are indeed better represented than nonvoters, but the historical and international record lend support to the thesis as well.

More voting has traditionally led to liberal spending policies

Numerous scholars have studied the gradual expansion of the franchise internationally and discovered that increased participation boosted the size and scope of the welfare state. A study of 12 Western European countries over the period of 1830 to 1938 finds, “The gradual lifting of socio-economic restrictions on the voting franchise contributed to growth in government spending.” The effect hasn’t gone away in recent years. A study of the period from 1960 to 1982 concludes that higher turnout boosts welfare spending, even after controlling for political and environmental factors.

The expansion of the franchise to women is also instructive. As women gained access to the franchise within the United States, state government spending increased dramatically (see chart below). Indeed, the enfranchisement of women boosted spending on public health so significantly that it saved an estimated 20,000 children each year.

Later, the civil rights movement mobilized the Southern black electorate, which led to more liberal voting patterns among Southern Democrats and a boost in government spending going to black communities. The elimination of poll taxes and the subsequent mobilization of poor voters also lead to an increase in welfare spending.

Low voting rates help explain why the US has fewer benefits than other rich countries

There are many reasons the United States doesn’t have an expansive welfare state, like nearly every other high-income country. However, one important part is low voter turnout. The scatterplot below, created by Lane Kenworthy and Jonas Pontusson, shows the dramatic divergence between the United States and other countries in terms of both voter turnout and government spending.

In his book Macroeconomic Policies of Developed Democracies, Robert Franzese examines how inequality, turnout, and redistribution work together. The chart below shows his findings. It’s a bit complicated, but it’s very important. On the vertical axis Franzese has charted how much governments redistribute in response to an increase in income inequality. The horizontal axis shows years since inequality increased, and the lines are countries with different levels of turnout. As you can see, countries with low turnout, such as the United States (the x’s) and Switzerland (white diamond) don’t respond dramatically to increases in inequality (thus the lower lines, suggesting lower redistribution after an increase in inequality). On the other hand, countries like Australia (dark diamond) and Italy (white star) respond quickly and dramatically to increases in inequality (thus, the higher lines).

The international evidence therefore provides strong reason to believe that bolstering turnout would indeed lead to more redistribution, and thus be a possible palliative to rising inequality.

Politicians have little reason to listen to the poor

Already in America, the wealthy are more likely to donate to politicians, work on political campaigns, and be in regular contact with elected officials. In addition, politicians are far wealthier than ordinary citizens. These biases already conspire against the interests of poor people.

But deep differences in turnout based on income, age, and race only serve to further reduce the poor’s say. In the status quo, politicians don’t have incentives to listen to ordinary Americans, because it won’t cost them anything. That won’t change until turnout among nonwhite and poor voters increases. There are a number of ways that government can encourage voting: by fixing the Voting Rights Act, by enacting automatic voter registration, by repealing voter ID laws. All would give the poor more voice, and give policies they support a better chance of passage.

Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated the turnout rates for those ages 18 to 24 with family incomes below $30,000 and those older than 65 and with family incomes above $150,000.

The 1% are more likely to vote than the poor or the middle class, and it matters — a lot

2019-03-02T10:51:18-05:00

She's probably rich | Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Does it matter that the wealthy turnout to vote at a rate of almost 99% while those making below $10,000 vote at a rate of 49%? It sure seems like it would, but for a long time many political scientists and journalists believed it didn’t. In their seminal 1980 study on the question (using data from 1972) Raymond Wolfinger and Steven Rosenstone argued that, “voters are virtually a carbon copy of the citizen population.” In a 1999 study, Wolfinger and Benjamin Highton find a slightly larger gap between voters and nonvoters, but still conclude, “non-voters appear well represented by those who vote.”

This argument has been largely assimilated by pundits and also non-voters, 59% of whom believe “nothing ever gets done,” and 41% of whom say “my vote doesn’t make a difference anyway.”

But more recent research suggests that the logic of wealth voters is sound — and that if the poor and middle class turned out at a higher rate, policy would shift leftward on economic policy. The most important study on the question is by Jan Leighley and Jonathan Nagler. They revisit the Wolfinger/Rosenstone thesis and find that, in fact, non-voters are not, “a carbon copy” of the voting electorate as previously assumed. They find that, “notable demographic, economic, and political changes that have occurred in the U.S. since Wolfinger and Rosenstone’s classic statement [their 1980 book, “Who Votes”].” The most important difference that Leighley and Nagler find is that:

After 1972, voters and non-voters differ significantly on most issues relating to the role of government in redistributive policies. In addition to these differences being evident in nearly every election since 1972, we also note that the nature of the electoral bias is clear as well: voters are substantially more conservative than non-voters on class-based issues.

That is, after the New Deal consensus eroded, policy views became more polarized along class lines and the class-skewed nature of the electorate began to matter considerably. Non-voters skew left on a variety of issues:

A Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) study of Californians from 2006 finds that non-voters are more likely to support higher taxes and more services. They are also more likely to oppose Proposition 13 (a constitutional amendment which limits property taxes) and to support affordable housing (a more recent study finds similarly). More recently, a 2012 Pew study that examined likely voters and non-voters finds a strong partisan difference. While likely voters in the 2012 presidential election split 47% in favor of Obama and 47% in favor of Romney, 59% of non-voters supported Obama and only 24% supported Romney. The study also found divergence on other key policy issues, including healthcare, progressive taxation and the role of government in society.

The ideological turnout gap seems strongly related to the economic divide in voting behavior. A recent study by William Franko, Christopher Witko and Nathan Kelly examined 30 years of data for all 50 states. They find no instances in which low-income voter turnout was higher than high-income voter turnout. Across midterm and presidential elections, Census data show strong gaps between turnout rates between those earning above $150k and those earning less than $10k (a 32.6 point gap in 2008, a 34.9 point gap in 2010).

There is evidence that this affects the political system. Consider a recent study by David Broockman and Christopher Skovron finds that politicians believe that their constituencies are significantly more conservative than they are. Such a bias should be impossible to sustain – politicians have strong electoral incentives to gauge their constitutents’ views correctly. Once we understand that voters are more conservative than non-voters, the puzzle disappears. Politicians’s real constituents are the people who vote — a disproportionately affluent and conservative slice of the population.

Conversely, where the electorate is less skewed policy outcomes shift left. In a recent study William Franko, Nathan J. Kelly and Christopher Witko find that “where the poor exercise their voice more in the voting booth relative to higher income groups, inequality is lower.” In another study, Franko examined voting gaps and policy outcomes in three areas–minimum wages, anti-predatory lending laws and SCHIP (State Children’s Health Insurance Program). He finds that states with smaller voting gaps across incomes had policies more favorable to the poor. States with low turnout inequality have a higher minimum wage, stricter lending laws and more generous health benefits than those with high turnout inequality.

The design and benefit levels of many social safety net programs such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), are decided at the state level, which provides a natural experiment to test how turnout inequality affects policy. James Avery and Mark Peffley find that, in states with higher rates of low-income voting, politicians were less inclined to pass restrictive eligibility rules for social benefits. Political scientists Kim Hill and Jan Leighley find in two studies that states with a more pronounced turnout bias, social welfare spending is lower. Thus, the evidence confirms what theory would predict: closing low-income voting gaps is consequential for public policy, in favor of lower-income households.

5 reasons politics doesn’t fix inequality

2019-02-28T12:49:30-05:00

One of the most longstanding hopes (on the left) and fears (on the right) about democratic politics is that voters of modest means will use their electoral weight to level the economic playing field. In a market economy, the median voter’s income will invariably be below the national average creating an apparently compelling opportunity for a politics of redistribution. This makes the sustained increase in income inequality in the United States and other developed countries a bit of a puzzle. One common suggestion, offered recently by Eduardo Porter in The New York Times, is ignorance. Voters “don’t grasp how deep inequality is.”

But while Americans understanding of economic trends is certainly imperfect, the data suggest that the broad trends are known to the population. Nathan Kelly and Peter Enns, for instance, find that when asked to compare the ratio of the highest paid occupation and the lowest, Americans at the bottom of the income distribution do believe inequality is high and rising. In 1987, Americans as reported that the highest-paid occupation took home 20 times what the lowest paid occupation did – by 2000, they thought the gap had grown to 74 times.

A recent Pew survey finds that 65% of adults agree that the gap between the rich and everyone else has increased in the past 10 years, only 8% say it has decreased. A Gallup poll from earlier this year suggests that 67% of Americans report that they are either “somewhat” or “very” dissatisfied with the income and wealth distribution in the U.S.

If ignorance doesn’t explain inaction, what does? These five factors are the most important culprits:

1) Upward mobility

(Sean McElwee, data from Engelhardt & Wagner)

According to research from Carina Engelhardt and Andreas Wagner, around the world people overestimate the level of upward mobility in their society.

They find that redistribution is lower then when actual social mobility is but also lower where perceived mobility is higher. Even if voters perceive the level of inequality correctly, their tendency to overstate the level of mobility can undermine support for redistribution. In another study Alberto Alesina and Eliana La Ferrara find that, Americans who believe that American society offers equal opportunity (a mythology) are more likely to oppose redistribution. Using data from 33 democracies, Elvire Guillaud finds that those who believe they have experienced downward mobility in the past decade are 32% more likely to support redistribution. A relatively strong literature now supports this thesis.

2) Inequality undermines solidarity

Enns and Kelly find, rather counterintuitively, that when “inequality in America rises, the public responds with increased conservative sentiment.” That is, higher inequality leads to less demand for redistribution. This is perhaps because as society becomes less equal, its members have less in common and find it less congenial to act in solidarity. Bo Rothstein and Eric Uslaner argue that, “the best policy response to growing inequality is to enact universalistic social welfare programs. However, the social strains stemming from increased inequality make it almost impossible to enact such policies.”

As inequality increases, the winner-take-all economy leads voters try to look out for their own children. The period during which overall inequality has risen has seen a massive increase in more affluent families’ spending on enrichment for their own children.

(Sean McElwee, data from Lars Osberg)

Chris Dillow points to research by Klaus Abbink, David Masclet and Daniel Mirza who find in social science experiments that disadvantaged groups are more likely to sacrifice their wealth to reduce the wealth of the advantaged group when inequality was lower than when it was higher. Kris-Stella Trump finds that rising inequality perpetuates itself, noting that, “Public ideas of what constitutes fair income inequality are influenced by actual inequality: when inequality changes, opinions regarding what is acceptable change in the same direction.”

3) Political misrepresentation

Ideological factors can’t tell the whole story. Many Americans support redistributive programs like the minimum wage and support for the idea that hard work leads to success has plummeted in the last decade. A further important reason for the lack of political response to inequality relates to the structure of American political institutions, which fail to translate the desires of less-advantaged Americans for more redistribution into actual policy change. Support for this thesis comes from many corners of the political science field, including Martin Gilens, Dorian Warren, Jacob Hacker, Paul Pierson, and Kay Lehman Schlozman. Research by five political scientists finds that status quo bias of America’s often-gridlocked congress serves to entrench inequality.

More simply, lower-income Americans tend to vote at a lower rate. William Franko, Nathan Kelly and Christopher Witko find that states with lower turnout inequality also have lower income inequality. Elsewhere, Franko finds that states with wider turnout gaps between the rich and poor are less likely to pass minimum-wage increases, have weaker anti-predatory-lending policies and have less generous health insurance programs for children in low-income families. Kim Hill, Jan Leighley and Angela Hilton-Andersson find, “an enduring relationship between the degree of mobilization of lower-class voters and the generosity of welfare benefits.” Worryingly, Frederick Solt finds that, “citizens of states with greater income inequality are less likely to vote and that income inequality increases income bias in the electorate.” That is, as inequality increases, the poor are less likely to turn out, further exacerbating inequality.

4) Interest-group politics

The decline of labor unions has decreased the political importance of poor voters, because unions were an important “get-out-the-vote” machine. A recent study by Jan Leighley and Jonathan Nagler finds that the decline in union strength has reduced low-income and middle-income turnout. But labor’s influence (or lack thereof) is also important when the voting is done. Research finds that policy outcomes in the United States are heavily mediated by lobbying between interest groups, so organization matters.

Martin Gilens writes, “Given the fact that most Americans have little independent influence on policy outcomes, interest groups like unions may be the only way to forward their economic interests and preference.” His research indicates that unions regularly lobby in favor of policies broadly supported by Americans across the income spectrum, in contrast to business groups, which lobby in favor of policies only supported by the wealthy.

(Sean McElwee, data from Martin Gilens)

It’s no surprise then that numerous studies have linked the decline in union membership and influence with rising inequality.

5) Racial conflict

A recent study by Maureen A. Craig and Jennifer A. Richeson finds that when white Americans are reminded that the nation is becoming more diverse, they become more conservative. Dog-whistle phrases like “welfare queens” have long driven whites to oppose social safety net programs they disproportionately benefit from. Research from Donald Kinder and Cindy Kam indicates that racial bias among white voters is strongly correlated with hostility toward means-tested social assistance programs. Another study by Steven Beckman and Buhong Zhen finds that blacks are more likely to support redistribution even if their incomes are far above average and that poor whites are more likely to oppose redistribution.

In other words, a massive public education campaign about the extent of income inequality is neither necessary nor sufficient to achieve the kind of redistributive policies liberals favor. The real obstacles to policy action on inequality are more deeply ingrained in the structure of American politics, demographics, and interest group coalitions. Insofar as there is a role for better information to play, it likely relates not to inequality but to social mobility which remains widely misperceived and is a potent driver of feelings about the justice of economic policy. As John Steinbeck noted, “Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” Stronger unions, more lower income voter turnout and policies to reduce the corrupting influence of money on the political process would all work to reduce inequality. It will take political mobilization, not simply voter education to achieve change. The wonks have interpreted the world; the point, however, is to change it.