 Racism. Â
Trump got votes  because of racism  one researcher says.  Oh?  Let’s look at his research. Â
According to a controversial new analysis by theWashington Post, Trump voters were motivated by “racism†more than a number of other factors — such as “authoritarianism —  in their presidential ballot choice last November.
Guess how researchers measure “authoritarianism”:  how you say you raise your kids, whether  parents teach children  to follow the rules or  parents teach children to be sympathetic towards  people.  But, perhaps parents  teach both?  Why assume an either this or that?
The incendiary piece, titled “Racism motivated Trump voters more than authoritarianism†was written by Thomas Wood, an assistant professor of Political Science at Ohio State University, and proposes to examine the results of the latest American National Election Study (ANES) regarding voter attitudes.
To begin with, Wood only analyzed the opinions of white voters—his own racially biased choice.
How black voters feel about whites, or what motivated many blacks to vote for Trump is disregarded as irrelevant to his study. Yet, in looking at racism, why would an objective examiner only look at the attitudes of whites?
Second, in the four questions looked at by Wood, racism is never actually addressed. Instead, Wood employs a “symbolic racism scale†that interprets people’s views on programs like Affirmative Action as concealing a hidden racism that is never overtly expressed. Wood said that these attitudes are “coded as more racially biased.â€
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