Populism, racial animus, and the House vote

Additionally, respondents were asked several items corresponding to the notion of racial animus, a concept born in the political psychology literature to measure racist attitudes in respondents without requiring them to explicitly state racial animus, which respondents are thought to be averse to doing (though some recent research calls this assertion into doubt). Specifically, respondents were asked:

Please indicate the extent to which you agree with each of the following statements. Generations of slavery and discrimination have created conditions that make it difficult for African Americans to work their way out of the lower class.

and,

Please indicate the extent to which you agree with each of the following statements. Irish, Italian, Jewish, and many other minorities overcame prejudice and worked their way up. Blacks should do the same without any special favors.

and,

Please indicate the extent to which you agree with each of the following statements. White people in the U.S. have certain advantages because of the color of their skin.

and,

Please indicate the extent to which you agree with each of the following statements. Racial problems in the U.S. are rare, isolated situations.

and,

Please indicate the extent to which you agree with each of the following statements. I am angry that racism exists.

using these items, we created a scale of racial animus ranging from zero to five. Respondents would be given a “1” for each of the items they disagreed or strongly disagreed with among the first, third, and fifth items in the scale and a “0” otherwise. Respondents would be given a “1” for each of the items they agreed or strongly agreed with among the second and fourth items in the scale and a “0” otherwise. The scale is simply the sum of their coded responses to the five items.

Using the populism scale and a battery of general demographic items, we also attempted to predict support for Donald Trump in 2016 and Congressional Republicans in 2018. We compared these results with similar predictions using respondents’ self-reported levels of racial animus.

The following figures break down the racial animus scale by our our-category age variable (18-37 or Millennial, 38-53 or Gen X, 54 to 72 or Baby Boomer, and 73+ for Silent Generation). Across these comparisons, only Millennials stand out: While each of the other age bins are within the quantity standard error of one another, Millennials score lower on the racial animus scale than the other three groups. Compared to an average of roughly 2 (out of a maximum of 5) for each of the other age groups, Millennials averaged about a 1.74 on the racial animus scale. The following figure plots racial animus by each of the four age groups.