Trumpian Politics: Racism, Sexism, and Resentment of Social Change

Drawing upon the insights of Social Identity Theory,Footnote ¹ scholars contend that Barack Obama's 2008 election and Hillary Clinton's nomination in 2016 signified a status threat to white males, who would now be more receptive to rhetorical appeals and policies that could restore their preeminence in the social hierarchy. With respect to race, scholars have noted that since Obama's election in 2008, expressions of white identity have increased (Jardina Reference Jardina2014), as has the influence of racial animus on partisan preferences (Tesler Reference Tesler2012). Furthermore, many white Americans now view themselves as a “disadvantaged group” (Valentino, Neuner, and Vandenbroek Reference Valentino, Neuner and Vandenbroek2018) and believe that status gains for racial/ethnic minority groups inevitably reduce their own social status (Wilkins and Kaiser Reference Wilkins and Kaiser2014). Most importantly for our purposes, such perceptions of status threat have also been linked to support for Trump (Major, Blodorn, and Major Blascovich Reference Major, Blodorn and Major Blascovich2018).

When individuals feel that their relative status is under threat, they are more likely to discriminate against (Branscombe and Wann Reference Branscombe and Wann1994), and exhibit greater tolerance for expressions of hostility toward, out-groups (Valentino, Neuner, and Vandenbroek Reference Valentino, Neuner and Vandenbroek2018). Over the last several decades, “Symbolic Racism” (and other related constructsFootnote ²) has been employed to explain continuing opposition to policies that address racial inequities absent explicit beliefs in biological inferiority/superiority (i.e., “Old-Fashioned Racism”Footnote ³). Accordingly, symbolic racism reflects beliefs that “blacks violate such traditional American values as individualism and self-reliance, the work ethic, obedience, and discipline” (Kinder and Sears Reference Kinder and Sears1981, 416). A number of studies have demonstrated the influence of symbolic racism on political attitudes (Kinder and Sanders Reference Kinder and Sanders1996; Sears et al. Reference Sears, Citrin, Cheleden, van Laar, Prentice and Miller1999; Kinder and Mendelberg Reference Kinder, Mendelberg, Sears, Sidanius and Bobo2000; Rabinowitz et al. Reference Rabinowitz, Sears, Sidanius and Krosnick2009) and support for Republican presidential candidates (Tesler and Sears Reference Tesler and Sears2010; Kinder and Dale-Riddle Reference Kinder and Dale-Riddle2012). Symbolic racism has also been shown to have a negative effect on support for Barack Obama (Block and Onwunli Reference Block and Chinonye2010; Lewis-Beck, Tien, and Nadeau Reference Lewis-Beck, Tien and Nadeau2010; Piston Reference Piston2010) and a positive effect on support for Donald Trump (Luttig, Federico, and Lavine Reference Luttig, Federico and Lavine2017; Hooghe and Dassonneville Reference Hooghe and Dassonneville2018; Major, Blodorn, and Major Blascovich Reference Major, Blodorn and Major Blascovich2018; Schaffner, Macwilllams, and Nteta Reference Schaffner, Macwilllams and Nteta2018; Setzler and Yanus Reference Setzler and Yanus2018).

A wealth of literature similarly documents the overt and subtle forms of sexism that permeate American society and influence public evaluations of female political figures (Huddy and Terklidsen Reference Huddy and Terkildsen1993; Streb et al. Reference Streb, Burrell, Frederick and Genovese2008). Despite the growing normative pressure against “Gender Traditionalism” and expressions of blatantly prejudicial sentiments against women in recent decades, “Modern Sexism” asserts that negative attitudes toward women persist through more subtle means (e.g., denial of gender discrimination, antagonism toward demands for equality, and resentment of undeserved “special favors” for women) (Swim et al. Reference Swim, Aikin, Hall and Hunter1995).

While the prospect of electing the first female president would likely render sexism a more important factor for voters regardless of the candidates, it may have been particularly pronounced in the 2016 election contextFootnote ⁴ given that Hillary Clinton has been a “lightning rod for antifeminist backlash” (McThomas and Tesler Reference McThomas and Tesler2016) dating back to her tenure as First Lady (Jamieson Reference Jamieson1995; Troy Reference Troy2006). But while sexism has been shown to be a powerful predictor of attitudes toward Clinton throughout much of her political careerFootnote ⁵, it also has a significant impact on evaluations of Donald Trump (Bock, Byrd-Craven, and Burkley Reference Bock, Byrd-Craven and Burkley2017; Ratliff et al. Reference Ratliff, Redford, Conway and Smith2019) whose complicated personal history with womenFootnote ⁶ and numerous sexist statements during the campaign (Cohen Reference Cohen2017) appeal to those harboring such beliefs.

Although these studies have made a valuable contribution to our understanding of Trump's political success, it is equally important to examine the vehicles by which these sentiments are communicated and validated in a twenty-first century political environment where even implicit or coded expressions of racism and sexism remain taboo. We contend that Trump's reliance on ACR and the rhetorical form of the jeremiad not only signaled his common cause with those who harbor racist and sexist beliefs, but more importantly, legitimized them as a socially acceptable political expression vital to the restoration of American exceptionalism.

American Civil Religion

Although the notion of civil religion dates back to Machiavelli and Rousseau (Cristi and Dawson Reference Cristi and Dawson2007; Beiner Reference Beiner2010; Pierard Reference Pierard2010), our focus in this paper is on the concept's American variant. In his foundational 1967 article, Robert Bellah described the ACR as having “played a crucial role in the development of American institutions” (Bellah Reference Bellah1967, 3). In Bellah's account, ACR was “selectively derived from Christianity [but] clearly not itself Christianity”Footnote ⁷ (Bellah Reference Bellah1967, 7) and manifested itself in “sacred” texts (Declaration of Independence, Constitution), myths (America as a “Pure Eden,” the Revolution as Exodus), symbols (the flag, Washington as Moses, Lincoln as Christ), and rituals (presidential inaugurations, pledge of allegiance, Independence Day, Thanksgiving) (Bellah Reference Bellah1967, Reference Bellah1992; Angrosino Reference Angrosino2002). It is through exposure to such texts, myths, symbols, and rituals that individuals are socialized to adopt such beliefs over the course of their lives.Footnote ⁸ For Bellah, this civil religion linked American politics with a larger, transcendent reality; he traced its origins and development through American history and expressed concern about its continued capacity to bind an increasingly divided nation. In the intervening half-century since Bellah's groundbreaking article, scholars have both subjected his thesis to critical engagement and built upon its foundations.Footnote ⁹ Most recently, Gorski (Reference Gorski2017) positioned ACR as a “vital center” between the extremes of religious nationalism and radical secularism, a language of American identity with the potential to build on the nation's foundational aspirations while acknowledging the deep injustices that persist.

ACR has often been linked, conceptually and politically, with American exceptionalism, the idea that the nation serves as the primary agent of God's meaningful activity in history (Bellah Reference Bellah1992; Skousen Reference Skousen2009). Such accounts tend to highlight the importance of John Winthrop's “Model of Christian Charity,” with its invocation of a “city on a hill” and the Puritan covenant with God (Winthrop Reference Winthrop1630; see also Holland Reference Holland2008; Rodgers Reference Rodgers2018; van Engen Reference van Engen2020). The covenant was a promise to assume an “individual and collective obligation to carry out God's will on earth…[as] a light to all the nations” (Bellah Reference Bellah1967, 4, 18).

Yet an undercurrent of anxiety has always been present alongside the confident proclamations of American chosenness, leading to deep expressions of concern voiced by American elites. In The Broken Covenant, Bellah argued that deviations from these covenantal notions threatened an existential crisis of national identity. He focused on “times of trial”, “periods of testing so severe that not only the form but even the existence of our nation have been called in question” (1992, 1). In situations where American practices flaunt the nation's professed principles, movements for reform often ground themselves squarely in those principles in their efforts to remake those practices (e.g., the Seneca Falls Declaration, Martin Luther King, Jr.'s “I Have a Dream” speech). Such discourses often take the form of a jeremiad, a rhetorical form that has long offered Americans a means to deal with crisis and change through a rededication to the shared national mission (Bercovitch Reference Bercovitch1978). Murphy (Reference Murphy2009) describes the American jeremiad as composed of several components: (1) description of the current crisis, (2) a contrast between the current state of decline and a more virtuous past, (3) a call for renewal and reform, and (4) placement of the American experience in the context of larger claims about the nation's unique importance in human history. Critics employing the jeremiad attribute economic, political, and military crises to contradictions between sacred ideals and imperfect practices, and present the road to recovery as a process of revival and recommitment to those ideals. The “jeremiad's political and rhetoric power, its ability to move Americans to social and political action, lies in its capacity to evoke a dynamic tension between despair and hope,” and thus it “represents the most loyal patriotism even while engaging in the most strident dissent” (Murphy Reference Murphy2009, 11, 6).

Many scholars have observed how Donald Trump's political rhetoric, with its refusal to offer even lip service to values like equality and liberty, represents a repudiation of the long tradition of ACR (Gorski Reference Gorski2017, Carlson Reference Carlson2018). However, such interpretations assume that there is a single way to employ civil religion, and downplay a rich history of contestation over such values (Hart Reference Hart1977; Williams and Alexander Reference Williams and Alexander1994; Wuthnow Reference Wuthnow1988; Demerath and Williams Reference Demerath and Williams1985; Cristi Reference Cristi1997; Hickel Reference Hickel2019). We contend that Donald Trump's campaign rhetoric to “Make America Great Again” contains key elements of a traditionalist civil religious jeremiad, which “understands the past's value to lie in its concrete social practices, institutions, and traditions, and lament[s] the community's falling away from those practices” (Murphy Reference Murphy2009, 109), and aims to restore an American golden age by recreating past conditions.

Donald Trump's Traditionalist Civil Religious Jeremiad

While all politicians propose solutions to societal problems, Donald Trump's success (in part) reflects his ability to connect concerns about recent social changes with a compelling narrative about an existential crisis facing the nation. Lament over decline from a virtuous past represents one of the core elements of the American jeremiad, and thus the very structure of the Trump campaign slogan “Make America Great Again” points to its roots in that genre. (That President Trump has continued to stage MAGA rallies throughout his presidency suggests that it is not only a campaign slogan but also an enduring theme of the Trump presidency.)

In employing the jeremiad, Trump echoed previous presidents like Franklin Roosevelt, who framed major economic policy innovations during the Great Depression as a recommitment to the nation's founding ideals.Footnote ¹⁰ But while Roosevelt, and others like him, recognized that the nation's unfulfilled national promise must be pursued in drastically changed manner from those of previous eras (what Murphy describes as a “progressive jeremiad” [2009, 137–138]), Trump's traditionalist jeremiad looks to the past as a model to be recreated as literally as possible. As Pettigrew (2017, 112) puts it, “Make America Great Again” represents a brash reactionary call to return to an earlier time when America's position in the world was unchallenged, when American presidents and Supreme Court judges were all White males, when immigration was restricted and widespread racial segregation persisted, and when the government's affirmative action programs largely helped White males.

In other words, while progressive jeremiads legitimize novel reforms as means of actualizing the spirit of the nation's traditions in the contemporary context, traditionalist jeremiads legitimize a return to past practices as a means to reclaim a “golden age.” For Trump and his supporters, the desire to reclaim this golden age and “Make America Great Again” legitimized everything from his own personal predilections (e.g., saying “Merry Christmas” instead of “Happy Holidays,” doctors making house calls, violently shutting down protesters) to policy aspirations (e.g., rebuilding the American manufacturing sector, bringing back coal, capital punishment).

At the heart of Trump's traditionalist civil religious jeremiad lays an assertion that the pursuit of “political correctness” by WA elites has generated policies that not only threaten the life, liberty, and material well-being of the populace, but have also produced an existential crisis for the nation. Because attacks upon political correctness have long been a means by which those who harbor prejudicial attitudes can voice their preferences without garnering the social condemnation reserved for blatant expressions of prejudice, Trump's rhetoric may be seen as a coded appeal. In this way, we can see similarities to Nixon's “Southern Strategy,” Reagan's emphasis on states' rights, and the use of the Willie Horton advertisement by George H.W. Bush. (Luttig, Federico, and Lavine Reference Luttig, Federico and Lavine2017; Pettigrew Reference Pettigrew2017)

Trump's comments on NFL national anthem protests help to illustrate this argument. Shortly after bragging about how Colin Kaepernick's difficulty finding a job was partially attributable to NFL owners' concern about the backlash they might receive from Trump and his supporters, he remarked that:

While Trump is ostensibly arguing that race should not divide Americans, his assertion that “we all salute the same great American flag” implicitly characterizes those who protest the national anthem (and hence protest racial injustice in the criminal justice system) as “un-American.” Furthermore, because the restoration of American exceptionalism is dependent upon “remembering these truths,” opposing protesters becomes a patriotic act. In this way, Trump provides a means for the justification and expression of racial resentments while avoiding social stigma.

Trump's rhetorical attacks against political correctness throughout his campaign and presidency often served to deflect criticism about his own prejudicial language while simultaneously legitimizing its use. Perhaps the most prominent example occurred during the first Republican primary debate in an exchange with Fox News's Megyn Kelly, who questioned Trump on his use of terms like “fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals” to describe women:

Similar processes were at work in his defense of restrictive immigration policy proposals:

Given that the majority of immigrants (undocumented or otherwise) are of Latin American descent, it is difficult to ignore the implication that such individuals are inherently a threat to the American way of life. Similarly, in defending his proposed ban on travelers from majority-Muslim countries, Trump argued:

Trump would later seek to situate his characterization of people who don't respect American traditions and values as referring only to “Radical Islamic Terrorists,” yet his proposal banned everyone from those Muslim-majority countries who sought to enter the United States.

In an effort to deflect criticism that his policies and rhetoric were prejudicial, Trump's offered a series of arguments rooted in patriotism and the restoration of American exceptionalism:

Collectively, these excerpts illustrate how rhetorical attacks against political correctness functioned as a coded appeal to those who harbor racist and misogynistic attitudes. More importantly, his characterization of political correctness as an impediment—and his prejudicial policies as a prerequisite—to the realization of American greatness served to legitimize the expression of these resentments in a way less likely to garner social condemnation.

The Polarizing Effect of Civil Religion

Although much of the literature on ACR presents it as a consensual phenomenon with the potential to unify the country in times of trial (Bellah Reference Bellah1967; Adams Reference Adams1987; Pierard and Linder Reference Pierard and Linder1988; Roof Reference Roof2009), the meaning of these shared symbols has always been contested (Hart Reference Hart1977; Demerath and Williams Reference Demerath and Williams1985; Wuthnow Reference Wuthnow1988; Williams and Alexander Reference Williams and Alexander1994; Cristi Reference Cristi1997; Hickel Reference Hickel2019). While the language of sacred American nationality and imperiled national promise offer powerful tools of legitimation that can influence electoral and policy preferences (Wimberley Reference Wimberley1980; Wimberley and Christenson Reference Wimberley and Christenson1982; Chapp Reference Chapp2012), such beliefs are not inherently associated with particular ideological/partisan preferences. In this regard, our approach diverges from the important work of Whitehead and Perry (Reference Whitehead and Perry2015) and Whitehead, Perry, and Baker (Reference Whitehead, Perry and Baker2018), who focus more specifically on “Christian nationalism,” which they define as “a set of beliefs and ideals that seek the national preservation of a supposedly unique Christian identity” (Reference Whitehead, Perry and Baker2018, 153). By contrast, our understanding of civil religion, drawing on scholars from Bellah to Gorski, posits it as distinct from any particular religious tradition, and as constituting less a monolithic ideology (a la Christian nationalism) and rather a set of symbolic or rhetorical tools.Footnote ¹⁶

With this conceptualization in mind, civil religious discourse is akin to a hammer which can be utilized to build or destroy. While a hammer does not inherently favor one set of tasks over the other, those who wield it may very well have such preferences. But unlike a hammer, civil religion reflects core beliefs about the national identity, meaning, and purpose in the world. As such, the subjective perception that civil religion is utilized correctly or incorrectly can have a powerful effect upon bystanders in a way that a hammer does not.

We argue that the coupling of civil religious themes with ideological/partisan goals holds the potential to exacerbate pre-existing divisions. Doing so not only validates the beliefs of those who share one's predispositions, but also denigrates one's opponents as an “un-American” existential threat to the nation's sacred foundations. As such, the effect of civil religious beliefs on attitudes toward Trump depends upon whether one agrees with the partisan/ideological goals he has sought to legitimize. Because the positive effect of civil religious beliefs among those predisposed to agree with Trump is likely to be offset by the negative effect of these beliefs among those predisposed to challenge him, we do not anticipate that civil religious beliefs will have a significant independent impact upon attitudes toward the President.

As we have previously mentioned, the extant literature demonstrates a strong relationship between racist and misogynistic beliefs and support for Trump. Furthermore, our analysis of his traditionalist civil religious jeremiad demonstrates that his rhetoric serves to legitimize such prejudicial beliefs as vital to the restoration of American exceptionalism. As such, we contend that the confluence of civil religious beliefs and racist/misogynistic attitudes will produce more support for Trump than either in isolation precisely because the former validates the latter. Furthermore, civil religious Americans who abhor such prejudicial attitudes should express greater opposition to Trump than non-civil religious Americans because they regard his use of these themes as a betrayal of the nation's sacred identity. In other words, the presence of civil religious beliefs will exacerbate the effects of prejudicial attitudes on support/opposition to Donald Trump.

Data and Methods

This project relies on data obtained from the 2018 CCES, a nationally stratified sample survey administered online by YouGov in two waves. The pre-election wave was conducted from late September to late October and the post-election wave was administered in November 2018. Half of the questionnaire consists of common content administered to over 50,000 participants, while the remaining questions are submitted by teams of researchers to be administered to subsets of 1,000 respondents. All variables employed in the subsequent analysis are derived from common content or our unique module that was administered in the post-election wave.

Within our unique module, a subset of participants (n = 424) were asked to register their level of agreementFootnote ¹⁷ with a series of civil religious statements inspired by previous studies (Wimberley et al. Reference Wimberley, Clelland, Hood and Lipsey1976; Christenson and Wimberly Reference Christenson and Wimberley1978; Chapp Reference Chapp2012; Hickel Reference Hickel2019)

• CRQ1—“The Founding Fathers instilled God-given values that have made America a great nation.”

• CRQ2—“America is God's chosen nation.”

• CRQ3—“America has a God-given responsibility to be an example of freedom and equality for all nations.”

• CRQ4—“Our nation will suffer if we abandon our founding principles.”

Figure 1 depicts the distribution of responses to these questions. With the exception of CRQ2, the plurality of respondents expressed strong agreement with the civil religious statements. Perhaps owing to the omission of the word “God” from CRQ4Footnote ¹⁸, the percentage of strong agreement and mean response was higher compared to the other questions. Interestingly, a plurality of respondents strongly disagreed with CRQ2. Despite these differences, factorFootnote ¹⁹ and reliabilityFootnote ²⁰ analyses demonstrate that it is appropriate to combine these questions into a Civil Religious Belief ScaleFootnote ²¹ that can serve as our primary independent variable of interest.Footnote ²²

Figure 1.

Response distribution for civil religious belief questions.

We evaluate our hypothesized relationships with two dependent variables operationalized to capture attitudes toward Trump. The first is a traditional measure of job approval asked during the post-election wave of the survey and scaled such that positive values indicate higher levels of support.Footnote ²³ The second is a composite measure of emotional affect in response to Donald Trump's presidential campaign slogan “Make American Great Again.” During the post-election wave of the survey, participants were asked to indicate whether it made them feel “Happy,” “Sad,” “Anxious,” “Excited,” “Angry,” “Proud,” or “I'm Not Sure.”Footnote ²⁴ In constructing this measure, respondents began at 0 and then received a +1 for each positive emotion selected (“Happy,” “Excited,” “Proud”), and a −1 for each negative emotion selected (“Sad,” “Anxious,” “Angry”).Footnote ²⁵ Although this survey question did not allow us to measure the strength of each particular emotion, this dependent variable does capture the range of emotions reported. As such, it may be interpreted as an indication of the overall strength and direction of an individual's emotional response to this critical aspect of Trump's civil religious jeremiad.

The existing literature is quite clear that symbolic racism and modern sexism are strong predictors of support for Donald Trump. As such, our analysis incorporates a scale of “Racial Resentment”Footnote ²⁶ and “Resentment of Feminism,”Footnote ²⁷ derived from questions provided as common content in the post-election wave of the survey. In addition to our key variables, we account for standard demographic controls and a number of theoretically important confounders such as party identification, political ideology, political knowledge, and authoritarianism. Due to space limitations, we provide a detailed discussion of these variables (along with unweighted summary statistics of all variables) in the Appendix.