Are Racists Only in One Political Party? Racial stereotypes are not solely within the purview of the Grand Old Party.
Alex Tabarrok quotes MSNBC’s Chris Hayes:
It is undeniably the case that racist Americans are almost entirely in one political coalition and not the other.
He then summarizes several survey items and finds that both Democrats and Republicans express attitudes that are not favorable to blacks. He concludes:
It is undeniable that some Americans are racist but racists split about evenly across the parties. No party has a monopoly on racists.
I think Tabarrok’s conclusion is closer to the truth that Hayes’s statement. Let me see if I can elaborate this issue in some useful ways.
As a measure of racism—and by no means a perfect one—I will use two different items from the 2008 American National Election Study. Respondents were asked to evaluate whites, blacks, Hispanic-Americans, and Asian-Americans on two scales. Each scale was numbered 1 to 7. At one end was the word “intelligent” or “hardworking.” At the other end was “unintelligent” or “lazy.” Respondents gave their answers to these questions with an interviewer present in the room, but on a laptop computer that was not visible to the interviewer. This is obviously intended to mitigate any unwillingness to express unfavorable attitudes toward a group.
Here is how white respondents answered the two scales for blacks: