Did the 2016 Election Turn Out the Way It Did Because Voters Were Less Racist Than in Previous Cycles?

That is the somewhat counter-intuitive and certainly counter-narrative conclusion of the book, Identity Crisis: The 2016 Presidential Campaign and the Battle for the Meaning of America, reviewed by George Hawley at Library of Law and Liberty. Here are some of the factors the authors say were not significant in shaping the outcome:

• Russian interference
• Clinton’s campaign tactics
• Clinton’s emails (that lets James Comey off the hook)
• Economics

and here’s what they say was significant:

After demonstrating why other factors had, at most, a modest influence on the election result, Sides, Tesler, and Vavreck conclude that racial attitudes were a key predictor of vote choice. I hasten to add, they carefully note that the relationship of such attitudes to electoral behavior was complicated—the election was not merely a story of white racial animus, or Trump normalizing racist and nativist language.

They also note that, contrary to conventional wisdom among liberal commentators, there is little evidence that Trump increased racism in the electorate. In fact, polling shows that feelings of prejudice among whites have decreased since 2016. This change has only occurred among white Democrats, however—white Republican attitudes have not changed very much in either direction.

Although Trump’s rhetoric did not stir up white anxiety or feelings of racial identity and resentment, he did make these politically salient. That is, there was a weaker correlation between racial attitudes and vote choice in previous elections, including 2008 and 2012, when Barack Obama was the Democratic nominee. Because race was a central element of Election 2016, apparently, racial attitudes were a more important predictor of vote choice in both the GOP primary and in the general election.

The emphasis is mine. Read the whole thing and draw your own conclusions.