UPenn Study on Racism in Trump Era Smashes the Left’s Narrative

A recent study from the University of Pennsylvania finds that racism in America has significantly decreased since President Donald Trump’s election in 2016, directly contradicting the narrative pushed among many academics and mainstream media personalities.

The Rise of Trump, the Fall of Prejudice? Tracking White Americans’ Racial Attitudes 2008-2018 via a Panel Survey was authored by UPenn political science professor Daniel J. Hopkins and research assistant Samantha Washington.

“We find that via most measures, white Americans’ expressed anti-Black and anti-Hispanic prejudice declined after the 2016 campaign and election…”

Hopkins, in an article for FiveThirtyEight, detailed on Tuesday the study, which used 13 waves of panel surveys to gather data and determined that white racial prejudice against African Americans and Hispanic Americans has declined since 2016, when Trump was elected president.

Hopkins noted that the fall in prejudice was present for both Democrats and Republicans.

Hopkins and Washington, according to the study, voice their opinions on Trump and his statements.

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Ultimately, though, the study found that the “racist” rhetoric from the president has not resulted in more racist attitudes among Americans.

“We find that via most measures, white Americans’ expressed anti-Black and anti-Hispanic prejudice declined after the 2016 campaign and election, and we can rule out even small increases in the expression of prejudice,” the study’s abstract states.

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A Quinnipiac University poll found in 2018 that 55 percent of survey respondents believed that “President Trump has emboldened people who hold racist beliefs,” according to the study.

“Latino approval of President Trump has skyrocketed to 50 percent. We’ve had the lowest Latino unemployment in history under President Trump,” Joel Valdez, a Mexican-American and recent student at the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign. “Latinos and African-American[s] are prospering under the Trump Administration.”

“Yet, according to the left and the mainstream media, you’d expect worse,” Valdez, who is also an intern at the Leadership Institute, Campus Reform’s parent organization, continued. {snip}

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In the last week alone, Campus Reform has reported on a professor who doubled down after comparing young Trump supporters to Hitler Youth, as well as another professor who asserted that Trump is the “most racist person.”

As Campus Reform previously reported, students indicated that Obama’s immigration policy quote was racist, but only when they thought it was actually a Trump quote.

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In another recent Campus Reform video, students characterized statements made by former Vice President Joe Biden as “racist” when they thought those quotes were from Trump.

[Editor’s Note: The study can be downloaded for free here.]