As the FBI has continued making arrests in connection to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection, investigators, reporters and political scientists are revealing that those who participated were mostly White people — especially men — who harbor deep mistrust in government institutions and unwavering faith in Donald Trump, disinformation campaigns and conspiracy theories. Political scientist Robert Pape’s profiles of the rioters show that the majority were regular citizens, not members of extreme-right organizations.
Of course, far more Americans than just the rioters mistrust government institutions. Since the 1960s, many White Americans have expressed low faith in the federal government. That has important consequences. It’s harder for Washington to enact policies without very broad consensus that they are needed. When policies impose costs on some but not others, low trust in government makes it difficult to get citizens to agree to pay for social benefits. All that is visible today among Americans who resist mask and vaccine mandates meant to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Low trust correlates with more resistance.
So what is behind low trust in government?
My research with Beyza Buyuker and Noah Kaplan shows that, contrary to conventional wisdom, racial prejudice — more than convictions about policies — has fueled White Americans’ hostility to government.
How I did my research
Early research suggested that White Americans’ mistrust in government began with such policies as school busing, the War on Poverty’s expansion of welfare, and affirmative action. But when these policies were abandoned, trust remained low. My research shows that public trust became chronically “racialized” — that is, it became linked to White Americans’ racial prejudices.
We used survey data from the American National Election Studies (ANES), a nationally representative survey conducted during presidential election years. We focused specifically on White respondents who participated in the survey between 1992 and 2020. For each year, we conducted statistical analyses to test whether people who scored higher on racial prejudice also scored lower on public trust, after controlling for many other factors such as policy preferences, partisanship, ideology and demographics.
Some say the U.S. is headed toward civil war. History suggests something colder.
Racial prejudice drives White mistrust in government
We found that in all eight surveys between 1992 and 2020, racial prejudice predicted lower levels of trust in government. For example, in 2020, White Americans who scored high on racial prejudice, as measured by agreement with negative stereotypes about Black people, were nine percentage points less likely to express trust in government than those who scored low on the same measure.
And it is not only trust in government that is associated with racial prejudice. My other work shows that racial prejudice has been a strong predictor of White Americans’ doubts in the fairness of the 2020 election.
Martin Luther King Jr. was right. Racism and opposition to democracy are linked, our research finds.
Many White Americans did not expect a fair election in 2020
In addition to low trust in government, a significant proportion of White Americans today distrust election results. In 2020, the ANES asked three questions to gauge Americans’ trust in the integrity of the presidential election. These questions were asked before Election Day. Specifically, the ANES asked, “In the November 2020 general election, how accurately do you think the votes will be counted?” Twenty-seven percent of Whites said they expected the votes would not be counted accurately (“not at all” or “very little”); an additional 35 percent expressed a moderate level of doubt. Only 38 percent were very confident in the election.
Similarly, 21 percent said they had no trust or very little trust in local election officials, while 31 percent said they had a moderate level of trust in local elections officials. Finally, 14 percent said people who are eligible to vote are denied the right “very often” or “fairly often,” which is shown as “no confidence” in the figure below.
Racial prejudice also fuels low trust in the fairness of elections
In a second study, I analyzed data from the 2012 to 2020 ANES results to test whether racial prejudice is related to low trust in election fairness. Once again, my statistical analysis focused on White respondents and accounted for other factors.
I found that in 2012 and 2020, but not in 2016, racial prejudice predicted lower trust in election fairness. Others also have found that racial prejudice predicted lower trust in electoral outcomes in 2008 and 2012, but not in elections before Barack Obama’s two candidacies. In 2012, biased Whites were 16 percentage points less likely than other Whites to say that the election count would be fair. In 2020, biased Whites were nine percentage points less likely to think that the election count would be accurate; six percentage points less likely to trust local election officials; and five percentage points more likely to believe that eligible voters are denied the right to vote. It is likely that racially prejudiced Whites think of White Americans when they think of eligible voters and, thus, have concerns about people like them being denied the right to vote. The data suggest that Whites who harbor negative stereotypes about Blacks as lazy, unintelligent or violent may deem this group unworthy of political membership and, therefore, illegitimate voters.
When people don’t trust elections, it undermines democracy
The consequences of low confidence in elections can be grave. When people don’t trust elections, they don’t trust that the country is governed democratically. Scholars have shown that low trust in election fairness can alienate people from the political system and drive them to embrace anti-democratic leaders and policies.
Many elected officials — including many up for reelection in 2022 — seem to think that employing the racial dog whistle of critical race theory, “illegal voters” and “violent agitators” and encouraging fears about “stolen elections” can be a winning strategy. However, as we saw on Jan. 6, 2021, when people come to mistrust the government and its institutions — including the integrity of elections — democracy becomes vulnerable to grievances, passions and even violence. With the 2022 midterm elections around the corner, Congress may wish to vouchsafe the integrity of the nation’s system of elections administration. For instance, it might install nonpartisan and independent monitoring and other measures that increase voters’ confidence in election results. The stability of our democracy depends on people believing in their institutions.
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Alexandra Filindra (@afilindra) is an associate professor of political science at the University of Illinois at Chicago.