3 - The Anger Gap and Turnout in American Politics

Summary

Chapter Three provides robust evidence of the racial anger gap and its consequences for participation. With the aid of findings from survey data providing nearly 40 years’ worth of information on black and white Americans’ political attitudes, emotions and participation, I demonstrate the effect of the anger gap on black turnout in political eras particularly threatening to the collective interests of African Americans. Insights on how the anger gap shaped black decisions to participate in electoral politics span the Reagan era to the dawn of the Trump era. The first object of respondents’ anger measured in this chapter is the set of presidential incumbents and major party candidates across election years. The second measure employed is an indicator of how often survey respondents felt angry over the course of the 2016 election. Whereas this is a more open-ended measure, analyses demonstrate that individuals’ reports of anger were closely ties to their perceptions of the figure who dominated the election season—Donald J. Trump. This chapter also explores whether the racial anger gap is moderated by the cross-cutting social identities of gender, age and education attained.