At the Washington Post, Dana Milbank has a column that takes on the rather incredible task of defending Hillary Clinton’s remarks that half of Donald Trump supporters consist of “a basket of deplorables.” According to Milbank, not only is Clinton right, she’s being too generous:
If you’re familiar with the template for this sort of sorry column, you won’t be surprised that Milbank goes on to cite a raft of social science data—academic social scientists being overwhelming liberal—to prove the point that [insert conservative/GOP voting bloc here] is, in fact, racist.
Of course, the field of social science is itself a basket of irreproducible studies confirming the political biases of social scientists. In fact, social scientists are increasingly open about the fact, noting the field is in a state of absolute crisis because unsound methodology has become standard operating procedure. (See Andy Ferguson’s recent piece on the, ahem, deplorable state of social science for why this is the case and what, if anything, is being done about it.)
But setting aside liberal columnists’ predilection for nonsense on stilts, even unpacking what Milbank wrote raises some questions. Case in point—while the odds are this particular conclusion was predicated on dodgy methodology, let’s take this at face value:
So let’s accept that 60 percent of identifiable racists voted for Romney. First, let’s be clear that saying 61 percent “of those who expressed negative stereotypes” voted for Romney is, again, crucially different than saying half of the total GOP voters in 2012 are racist. (Of course, these are not the only data Milbank cites in the column. But all of his data are similarly tendentious, in that all his stats fall short of meaningfully supporting Milbank’s claim Clinton “might have low-balled” the figure that half of Trump’s supporters are racist.) Regardless, is Milbank really going to climb on to a lofty steed and feel good about the fact that only four in ten racists presumably vote Democratic?
The humane response to data showing significant chunks of American voters in both parties express racist attitudes would be to say, “America still has a problem with racism. How can we come together to address it?” And yet, the assumption underlying Milbank’s column is if you don’t support Hillary Clinton, you’re supporting the guy that racists like. And you know what that makes you? Racist.
Certainly, there are valid reasons to be troubled by the racist and anti-Semitic attitudes of the alt-right and vocal segments of Trump supporters. (Of course, I am similarly troubled by the number of people serially defending Clinton’s demonstrable lies, and certainly Hillary Clinton is not isolated from the influence of the Israel-hating, anti-Semitic left.)
But painting with an impossibly broad brush, as Milbank’s column does, might well make the problem worse. If you think Republican voters are disproportionately racist, you either don’t know any Republicans, you’re relying on social scientists who employ convoluted studies to produce dubious data defining racism down, or you simply care so much about electing Hillary Clinton you’re willing to believe the worst about her opponents. And when such bad faith inevitably widens the already Grand Canyon-like gulf between ordinary citizens and the Beltway journalists and ivory-tower academics who despise their politics, it only makes it easier to dismiss accusations of racism when they are really warranted.
And that’s deplorable.
