How Science Explains Trump's Grip on White Males

[suegeo]

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-science-explains-trumps-grip-on-white-males/

This 2021 article* discusses the White Male Effect and research led by Dr. Paul Slovic.

I stumbled on this research after wondering why are white men still voting for Trump? And in many ways, in such a January 6 violent and angry manner that seems impossible to break through.

In short, it's white males' risk assessment skills and the risk the men perceive to their status.

The whole article explains this better than just the excerpts.

This helps explain why a wide and well-defined swath of the U.S. public—from the Proud Boys and other extremist groups who have terrorized Washington D.C. in recent weeks, to the senators ripping up the roots of democracy in Congress—are willing to accept the risks of Trump’s rejection of a legitimate election. They perceive an even greater threat around the horizon: a threat to an elevated social status that they imagine only Trump can preserve and restore, a social status that is inevitably linked to race, gender, and religion.

“Individuals selectively credit and dismiss asserted dangers in a manner supportive of their preferred form of social organization,” wrote Slovic and collaborators in a 2007 research paper that rings no less true today. In other words, for certain individuals, supporting Trump is a psychologically palliative response to perceived risks.

When this perceived need to protect one’s identity is stoked by people in positions of power, it can turn dangerous and ugly. Identity protective cognition can lead to what Slovic and other researchers call “virtuous violence”— violence that people support or commit because they believe it is morally right.

The article ends with: the people who hold power over decisions about what's risky and what's not should not be left in the sole hands of white males. Because white males, who hold most of the power in our nation, don't assess risk like other groups do.

*(from 2021, after the group of mostly white guys stormed the capitol)