A Bit of Cognitive Science Snuck into a Journalist’s Mind

I look for signs that journalists are looking to cognitive and social science as a way to help them communicate. Occasionally, some of that seems to be happening. In an opinion piece for the Washington Post, columnist Dana Milbank makes an important point about the word “racist” based on cognitive science research. He writes:

President Trump is a horrendous racist. And it’s time for Democrats to stop calling him one. 

Counterintuitive? Yes. But substantial evidence shows that labeling Trump “racist” backfires against Democrats. It energizes his supporters without providing any additional motivation to Democrats, and it drives soft partisans — voters who could be up for grabs in 2020 — into Trump’s arms.

This doesn’t mean letting Trump off the hook for being the racist he obviously is; I’ve been using the term for four years because it objectively describes him. But this means talking about his racism in a different way:

Say that he tears America apart by race and threatens our democracy.

Say that he pits Americans against each other by color and religion to distract from his cruelty.

Say that he enables and encourages white supremacists.

Milbank points to social science research showing that the term ‘racist’ has become politicized. Research during the 2016 campaign found that voters with high levels of racial resentment who read a statement saying that some people oppose Trump “because he supports racism,” became much more supportive of Trump. By contrast, researchers found that the term “white supremacist” didn’t backfire the way “racist” does. Other research that Milbank points to found that Republicans are two to three times more likely to reject the label “racist” for racially charged attitudes than Democrats and most independents. Thus, calling Trump a racist tends to anger some or many whites who are racially resentful. They double down on their support for him. Americans do not agree on what is racist and what isn’t.