Emma Felty ’19
Project Title – Intersectionality of The Alt-Right Group
Other Student Participants – Ares Harper ’19, Mallory Griffith ’18
Mentor – Paul Dean
This past election season, our beloved two party political system shocked everyone with the election of a president that won with a platform of divisive, sexist, racist, xenophobic language. In the land of the free, the free people elected a man that dismisses the human rights of others and rejects the foundational American values. Once he won, multiple minority groups, that were not as vocal during his campaign, became extra vocal to gain more support and prove that it is ok for minorities to support Trump.
We are looking at the intersectionality of republicans and people who voted for Trump, that would expectedly not vote for him, such as: women, African Americans and muslims. The republican party values and ideals are usually associated with supporting the ideals of conservative, upper-middle to middle class, white males. By Looking at four distinct organizations and how they mobilize grievances through encouraging support of Trump, our findings suggest that identity politics addressed by the Democratic Party had a negative effect on the minorities who voted for Trump, making them feel targeted and generalized, which made the working class majority become the marginalized majority.
Utilizing the Social movement theoretical framework, we will be addressing the influence of structural context(macro) on social psychological factors(micro) that affect groups of people that Lead the individual grievances to becoming mobilizing grievances(participatory action). We will look at these social movements: Muslims for Trump, Women for Trump, African Americans for Trump, and the National Diversity Coalition for Trump, and how and why the framing of his political platform attracted them more than the Identity Politics focus. Specifically, what advantages(economic mobility; Social class cohesion; Increase solidarity and pride in America; International safety; freedom of religion; etc.) does supporting Trump offer minorities?