Racial Ignorance and the Electoral Cycle: Understanding Changes in Colorblind Frames during the Obama and Trump Eras

Abstract

We use data from the American National Election Study (ANES) collected between 1986 and 2020 to examine trends in colorblind frames, identifying cognitions that deny or downplay the persistence of racism. We use hierarchical age-period-cohort (HAPC) models to investigate whether ascription to colorblind frames varies across age, periods, and birth cohorts, examining period changes while controlling for changes in cohort composition. Following the Theory of Racial Ignorance’s (TRI) proposition that actors’ interests in promoting racial ignorance vary, we disaggregate our analyses by race and political affiliation. Our findings reveal little change across cohorts and small but substantial period changes. Specifically, our results show that colorblind frames increased during the Obama period and decreased in the Trump era. Separating trends by race and political affiliation, we observe that different groups drove the change observed in each period in a way aligned with the strategic interest of each group. These results reaffirm the value of TRI for understanding how the electoral cycle and key political events shape broad changes in racial ignorance frames.