Hill et al.’s study (1) of the relationship between Hispanic population growth and voters’ support for Donald Trump contributes to our understanding of the larger puzzle of diversity and politics. The relationship between diversity and reactionary politics should be considered one of the most important sociopolitical issues facing the world today—it is a near certainty that almost every developed country and many developing countries will be more diverse a generation from now than they are today (2). And, thus, if increasing diversity affects political outcomes, the relationship can point in two consequentially different directions: toward increased diversity liberalizing politics or toward increased diversity causing a reactionary backlash.
The different possible directions of this effect may point to profoundly divergent paths for the harmony of future societies. If demographic change causes a reactionary backlash, this has grave implications for the long-term success of diverse places: If people are compelled to “hunker down” in the face of demographic change (2) and cannot achieve political and economic cooperation with diverse peers (3, 4), then societies face a choice of trading short-term economic and political success for the long-term social, economic, and ethical benefits of increasing diversity (5). Indeed, the relationship between ethnic diversity and a host of socially undesirable outcomes, including poor economic growth (6), unstable politics (7), and even violence (8), paints a grim picture for the future of a diversifying world.
The election of Trump in 2016 is, by some accounts, a demonstration of this phenomenon: Following on his antiimmigrant campaign rhetoric, Trump has pursued the xenophobic policies that have slowed the flow of immigration into the United States—thus a reactionary backlash to demographic change has damaged the potential human-capital benefits that come with future diversity. And the antiimmigrant sentiment that brought Trump victory is, by some accounts, part of …
↵1Email: renos{at}gov.harvard.edu.
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