Changing Norms Following the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election: The Trump Effect on Prejudice Redux

Following the 2016 U.S. Presidential election of Donald Trump, prejudice toward groups targeted during his campaign (e.g., Asian Americans, Mexicans) become more acceptable. By contrast, both Trump and Clinton voters reported less prejudice of their own. We conducted a 2024 conceptual replication, measuring perceived norms of prejudice and own-prejudice toward 128 groups, both before (N = 362) and after (N = 261) the U.S. election. We separately measured the negativity of Trump's campaign rhetoric toward these groups (N = 188). Levels of prejudice and perceived norms of prejudice acceptability were mostly stable pre-/post-election, but Trump's negative rhetoric predicted an increase in perceived acceptability of prejudice among targeted groups (replicating the 2016 results), and a rise in self-reported prejudice in the same groups post-election (reversing the 2016 results). Despite changes in the sociopolitical context between elections, the election of a leading politician who campaigned on prejudice was again associated with increases in the acceptability of prejudice.