Violent Radicalization in Support for Right-Wing Authoritarian Leaders, Collective Action for White Nationalism, and Voting Restrictions

Framing cultural and demographic change as abrupt or continuous is theorized to respectively worsen and reduce intergroup hostility (e.g., anti-immigrant policy endorsement, prejudice, discrimination). Psychological anchors and propellors are theorized to respectively exacerbate and lessen negative reactions toward cultural and demographic change. Two experiments applied the Cultural Inertia Model to 1) identify methods through which majority groups attempt to maintain the status quo as a function of demographic change (i.e., support toward right-wing authoritarian leaders, collective action for White nationalism, and voting restrictions), 2) identify who is more likely (i.e., high levels of national nostalgia) or less likely (i.e., high levels of national prostalgia) to support those methods, 3) identify solutions for reducing those methods, and 4) identify explanations (i.e., group status threat and violent radicalization) for those relationships. The findings were mixed. The results demonstrated that those high in national nostalgia who were presented with abrupt demographic change produced by foreign-born Latinos reported significantly higher ideological radicalization (Experiment 1) and support for Donald Trump’s 2024 presidency (Experiment 1). Contrary to what was predicted, presenting demographic change as continuous (Experiment 2) led to higher violent radicalization among those high in national nostalgia. National prostalgia did not moderate any of the relationships. Group status threat and violent radicalization did not mediate any of the predicted relationships. National nostalgia and prostalgia predicted higher levels in the outcome variables via increases in violent radicalization. Implications of the findings were discussed