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Hyper-partisanship & Hyper-polarization : America’s Pending Divorce

Hyper-partisanship & Hyper-polarization : America’s Pending Divorce

by | Feb 8, 2021 | Political Consulting

I recently sent an email to our email list with a simple request – “please tell me what you are struggling with politically.”  Some responded with specific issues, but most in some way mentioned struggling with the current political client – how divisive, how nasty, how divided we have become.

And then most asked, “What can we do about it?”

Analysis of the Current Political Atmosphere

It’s bad.  Really bad.

We do need some definitions:

Partisanship is a person’s self-identification with a political party.

Polarization is the divergence (the gap) between ideological extremes.

While I do not want to wade into a grad school dissertation of “Abramowitz vs Fiorina: Who won?”, we will acknowledge the research and measurement of these two concepts are a constantly moving target.  In addition, there is also merit to going beyond the trite red-blue debate (partisanship is more diverse than two poles).

However, I think we all feel the nation is deeply divided, and it is worse among the political “elite”.  So for now, we will focus on political polarization.

Pew Research

The Pew Research Center has been researching polarization extensively, and over time we can see themes emerge:

  • Polarization is increasing – sharply since 2012.
  • Polarization is more acute among the elites (politically engaged people).
  • The political elite moved first, then the general public followed.
  • It really exploded in 2012.

 

Yes, our country has gone through periods of polarization, but this somehow seems different.

Negative Partisanship

Researchers are finding a lot of this is driven by “affective” or “negative partisanship”.  Said plainly, we may not necessarily like our own party, our party’s issue positions, but we really, really hate the other party.

It is a disdain, a loathing, a complete distrust, and it feels like a precursor to collapse.   And, frankly, these things may be.

We dislike people that look different than us.

Dislike people that earn more than us.

Dislike the thought of our child marrying someone from another party.[1]

We seek out information that reinforces our feelings and attitudes.

Many of us don’t have a single friend who supports the opposing party / candidate.

Many of us don’t have friends from a different race.  [2]

The craziest thing is most of this is not driven by disagreements in policy – bear with me here because I know I am painting with a wide brush.  Most of America is conflicted (ambiguous) and holds loose policy positions on many issues.  Often, people look to party ques and leadership and adopt their issues stances.  The most recent example is how Republicans changed attitudes towards Russia during the Trump era.  [3]

This is driven by affect.  It is driven by emotion.  Specifically, it is driven by how we feel about others, and it affects “all sides.”

This polarization is connected to sorting (meaning we choose to live near people that think and look like us).  In looking at 2020 results, 57% of Floridians live in precincts (the smallest unit of analysis for returns available) where one of the major candidates (Trump or Biden) won in excess of 60% of the vote.  Nearly 40% of Floridians live in precincts where one of the major candidates won in excess of 65% of the vote.

This polarization is fed by a click-media that is more than willing to feed our worst appetites.  Why?  because polarization rewards extreme positions and is making a lot of people rich.  [4][5]  Politicians are more than willing to take polarized positions because we continue to reward them with votes.

And here is where it becomes terrifying.  We are starting to describe “others” in non-human terms.  They are “evil”, “animals”, “bitches”, or “dogs”, and in studying this type of language, we see repeated examples of what may come after its use.[6]

But here is what is truly terrifying:  everything is now partisan and polarizing – driven by what we dislike.    

For example, religion.  How can religion be polarized?  There is research that being a Christian is associated with the Republican party, and that may be driving some on the left’s aversion to religion.  “I may not be sure about God, but I am sure I don’t like Republicans – THEREFORE, I am the opposite.”

Basic ‘right’ & ‘wrong’ are now somehow partisan.  Storming the Capitol and killing five people at one point in our history wouldn’t be a difficult thing to condemn.

Polarization is now entangled with self-worth, and it has become self-reinforcing.    It’s a feedback loop we can’t seem to get out of, and some of us are violent about it.

So, it’s bad, but the second part of the emails were people truly seeking answers.

What do we do about polarization?

I think I am going to disappoint you – sorry.  I don’t have great answers for you.

It feels like America is in the middle of an awful and bitter divorce.  We are yelling and screaming about control over money (government spending) and which parent gets to dictate the rules (courts).  We are so bitter, angry and some of us no longer really know why.

But here are my recommendations:

Focus on yourself, noting each of us has a part.  We may not be able to control DC, but we can control our own thoughts and behaviors.

  • Stop using dehumanizing language.   I think therefore I am.
  • Find a person from the other party and have a beer with – or four.  (If you don’t drink, have a cup of coffee).   At this meeting, don’t try and change someone’s mind about politics, seek to understand.  Ask lots of “How” questions.
  • Stop giving money to extreme politicians.
  • Call your elected officials (Congress, State Legislatures, local) and tell them you are concerned with the level of polarization.  Ask “How do you think we can lower polarization?”
  • Stop your trolling on social media.  You don’t need to ‘own the libs’ or share a story of someone getting ‘destroyed’ on cable news.
  • Broaden your news sources.  I personally use feedly (https://feedly.com/) to subscribe to news sources from across the spectrum.  I include over-seas views.
  • Don’t accept violence.  Be vocal about your opposition to it.  Demand your local elected officials are outspoken about it.  None of this wink and nod stuff – please say it is wrong period and leave off the “both sides” nonsense.   It is leadership.

 

Yes, I know these recommendations are a bit flimsy and ‘West Wing-ish’, because the dark truth is “it’s bad, really bad”, and I don’t have a ton of hope.

But I know this started with “leaders” / elite and someone will have to lead – a scary idea.

In the end, I don’t know how to make mommy and daddy stop fighting, but I know I can try to regulate my behavior.

 

[1] https://academic.oup.com/poq/article/82/2/379/4996003?login=true
[2] https://www.americansurveycenter.org/american-storylines-project/
[3] https://news.gallup.com/poll/237137/republicans-positive-relations-russia.aspx
[4] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/fake-news-how-partying-macedonian-teen-earns-thousands-publishing-lies-n692451
[5] https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-knows-it-encourages-division-top-executives-nixed-solutions-11590507499
[6] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1745691620953767?casa_token=9zUoPRmHdyEAAAAA%3A65icz5JnkUAoWHk-Sz6IU97Dy3ffpjikYt8ArN080zdkJw3UxbGFH8IJmSdtrMAmRvqnPBTgcmI97A

A Research Study: Unsuccessful Political Candidates

by | Feb 1, 2021 | Political Research

Thank you for your interest in the original research study.  This research is conducted with our non-partisan research partner Meer Research, and the research explores the opinions of candidates that were NOT successful in running for elected office. These are people that have been in the arena and their experiences are worthy of consideration.

In addition, 2/3 of the candidates studied tell us they are likely to run again – this time with lessons learned.

We consider this to be exploratory research, and we are especially interested in your feedback and suggested additional veins of research.

After completion of the form below, you will receive an email with a link to download the form and an email to send your feedback and suggestions.

Thank you. 

DOWNLOAD THE RESEARCH STUDY:UNSUCCESSFUL CANDIDATES
Science Friday: Motives for Political Reasoning

Science Friday: Motives for Political Reasoning

by | Jan 29, 2021 | Political Research

There are some studies in political science that are interesting, and the results also pique your interest into further research.

One the fundamental questions we deal with in the political consulting profession – how do people make the political decisions they make?  Frankly, we want to understand how so that we can possibly interject into the process to persuade.

We have a significant amount of research into motivating reasoning – that is the human minds incredible ability to start with an end goal and then selectively allow in information that boosts that goal while ignoring information that doesn’t.  This study sets out to explore the “motives that underline the wants.”

What makes us want what we want?

The authors are from Northwestern University and the study is found in Political Psychology (2020) entitled “When and How Different Motives Can Drive Motivated Political Reasoning”

Cite:  Bayes, R., Druckman, J. N., Goods, A., & Molden, D. C. (2020). When and How Different Motives Can Drive Motivated Political Reasoning. Political Psychology, 5, 1031. https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12663

We see once again Republicans being experimented on due to their views on climate change.  We first read about this treatment with “The Influence of Identity Salience on Framing Effectiveness: An Experiment.”   Researchers tend to use highly polarized and politically charged issues in these explorations because there is a lot of motivated reasoning observed.

In this experiment, researchers look for the why?  Are Republicans trying to be accurate, affirm their moral values, or affirming their group identity, or some other reason?

The authors look at types of effective political messages:  presentation of novel information, the evocation of personally important values, and the communications of ingroup norms (um a really fancy way of saying … peer pressure).

This research specifically is attempting to explore the relative effectiveness of each message type on changing people’s opinions or under what conditions each of these types of information may be more or less effective.

The formal hypothesis is:

H1: All else constant, when an individual’s goal—affirm values, maintain a group identity, or achieve accuracy—aligns with the message provided—a moral relevance frame, group norms, or credible information—the message will have a greater effect on that individual’s opinions and intentions, relative to when the goal and the message provided do not align.

 

NOTE:  The paper also explores backlash effects (when information makes people dig into positions even more extremely), but that is an additional write up.

 

METHODS (HOW THEY DID THIS)

The authors used a large online survey of self-identified Republicans.  A total sample of 1964 was used.   Participants completed demos, and then were assigned to 1 of 13 experimental conditions.  One was a control the other 12 varied two factors:  messages and motivations.

Messages:

1)      Accuracy – a detailed informational message that describes a recent report (Volume II of the Fourth National Climate Assessment) on the scientific consensus that climate is changing due to human activities, it will have grave consequences, and individual actions are needed;

2)      Morals – “climate change is occurring and will destroy the sanctity of the pristine environment, making it everyone’s patriotic duty to take action to combat climate change.”

3)      Ingroup – “the climate is changing, that contrary to many people’s impressions a clear majority of Republicans agree with this fact, and also that many Republicans are taking action to combat climate change.”

Independent of the messages, four motivations were explored:

1)      No-motivation (ideology, partisanship were asked post treatment)

2)      Value threat prime (asked about ideology, partisanship and a series of partisan-as-social identity questions, then asked about the extent they felt the Republican party has strayed from core value of decency and purity)

3)      Identity threat prime (asked the degree the Republican party is falling apart and lacking consensus – using a asymmetric scale – meaning one was forced to at least somewhat agree)

4)      Accuracy prime  (ideology and partisanship were asked post treatment, and participants were told they were going to read a PSA and asked to be even handed and then told they would need to evaluate the announcement and explain how they arrived at their answers)

(Yes, it is manipulative and why it is called an experiment.)

They were also asked about their climate change beliefs (collapsed into a scale), their intended climate behaviors (buy an electrical car, etc) collapsed into a scale, and their support for five climate friendly policies (tax credits, government investment, etc) collapsed into a scale.  (If you would like the exact wording – download the supplemental information)

FINDINGS

In looking at the results and when taken together, “ the motivational matching and the motivational distinctiveness analyses offer a clear conclusion. A message—whether it included credible information, moral value framing, or group norms—had a greater impact on beliefs and behavioral intentions when individuals’ underlying motivations matched the nature of the message.”

What I personally find most interesting is almost a throw away line in the conclusion:  “The greater strength of the norms message relative to the values message suggests a motivational priority of concerns with group identity over concerns about upholding moral values regarding this issue.”  Once again, we see the strength of partisanship and polarization rearing its ugly head.

Another interesting non-result is knowing that Republicans generally believe climate change is happening, they “did not push for climate change policies.”  Why?  Is it a way of hedging?  Or is there an additional motivation not explored such as Republicans antithesis to big government solutions proposed?

DOWNLOAD THE STUDY

All the BEST Polls Agree With Me

by | Jan 15, 2021 | Political Research

In today’s Science Friday, we explore biases in polling – BUT we explore it from the angle of the interpretation of polls. 

In a paper from Madison & Hillygus (both from Duke), they conclude that while most political nerds will evaluate a poll by reviewing the methodology, sample size, and question wording, “we find a significant factor in respondent assessments of polling credibility to be the poll results themselves.”  Said a different way they “found that polls were perceived as more credible when they matched a respondent’s prior opinions and less credible when they did not.”

Experiments

The researchers conducted two experiments – one with polling a candidate and one with polling a policy issue.   It was a relatively simple experiment design – measure your priors, introduce polling, measure the change in your perceptions. 

In both instances, the researchers find motivate reasoning.  

“Overall, these results of attitude polarization, together with the findings above showing a poll’s perceived credibility being conditional on congruence with prior beliefs, indicates that evaluations of polling information are biased by motivated reasoning. “

Conclusions

This finding is concerning.  We often use polls to pop “bubbles” that politicians and consultants find themselves to be in. 

We position survey research and polling as “objective” research and a way to check critical assumptions.  This study illustrates that polling results are not being absorbed objectively. 

However, if the hyper-partisan political atmosphere is allowing political actors to disregard any research finding, we are in dangerous territory.  

citation:  Madson, G.J., Hillygus, D.S. All the Best Polls Agree with Me: Bias in Evaluations of Political Polling. Polit Behav 42, 1055–1072 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-019-09532-1

 

download the paper

Trumps Victory in Miami-Dade Florida in 2020

Trumps Victory in Miami-Dade Florida in 2020

by | Jan 13, 2021 | Political Research

Oh Miami! The city of my favorite show as a kid (Miami Vice), white sand beaches, Cuban food, and a kaleidoscope of culture. This Florida boy loves him some Miami.

Miami-Dade is the county that includes the Miami we all know and love.

Miami (Dade County) is also a Democrat stronghold in Florida, with Democrat Presidential candidates averaging over 60% – until 2020.

Miami-Dade is arguably at the epicenter of President Trump’s 2020 victory in Florida.

Something interesting happened in Miami, and we are trying to answer, “How did DJT increase his vote margin in Miami-Dade in 2020?”

2016 versus 2020

Donald Trump won Florida in 2016 and 2020. In 2016 he won with 49%, and in 2020 with the absence of a strong third-party candidate increased his vote to 51.2%, a 2.2% increase.

Miami-Dade was approximately 10.5% of Florida’s total vote in 2016 and 2020. It is Florida’s largest block of voters on a county basis.

In reviewing the data, Miami-Dade explodes off the page because DJT increased his vote share there by 7.2% – or nearly triple his statewide gains.

In today’s hyper-partisan world, we often see changes on the margins – not in this case.

A 7% move in a Democratic stronghold deserves a much more detailed examination.

 

MD – DJT % Dem % DJT MD % Statewide MD % Statewide DJT FL Vote Dem FL Vote
2016 33.8% 63.2% 7.2% 10.4% 49% 47.8%
2020 46.0% 53.3% 9.4% 10.5% 51.2% 47.9%
 delta +7.2% -9.9% +2.2% +.1 +2.2% +.1%

 

For this analysis, I am going to exclude any precincts with less than 100 total votes.

Republican Voters

Of course, we expect the vote totals for President Trump to be highly correlated with the Republican vote.

plot of Trump by Rep voters Miami Dade

In this graph, we explore precinct results with the Y axis is the vote total for President Trump, and the X axis is the number of Republicans voting.   We observe a R2 of .962.

This graph is displayed so that when review the Hispanic Vote, we have a comparison point.

Hispanic Voters

plot of Trump v Hispanic Voters Miami Dade

In this graph, we look at precinct results with the Y axis is the vote total for President Trump, and the X axis is the number of Hispanics voting.

We observe a R2 of .851!!

 Trump and Hispanic Vote in Miami Dade

Next we explore the marginals –

Plot - DJT x Hispanic Voter - Percent

This displays by precinct, the Republican vote share (%)  by the Hispanic voter turnout (Hispanic voters / total voters %) in 2020.

In addition, we observe when the data deviates from the fit line, it is tending to deviate much more on the high side of the line.

Performing a simple linear regression of the two variables:

Coefficientsa
Model Unstandardized Coefficients Standardized Coefficients t Sig.
B Std. Error Beta
1 (Constant) .06 .011 9.365 .000
HIS_2020_to_p .589 .019 .810 30.953 .000
a. Dependent Variable: r_2020_p

 

For every 1% increase in vote total for Donald Trump, we see an increase of over a half of percent in Hispanic turnout.

Simply put the more Hispanic a precinct became, the more votes DJT received.

We can visualize this a different way:

Here is a map of the hispanic voters in Miami-Dade County by Precinct.

Next, we explore the greatest gains by precinct for DJT from 2016 to 2020.

Trump - precinct gains 2016 to 2020

That cluster of votes split by Okeechobee Blvd is heavily Hispanic and some of Trump’s largest gains.

Conclusions

The GOP has long had a strategy of attacking an opponents strength.  And Miami-Dade can long be thought of as a Democrat stronghold.

It appears the gains in Hispanic voters for Donald Trump were significant in Miami-Dade and while they do not explain all of his gains they do  explain a significant part of his gains.

GOP staffers earned some stripes on this one.  From a blocking and tackling perspective – well done!