{"id":22027,"date":"2020-09-11T06:43:07","date_gmt":"2020-09-11T06:43:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=22027"},"modified":"2020-09-14T03:07:32","modified_gmt":"2020-09-14T03:07:32","slug":"angry-americans-how-political-rage-helps-campaigns-but-hurts-democracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/angry-americans-how-political-rage-helps-campaigns-but-hurts-democracy\/","title":{"rendered":"Angry Americans: How political rage helps campaigns but hurts democracy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Steven Webster<\/a>, Indiana University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

As the 2020 presidential election draws near, one thing is clear: America is an angry nation. From protests over persistent racial injustice<\/a> to white nationalist-linked counterprotests<\/a>, anger is on display across the country.<\/p>\n

The national ire relates to inequality, the government\u2019s coronavirus response<\/a>, economic concerns<\/a>, race and policing<\/a>. It\u2019s also due, in large part, to deliberate and strategic choices made by American politicians to stoke voter anger for their own electoral advantage.<\/p>\n

Donald Trump\u2019s attempts to enrage his base are so plentiful that progressive magazine The Nation called him a \u201cmerchant of anger<\/a>.\u201d Meanwhile, his opponent, Joe Biden, elicits anger toward the president, calling Trump a \u201ctoxic presence<\/a>\u201d who has \u201ccloaked America in darkness<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anger-filled political rhetoric is nothing new. From Andrew Johnson and Richard Nixon to Newt Gingrich<\/a>, politicians have long known that angry voters are loyal voters<\/a>. People will support their party\u2019s candidates locally and nationally so long as they remain sufficiently outraged at the opposing party.<\/p>\n

While inciting voter anger helps candidates win elections, research from my book, \u201cAmerican Rage: How Anger Shapes Our Politics<\/a>,\u201d shows that the effects of anger outlast elections. And that can have serious consequences for American democracy\u2019s long-term health.<\/p>\n

Trust in government<\/h2>\n

Political anger lowers citizens\u2019 trust in the national government, causing people to view it with hostility, skepticism and outright contempt. Due to the increasingly national focus<\/a> of politics, that anger is often directed squarely at the federal government, not state or local officials.<\/p>\n

\"President<\/a>
Richard Nixon, here in 1973, mastered the politics of resentment.<\/span>
\nDavid Hume Kennerly\/Getty Images<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

That creates a governance problem. As previous scholars have demonstrated, trust facilitates bipartisan lawmaking<\/a> and support for social welfare programs<\/a> that seek to make society more equitable, among other policies.<\/p>\n

Americans\u2019 trust in government has been declining<\/a> for six decades.<\/p>\n

Scholars have argued<\/a> that party affiliation determines trust in government. When one\u2019s preferred party controls government, that trust is high; when the opposing party has power, it\u2019s low.<\/p>\n

While partisanship does affect people\u2019s trust in various political institutions, it cannot explain why overall faith in the U.S. government has been dropping for decades. After all, party control of Washington switches frequently.<\/p>\n

My research finds sustained anger is a more likely suspect for Americans\u2019 diminished trust in government.<\/p>\n

Though American political anger has many sources, it was Ronald Reagan\u2019s 1981 assertion<\/a> that \u201cgovernment is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem\u201d that really began to solidify Republicans\u2019 anger at the federal government.<\/p>\n

This statement, rooted in the conservative preference for individualism and free markets over government intervention, crystallized latent Republican anger with what many considered to be an activist federal government. That anger is in full bloom today.<\/p>\n

Anger with the government is not simply a conservative phenomenon. Liberals are mad, too \u2013 usually because they believe the government is not doing enough<\/a> to address racial and social inequalities. That anger, too, is in full bloom today.<\/p>\n

\"Protesters<\/a>
Portland, Oregon has seen over 100 straight days of protest against police violence and racism.<\/span>
\nAllison Dinner\/AFP via Getty Images<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Angry people tend to negatively judge<\/a> the source of their anger. So when politicians continually label each other with crude epithets and infuriate people by taking \u2013 or not taking<\/a> \u2013 certain actions, the public responds by lowering their evaluations of Washington.<\/p>\n

Eventually, they question what government is even capable of.<\/p>\n

Health of American democracy<\/h2>\n

Anger causes Americans to adopt attitudes that run contrary to the democratic ideals of the nation, my research shows.<\/p>\n

It makes Americans see supporters of the opposing political party as less intelligent than themselves. Arguably more harmful for democracy, anger also makes people see supporters of the opposing political party as a threat to the country\u2019s well-being.<\/p>\n

These findings help explain why both Democrats and Republicans tend to hold a dim view of each other<\/a>. Recent polling data finds that nearly two-thirds of Republicans see Democrats as \u201cclosed-minded,\u201d while approximately half of Democrats see Republicans as \u201cimmoral.\u201d In 2016 only half of Republicans and a third of Democrats held these views. Partisan antipathy is rising.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
Anger fuels distrust in government.<\/span>
\nDavid McNew\/Getty Images<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Angry people generally want to blame somebody \u2013 or some group \u2013 for their problems, whether they are the real or perceived cause. Political campaigns, logically, work to elicit anger at the opposing party. This means that their supporters are quick to blame those who disagree with them for the country\u2019s shortcomings.<\/p>\n

Consequently, voter anger causes politics to move beyond a competition of ideas and philosophies and into a zero-sum game in which each side\u2019s gain is the other\u2019s loss. That weakens people\u2019s commitment to the democratic norms and values that have long been the linchpin of the U.S. political system, such as tolerance and a respect for minority opinions.<\/p>\n

In 2018 the Pew Research Center found<\/a> that 40% of Americans believed democracy was working \u201cnot too well\u201d or \u201cnot at all well.\u201d This year 62% of Americans surveyed by Pew agreed that the structure of the U.S. government needs \u201csignificant changes<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

[Deep knowledge, daily.<\/em> Sign up for The Conversation\u2019s newsletter<\/a>.]<\/p>\n

Democracy may not disappear because candidates keep stoking Americans\u2019 ire at each other and at the political system. My work finds that discontented Americans don\u2019t want an entirely different form of government, despite global concerns that the U.S. is \u201cbacksliding\u201d toward authoritarianism<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But anger is corrosive. It diminishes the quality of American democracy well after the politicians who used anger as a campaign strategy have won and left office.\"The<\/p>\n

Steven Webster<\/a>, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Indiana University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Steven Webster, Indiana University As the 2020 presidential election draws near, one thing is clear: America is an angry nation. From protests over persistent racial injustice to white nationalist-linked counterprotests, anger is on display across the country. The national ire relates to inequality, the government\u2019s coronavirus response, economic concerns, race and policing. It\u2019s also due, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":22028,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[8608,479,4716,868,4468,13,8609],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22027"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22027"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22027\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22040,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22027\/revisions\/22040"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}