Dynamics of Polarizing Rhetoric in Congressional Tweets

Abstract

Dynamics of Polarizing Rhetoric in Congressional Tweetsaffective polarization is pervasive in modern us politics, and can be intensified by strategic messaging from members of Congress. But there are gaps in our knowledge of the dynamics of polarizing appeals from elected representatives on social media. We explore the usage of polarizing rhetoric by members of Congress on twitter using the 4.9 million tweets sent by members of Congress from 2009 to 2020, coded for the presence of polarizing rhetoric via a novel and highly accurate application of supervised machine learning methods. Fitting with our expectations, we find that more ideologically extreme members, those from safer districts, and those who are not in the president's party are more likely to send polarizing tweets, and that polarizing tweets garner more engagement, increasing campaign funding for more polarizing members.

Online Incivility in the 2020 Congressional Elections

“…This comes on the back of a sharp jump in Republican incivility compared to the 2018 elections and reverses a trend of greater incivility among Democratic candidates in the early stages of the Trump era. This trend aligns with previous research which points to chamber majority status being an important factor in determining online rhetorical strategy for candidates (Ballard et al 2022; Russell 2018; 2020).…”

“…Partisanship is, of course, a primary consideration, and while previous research has generally found that Republicans in Congress may be more likely to use attacking campaign strategies (Theilman and Wilhite 1998) and are more prone to uncivil or hostile rhetoric on Twitter (Russell 2018; 2020), these historic results are also greatly influenced by party chamber status and whether a co-partisan currently controls the White House (Ballard et al 2022).…”

“…Additionally, coordinated attacks on the opposition are more feasible for the minority party (Groeling 2010), whereas majority party Members have greater incentive to credit claim and highlight positive legislative records (Grimmer, Messing, and Westwood 2012; Reeves and Rogowski 2015). Incivility is also generally a tool of resistance and opposition (Shea and Sproveri 2012) and Democratic incivility has increased in response to Donald Trump’s rise to political prominence (Ballard et al 2022). Therefore, given that Democrats were in the minority in the Senate and did not hold the White House, it is perhaps reasonable to expect that Democrats, rather than Republicans, would be more uncivil in 2020, especially in Senate races where they were battling to regain majority status.…”

“…As such, incivility may not be an advantageous strategy for candidates running in closely contested elections. However, those candidates running in less competitive districts may be willing to trade persuasive power for the greater engagement effects that stem from uncivil rhetorical approaches (Ballard et al 2022; Herbst 2010; Mutz and Reeves 2005; Woo Kim et al 2021).…”

(Re)shaping online narratives: when bots promote the message of President Trump during his first impeachment

“…This use of nicknames also echoes Trump’s strategy in employing derogatory language when depicting other groups, such as the frequent use of terms such as ‘animal’ or ‘killer’ when referring to immigrants ( Bilewicz & Soral, 2022 ). Such strategies are part of a broader trend of incivility by American politicians on Twitter, with uncivil tweets serving as powerful means of political mobilization and fundraising ( Ballard et al, 2022 ) by drawing on emotions such as anger ( Joosse & Zelinsky, 2022 ; Bernecker, Wenzler & Sassenberg, 2019 ); the ensuing attention may even lead politicians to engage into greater incivility ( Frimer et al, 2022 ). In the case of Trump, the violence-inducing rhetoric resulted in permanent suspension of his Twitter account, days before being charged by the House of Representatives for “incitement of insurrection” ( Wheeler & Muwanguzi, 2022 ).…”