Teflon Don or Politics as Usual? An Examination of Foreign Policy Flip-Flops in the Age of Trump

Being close to an election does not make health more politically relevant: more experimental evidence during a global pandemic

“…One interpretation of the null result is that public opinion in the USA is so partisan that nothing can move the needle, at least with respect to support for a sitting president. [3][4][5] Yet, when we examine treatment effects among those whose political views lie closer to the middle of the spectrum-and hence should presumably be more susceptible to new information-we still observe null effects, as shown in the original paper. And the other countries in our initial survey-with, arguably, somewhat less polarised political environments-also show null effects.…”

The Random Walk Presidency

“…McDonald, Croco, and Turitto (2019) argue that Trump's flip‐flops did not hurt him, as public evaluations were more contingent on prior attitudes toward the president and whether voters agreed with the position the president flopped to than any concerns about the stability of those positions. Despite the president's policy inconsistencies “[on] a host of foreign policy matters, from armed conflict to trade and immigration,” they write, “we find Americans react to those reversals with a collective shrug” (2019, 765). The authors find the implications of their finding troubling, however, as polarization and motivated reasoning overwhelm any meaningful public deliberation, perhaps removing the constraints that public opinion might play in constraining presidential action.…”

Referenda as commitment devices – an experimental approach

“…Recent public opinion research on so-called flip-flopping strongly suggests that the presumed mechanism underpinning audience costs – that voters punish executives who break with previous foreign policy commitments – washes out during the tug-of-war of real-world political campaigns. Put differently, once the psychology of party identification enters the picture, flip-flops seem to have little net effect on public opinion; voters often forgive or rationalize policy changes by an executive that they currently support, and opponents have already formed a robust negative evaluation (McDonald et al, 2019). Indeed, there is evidence that flip-flopping may even elicit increased support from both supporters and detractors if the shift is in the direction of the individual voter’s prior preference (Croco, 2016).…”