Do Americans Hate People from the Opposing Party Equally?

• In Event: Identity's Role within Partisanship

Abstract

Do Americans hate people from the opposing party equally? Affective polarization mainly emphasizes inter-party animosity and neglects the variation within each party. Though the parties in the US are sorted, they are still composed of politically diversified groups therefore it is very important to understand people’s feelings towards the subgroups of the parties. Besides, affective polarization is mainly measured by the feeling thermometers towards the parties, but this measurement is very vague because people could associate any targets with the parties. Research found that partisan animosity towards political elites is higher than that towards ordinary people, however, categorizing partisans into elites versus ordinary people overly simplifies the composition of the parties. Relying on a nationally representative survey, I find that partisan animus towards various subgroups of the parties is vastly different. First, I find that partisan animosity towards nonvoters is 71.2% lower than that towards the parties. Partisans feel relatively cold towards in-party nonvoters but relatively warm towards out-party nonvoters. Second, partisan hostility towards political elites is not necessarily higher than that towards ordinary people. I found that when out-partisans’ vote choice was indicated, people hate ordinary voters as much as they hate presidential candidate. Third, partisan sub-brands—MAGA Republicans versus Progressive Democrats are much more likely to induce partisan hostility than traditional Republicans versus Democrats. This paper suggests that inter-party polarization should take intra-party variation into account.

Author

• Rongbo Jin, Chinese University of Hong Kong Shenzhen