… Many observers now regularly argue that, as Thomas Edsall of the New York Times puts it, what motivates partisan voters is loathing rather than loyalty. For decades, many have treated elections as a choice between the lesser of two evils. And, to be sure, a great deal of outstanding scholarship has focused on the negative and emotionally charged nature of modern party identity. Many Democrats and Republicans say they are unhappy with both parties. …
Wanting to know more, Carlee Beth Hawkins and I set out to study American party identity in light of new research in social psychology. What we found was surprising, given all the research and discussion about negative partisanship. Most American partisans do not appear to have a primarily negative party identity. And when they do, it seems to have more to do with how they feel about their own party than how they feel about the other party. CONT.
Alexander Theodoridis (UC-Merced), Monkey Cage