Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity

“…continued to branch here on the basis of political ideology because today’s heightened levels of political polarization (Iyengar and Westwood 2014; Mason 2018) make political identity, as compared to general levels of religiosity, an especially salient cleavage type driving ingroup/outgroup…”

“Shanto Iyengar and his colleagues, among others, have identified affective polarization as a key manifestation of the deep divides in American politics today (Iyengar and Westwood 2014; Mason 2018; Iyengar et al. 2019).”

“As a result, partisanship is associated with elevated positive feelings about one ’ s own party, often coupled with heightened negative feelings toward the other (e.g., Iyengar, Sood, and Lelkes 2012, Iyengar and Westwood 2015, Mason 2015, Mason 2018).”

“Mason (2018) demonstrates that partisan and ideological identity has evolved in the U.S. to become closely linked with racial and ethnic social identities.”

“Partisans today have sorted along lines of race, religion, education, and geography—creating what Mason (2018) describes as “mega-identities” (p. 14).”

“Coupled with the partisan sorting into different communities or regions (Mason, 2018), scholars also point out that the redistricting process in favor of one party in power hinders fair voter representation (Kennedy et al., 2016).”

“…in the face of challenging information, motivate a defense of the in-party, producing the vili fi - cation of threatening out-parties, and generating action-oriented emotions that increase political activity, even after controlling for instrumental or issue-based concerns (see also Mason 2018a).”

“Accordingly, such political polarization may exacerbate enmity with others outside of different groups (Huddy et al., 2015; Mason, 2018).”

“…to divisive Supreme Court decisions (Zilis 2018; 2021); resentment between Republican and Democratic identi fi ers (Kane, Mason and Wronski 2021; Mason 2018); misperceptions of the party coalitions (Ahler and Sood 2018; Claassen et al. 2019); the in fl uence of “ intense policy demanders ” on…”

“Expertise here provides a mechanism for elites to validate partisan identities akin to other forms of partisan affirmation around policy conflicts (e.g., Mason 2018, 49).”

“Citizens might thus lose their trust in political institutions and democracy, and the threat of using illiberal political strategies or violence rises (Mason, 2018: 128; Rapp, 2016; Somer and McCoy, 2018).”

“Political observers have bemoaned the segregation of Americans across party lines and especially the rise of strong partisan identities (Mason 2018), as well as the nationalization of politics (Hopkins 2018).”

“The anomalous nature of (redacted)’s moderate Republican governorship stood in contrast to the national background of political polarization, declining ticket-splitting, and growing partisan hostility (Mason 2018).”

“…should not only elevate the salience of partisan identities by linking them to a variety of other important features related to the viewer ’ s world view (Mason, 2018), but they should also emphasize the threat to social esteem posed by the prospect of losing the election (Huddy et al., 2015).”

“In many Western democracies, the changing media landscape also reflects a growing political polarization (Mason, 2018).”

“This is a further evidence of the negative political consequences of affective polarization in a multiparty setting (Mason, 2018).”

“…such that Americans, most notably white Americans, with the most virulent racial views now primarily identify with the Republican Party while Americans with progressive racial attitudes most likely to identify with the Democratic Party (Englehardt 2020; Mason 2018; Westwood and Peterson 2020).”

“Consistent with recent scholarship, I find that most voters make sense of politics by using group identities as a guide (for a review, see Achen and Bartels 2017; Mason 2018).”

“Another active area of work examines the growth of partisan anger (Abramowitz 2010), culminating in the adoption of an increasingly uncivil political discourse by politicians (Mason 2018).”

“Another stream of research examines how an increasing intensity of affiliation with a party alters how voters critically assess the world around them (Druckman, Peterson, and Slothuus 2013; Mason 2018; Rothschild et al. 2019).”

“As polarization between the parties has risen, affective polarization has also risen in the electorate, with voters increasingly mapping partisan attachment on their social identities (Mason 2018; Iyengar and Krupenkin 2018).”

“Rather than using facts to objectively arrive at a decision, motivated reasoning explains why/how we rationalize our way into the decisions we already wanted to make (Druckman and McGrath 2019; Lodge and Taber 2013; Mason 2018; Pasek 2018; Taber and Lodge 2006).”

“…how gender and gendered nationalist views shape attitudes on civility measures and ratings of Trump’s civility, given research finding that party polarization and negative partisanship impacts public opinion and political behavior increasingly in American politics (Abramowitz 2018; Mason 2018).”

“First, as politics has become nationalized (Hopkins 2018) and partisanship is thought of as teamsmanship (Hetherington and Weiler 2018; Mason 2018), predicting the outcome of a high-stakes election in a polarized political environment becomes of increasing interest to more people.”

“…racial cleavages have increasingly come to align themselves into a simple binary – Republican or Democrat, and argues that the election of Trump may be understood as “the culmination of a process by which the American electorate has become deeply divided along partisan lines” (Mason, 2018, p. 3).”

“Although ideology is increasingly considered to have elements of an identity akin to partisanship (Davis 2018; Ellis and Stimson 2012; Mason 2018), one’s ideological orientation has long been considered to be grounded in principles and values, in contrast to partisanship, which is widely recognized…”

“…the culture wars (Abramowitz, 2010), differences in presidential approval (Jacobson, 2007, 2020, 2021), ideologically-driven affective polarization (Rogowski and Sutherland, 2016), and polarization rooted in emotions and/or social identities (Iyengar et al., 2019; Mason, 2018; Webster, 2020).”

“Consider that people are often fused to multiple groups that are nested within one another (Mason, 2018).”

“In addition, scholars have argued that polarization may contribute to stalemates and inefficiencies in the policymaking process, as politicians are increasingly unable to work together to pass legislation (Mason 2018).”

“A large scholarship demonstrates that, beyond merely disagreeing on issues, Demo-crats and Republicans now dislike and distrust members of the other party, damaging the strength of American democracy.”

“Individuals with a strong attachment to their partisan identity will have a motivation to vote for a candidate with whom they share a partisan identity (Lavine, Johnston, and Steenbergen 2012; Mason 2018a).”

“In all four plots, as respondents identify more strongly with feminism, predicted levels of participation become higher for Democrats, while they tend to decline for Republicans.”

“Second, a strand of studies investigates the effects of social and ideological sorting (Harteveld 2021b; Iyengar et al. 2019; Mason 2015, 2016, 2018a).”

“As Mason (2018) shows, such a reflection is dependent on a convergence between partisan and other political and social identities.”

“Trump "tapped into a current of resentment and anger across racial.and cultural lines" (Mason, 2018, p. 3).”

“Research has shown that people tend to hold positive attitudes toward members of their preferred political party while holding negative views of members of the opposing political party (Mason, 2018).”

“…so, we follow a growing body of research that describes the central role of partisanship in defining symbolic boundaries between social groups in contemporary American politics (Mason 2018; Mason and Wronski 2018; Robison and Moskowitz 2019; Rothschild et al. 2019; Westwood and Peterson 2020).”

“Consistent with this messaging, research finds that conservatives were less concerned about the virus than liberals (Calvillo et al. 2020; for additional research on the effects of political actors on public opinion, see, e.g., Mason 2018; Merkley and Stecula 2021).”

“By the beginning of the 21st century, the partisan division was ideological with a high level of issue alignment (Abramowitz, 2018) and with an increasing level of hostility towards the opposing party (Finkel et al., 2020; Iyengar et al., 2019; Mason, 2016, 2018a, 2018b).”

“Such affective polarization (Iyengar et al., 2019), strongly rooted in dynamics of group identity and tribalism (Mason, 2018), increasingly sets the stage for politics as a war between opposing camps hold‐ ing irreconcilable moral positions.”

“…eras where widescale political sorting was based on racial attitudes (largely as a consequence of the Southern Strategy; Carmines & Stimson, 1989), recent political science literature suggests that the partisan sorting process has stabilized and resulted in more polarized parties (Mason, 2018).”

“…are dismissive of or even avoid this type of education, we are faced with another form of social sorting, increasing affective polarization, prejudice, and participation motivated by ideological and partisan identity rather than democratic outcomes (Mason 2018a; 2018b; Peer et al., 2017).”

“This strong correlation between Christian nationalism and favorable views toward Trump may be evidenced by recent political events, such as the ReAwaken America tour and the Evangelicals For Trump community, which have drawn religious groups that score the highest in Christian nationalism (Djupe, Lewis, and Sokhey 202…”

“…identity also increasingly acts as a social identity that aligns with other identities (Lenz 2013; Theodoridis 2017), and which makes copartisan and social cues increasingly important (Bartels 2002) and leads individuals to follow their copartisans in adopting specific behaviors (Mason 2018).”

“For instance, researchers have identi fi ed elite ideological polarization (Mason 2018; Rogowski and Sutherland 2016), the proliferation of partisan news outlets in a high-choice media environment (Lelkes et al., 2017), and the in fl uence of ma-joritarian systems (Horne et al., 2023) as possible…”

“Partisans with stronger or more salient social identity attachments are more likely to harbor negative emotions towards the out-party (Enders & Lupton, 2021), seek out homogeneous social circles, and engage in activism on behalf of their team (Mason, 2018).”

“What once was a heterogeneous movement has now become more polarized, reflecting the increasingly bipolar nature of American politics (Mason 2018).”

“Many argue this hostility is generating worrying decay of democratic institutions, threatens wider social trust and hinders inter-party cooperation (Kingzette et al., 2021; Mason, 2018a; McCoy & Somer, 2019).”

“…are motivated to protect their party status feel the desire to positively distinguish the group from others and develop of ingroup bias (Tajfel & Turner, 1979 ), fueling motivated reasoning and partisan sorting, encouraging the alignment between party identity and issue attitudes (Mason, 2018 ).”

“Increasingly, individuals are experiencing affective polarization and partisan prejudice, or viewing their in-group (political party) more favorably and the out-group (opposing party), more negatively (Mason 2018) and, in turn, creating a lack of empathy for individuals in the opposing party.”

“Ideological identity strength is also a predictor of outspokenness, but issue extremity (the absolute value of issue ideology) takes a negative-signed coefficient, similar to findings from Mason (2018) that identity strength is a better predictor of political activism than issue position.”

“Similarly, Mason (2018) when writing about political polarization has demonstrated that zero-sum thinking in political discourse can contribute to interpersonal estrangement, particularly within families where members hold opposing ideological views.”

“When we add partisanship to the picture we introduce the idea of partisan sorting vs. “cross-pressures” (Mason 2018; Perry 2022, 2023).”

“Powellism, with a focus on numbers (Hampshire 2018), Wright’s “encroanchment” of Englishness (2017), and the analysis on the multi-dimension of immigration narrative help understand the surge of anti-immigration, as out-group narrative (Mason 2018).”

“This has been theorized by the political scientist Lliana Mason (Mason 2018) as follows.”

“…of group identities along partisan lines (Mason 2018) implies that partisan bias is confounded with bias against specific, out-partisan groups.”

“This form of pushback against partisan messaging highlights a key issue with analyses of contemporary partisanship (e.g., Mason 2018), insofar as a focus on the salience of in-groups and out-groups has privileged distinctions between Republicans and Democrats.”