So What?: Emotions and Identity Attachments Solidify in the Name of Policy Discourse

With the narrowing down that is taking place in the Democratic debates leading up to this year’s much anticipated presidential election, candidates are starting to cement their followings and personal histories and qualifications are becoming increasingly relevant. Aside from intraparty cleavages becoming more apparent and aggressively scrutinized, the political dialogue between the Republican party and the Democrat party has already proved to be an impassioned conversation, to say the least. The context that has been surrounding the Democratic debates over the past few months has been especially impactful. The impeachment hearings not only directly involved a candidate in the debates, but it seemed to involve the current administration as an informal participant.

In an article from the American Political Science Review, “Expressive Partisanship: Campaign Involvement, Political Emotion, and Partisan Identity”, the strong emotional reactions voters have to campaign events are examined. The authors discuss the fact that Democrats and Republicans have historically voted at much higher rates than Independents, though Independents specifically exist to identify with a customized set of policies. This suggests that party affiliation is a major driving force behind poll participation and that actual policies are somewhat irrelevant when push comes to shove.

The authors also found that campaign involvement is driven by social identity and can be somewhat easily emotionally manipulated by candidates. These findings are important when looking at the dialogue from the recent Democratic debates from a wider perspective and understanding how public reactions are being shaped in the months leading up to the actual vote. The research that was gathered by Huddy, Mason, and Aaroe is indicative of the idea that social factors and identities largely determine the partisanship that we claim and to what extent we feel connected to this title. The underlying implications of what these priorities mean in a democratic system help give context as to why politics is immediately associated with conflict and disagreement- according to the authors’ findings, campaign results are fueled by anger and division. It is interesting to note how strongly students identify with a certain party, especially in relation to blog subscribers whose attitudes were collected based on their partisanship to begin with. To me this shows that the process of identification (not limited to political preference) begins at a young age for whatever reason.

With this research in mind, the exchanges from this week’s Democratic debate hold deeper meanings that go beyond the policies which were discussed. Elizabeth Warren used a significant part of her platform to address Mike Bloomberg’s past comments and treatments towards women.

WARREN: "I'd like to talk about who we're running against, a billionaire who calls women 'fat broads' and 'horse-faced lesbians.'

"And, no, I'm not talking about Donald Trump. I'm talking about Mayor Bloomberg."

WARREN: "We are not going to beat Donald Trump with a man who has who knows how many nondisclosure agreements and the drip, drip, drip of stories of women saying they have been harassed and discriminated against."

Warren’s comments represent a specific interest group of feminists within the Democrat party, assuming that they do not want to see another white, rich, male as president. Her performance at the debate was widely considered a success and a significant factor that led to this victory was her ability to cater to important factions by associating certain identities with candidate Bloomberg.

KLOBUCHAR: "I actually welcomed Mayor Bloomberg to the stage. I thought that he shouldn't be hiding behind his TV ads."

KLOBUCHAR: "I think we need something different than Donald Trump. I don't think you look at Donald Trump and say we need someone richer in the White House."

Again, we see how candidates attempt to attribute a certain image with their political rivals which will eventually determine public emotional reaction when it comes time to hit the polls. The trends of the polls already change somewhat drastically following each debate, and from the comments above and others not included, we can be pretty sure that it isn’t largely due to a unique political stance or the differentiating support of some policy. The emotions- anger, defensiveness, resentment – are not only a growing part of our current climate but the most important motives for decision making, at least in elections and campaigns. It will be interesting to see how the attacks evolve as the list of candidates continues to be refined and as our current President continues to respond to the dialogue from his social media platforms. These are the conversations and feelings that will accompany constituents into the voting booths when the time comes.

Huddy, Leonie, et al. “Expressive Partisanship: Campaign Involvement, Political Emotion, and Partisan Identity.” American Political Science Review, vol. 109, no. 1, 2015, pp. 1–17., doi:10.1017/s0003055414000604.

Mack, David. “Things Got Ugly At The Democratic Debate In Vegas. Here Are The Most Savage Takedowns.” BuzzFeed News, BuzzFeed News, 21 Feb. 2020, www.buzzfeednews.com/article/davidmack/democratic-debate-nevada-attack-takedowns.

LaLoggia, John. “6 Facts about U.S. Political Independents.” Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center, 15 May 2019, www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/05/15/facts-about-us-political-independents/.

Rogers, Katie. “President Declares the Winner of the Democratic Debate: Donald Trump.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 20 Feb. 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/02/20/us/politics/trump-las-vegas-bloomberg.html.

account, Donald J. TrumpVerified. “Donald J. Trump (@RealDonaldTrump).” Twitter, Twitter, 18 Feb. 2020, twitter.com/realDonaldTrump?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor.