Pandemic of Partisanship

Pandemic of Partisanship

Carson Robb

July 11^th, 2020

The Global Pandemic

Only 182 days ago the first individual from the People’s Republic of China fell dead from a rapidly growing and daunting virus. Nine days after this, the first case was reported within the United States. Eventually Wuhan, a city of over eleven million people, was completely closed-off by Chinese authorities.  With this mass-closing, the news cycles began to more fully analyze and warn of an upending disaster. Unfortunately, the United States Government was slower to take note. As consequence, Americans turned towards a variety of sources of information and perspective on this growing crisis. Now into July, researchers are beginning to see a major fallout from this fight over information. A recent Pew Research Study titled Three Months In, Many Americans See Exaggeration, Conspiracy Theories and Partisanship in COVID-19 News political partisanship has proven to be quite costly. 

In this survey, 9,654 U.S. adults were asked which organization gets the facts right almost all or most of the time when it comes to the Coronavirus outbreak: (1) The CDC and other public health organizations or (2) your governor/state government or (3) your local news media or (4) the news media in general or (5) Trump and his administration. The results from just this question are shocking. (See Image) As can be seen, 76% of Democrats/Leaning Democrats claim the CDC and other health organizations get all or most of the facts right, while only 9% of the same group think the Trump administration does. However, 51% of Republicans/Leaning Republicans claim the same of the CDC and other health organizations, while 54% trust the Trump administration. It appears that the pandemic has reaffirmed partisan lines in terms of which sources of information to trust. 

Origins of Partisanship 

Recently, we had the chance to read and discuss Lilliana Mason and Julie Wronski’s study titled One Tribe to Bind Them All: How Our Social Group Attachments Strengthen Partisanship. In this, Mason and Wronski examine how religion, race, sex, and other demographic indicators become stronger when they align with a particular partisan platform. They create an analysis of this through the lens of ‘social sorting’, which argues in both objective and subjective terms. The objective being when personal attachments to each demographic indicator(s) and partisan group merge to create more loyal partisanship bonds through an implicit understanding. The subjective being when we can successfully perceive the cumulative alignment between the in-group (demographic relation) and in-party (partisan) bond explicitly. A point is made that the Democratic party is generally thought of as partisan inclined to politicize demographics. However, the conclusion is actually drawn to suggest that stronger ties exist between party Republicans and their in-group relations. 

Analysis of the Pandemic and Partisanship 

Let us examine how the global Coronavirus Pandemic could enlighten our understanding of objective and subjective sorting. We understand this pandemic requires a mass-spread of information for the safety of Americans. Republicans, as shown by Wronski and Mason, have stronger ties to in-group and partisan bonds. Because the current administration is Republican with anti-establishment and anti-media group ties, this could give understanding (via objective sorting) why trust is highest with the Administration and lowest with media groups. Alternatively, Republicans might also identify information that’s spread through mass/local media and that of the Administration. Through subjective sorting, a Republican may make the explicit connection between the in-group ties with the perceived anti-establishment information. Once this tie is made, that particular Republican may actively choose to heed the Administration’s information over the CDC, health or media organizations. Thus, objective or subjective sorting could explain the partisan divide over information trust during the pandemic.