Tribal politics, hate speech hit America polls

By TOM JACOBS and STANDARD ON SUNDAY TEAM

Within minutes of Barack Obama’s re-election as the President of the United States, there were at least a dozen messages posted on Twitter calling for his assassination.

Prominent supporters of his Republican rival Mitt Romney took to various platforms to vent their frustration at what some termed the “death of America” or “a great disgusting injustice”. A small racist protest erupted in Mississippi. Donald Trump, the best-known face of anti-Obama rhetoric during the campaign, went on to call for a “revolution”.

For all the glowing media coverage of the victory and the praise for Romney’s concession, the just-ended US election was one of the most bitterly fought and has left many in the nation angrier about political issues than ever before. Following the ‘empty chair lynchings’ in Texas and Virginia last month, in which a chair representing Obama was hanged in protest, the anger among supporters of the Grand Old Party is not surprising. 

Extremes

The extremes to which some are prepared to go, however, are. One Kaleb Newton, using the handle @KNewt00, tweeted: “I’ll give anyone $20,000 (about Sh1.6 million) if you assassinate Obama right now.” Nicholas Parillo @nickparillo wished the Mafia were around to do it while Faith ‘Morgiee’ Morgan @MorganFaith94 begged others on Twitter to do the deed. Aware of the consequences of such tweets, one poster defiantly hash-tagged his #ComeGetMeFBI.

Political scientist Tom Jacobs says this anger arises from the division of the US into two mutually antagonistic camps that increasingly behave in a tribal manner. Quoting fellow analyst Lilliana Mason, Jacobs makes the argument in a disturbing Pacific Standard article titled ‘American politics go tribal’.

“Some academics insist the American public is becoming strongly polarised, while others believe the phenomenon is largely limited to the political and media elite,” he writes. “Mason’s analysis is more subtle and more disturbing. Her research suggests that, in terms of attitudes towards issues, (Americans) are no more polarised than we were decades ago. But our emotions, and the behaviours they drive, have largely uncoupled from our actual analysis of the issues. Essentially, our identities have become increasingly intertwined with our political affiliation. As a result, we feel ever more certain that our party is right and the other is wrong — even in cases where their positions aren’t far apart. Our attitude towards the opposing party has become, basically, tribal: We detest them simply because they’re the other side.”

The idea that the world’s foremost democracy is growing more intolerant with each election may seem incredible. For Kenyans going into the first General Election since a divisive 2007 race whose contested result was followed by spontaneous and planned violence, it is unsettling. However, the willingness of US voters to accept electoral flaws and irregular defeats (like they did in 2000) or heightened political tensions (like they do every election) without resorting to violence is an object lesson in political maturity.

Mason makes her case in two papers that analyse data on US elections from 1972 to 2004, along with a new study she conducted in 2011.

“The American public can hold remarkably moderate and constant issue positions, while nonetheless becoming progressively more biased, active and angry when it comes to politics,” she argues. “Even as we agree on most issues, we are becoming increasingly uncivil in our approach to politics.”

Behavioral polarisation

Mason discovered that what she calls “behavioral polarisation” — anger at the other side, activism for one’s own side, and a tendency to look at political arguments through a biased lens — is driven much more strongly by that sense of team spirit, as opposed to one’s views on public policy.

“Ideological identity doesn’t necessarily reflect your position on issues,” she said. “It means you feel like a liberal or a conservative. You can identify very strongly as a liberal, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you hold the most extremely liberal positions. You can, say, think there should be restrictions on abortion, but still feel that liberals are your group, your people.”

And the notion of defending “your people” is an emotional impulse that can be traced back to our distant evolutionary past. After all, banding together in mutually protective groups is how civilization developed in the first place.

“This is where ethnic conflict comes from. We’re hard-wired to protect our group,” Mason said. “You can tell someone their party supports something that they’re against, and they’ll start to move toward their party’s position... There is no way to educate people into being less polarised.”

While there are some people who are less blinded by the bias that partisans have, she says, they also tend to be less informed about the issues, and most are disengaged from the political process.

If her analysis is accurate, the only way to reduce the anger and bias would be “to reduce the strength or alignment of political identities”.