Bully Partisan or Partisan Bully? Partisanship, Elite Polarization, and U.S. Presidential Communication
Objective The objective of the study was to investigate the impact of perceptions of elite polarization on presidential communication. Polarization among political elites has been a well studied aspect of political science scholarship. Party competition is seen as healthy for democracy; however, polarization often leads to gridlock and legislative inaction. There is ongoing debate about how elite polarization affects individual attitude formation, particularly in relation to important political institutions like the American presidency. Methods I conducted randomized laboratory experiments in which respondents read information about the state of partisanship in American politics, viewed videos of President Obama, and then answered questions about issues and presidential approval. Results The results show that when participants were primed to think about elite polarization as high, presidential communication yields job approval ratings, issue importance ratings, and issue stances closer to the party line, compared to participants primed to think elite polarization is low or when there was no prime at all. Conclusion The findings suggest that when primed to think about strong partisan disagreements, partisan identity overwhelms respondents, and makes them focus most on their partisan identity, regardless of content; without such a prime, respondents are more likely to consider the content of presidential communication. Perceptions of partisan acrimony can affect how partisans perceive important institutions like the presidency in terms of job approval and issue stance.