{"id":919,"date":"2024-11-12T14:03:34","date_gmt":"2024-11-12T14:03:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.electionanalysis.ws\/us\/?page_id=919"},"modified":"2024-11-19T15:45:01","modified_gmt":"2024-11-19T15:45:01","slug":"strategic-incivility-in-the-campaign-and-beyond","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.electionanalysis.ws\/us\/president2024\/section-1-democracy-at-stake\/strategic-incivility-in-the-campaign-and-beyond\/","title":{"rendered":"Strategic (in)civility in the campaign and beyond"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Dr. Emily Sydnor <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Associate Professor in Syracuse University\u2019s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and Senior Researcher at the Institute for Democracy, Journalism and Citizenship. Her research focuses on political incivility, disagreement and state identity. Her first book, Disrespectful Democracy: The Psychology of Political Incivility <\/em>(2019, Columbia University Press), <\/em>explores how individual level predispositions towards conflict and an uncivil media environment interact to shape political behavior. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Website: www.emily-sydnor.com<\/a>
Twitter: @esydnor<\/a>
Bluesky: @esydnor.bsky.social<\/a>
Email: eesydnor@syr.edu<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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U.S. Election 2024<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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1. Trump\u2019s imagined reality is America\u2019s new reality<\/a> (Prof Sarah Oates)
2. Trump\u2019s threat to American democracy<\/a> (Prof Pippa Norris)
3. Why does Donald Trump tell so many lies?<\/a> (Prof Geoff Beattie)
4. Strategic (in)civility in the campaign and beyond<\/a> (Dr Emily Sydnor)
5. Can America\u2019s democratic institutions hold?<\/a> (Prof Rita Kirk)
6. How broad is presidential immunity in the United States?<\/a> (Dr Jennifer L. Selin)
7. Election fraud myths require activation: Evidence from a natural experiment<\/a> (Dr David E. Silva)
8. What ever happened to baby Q?<\/a> (Harrison J. LeJeune)
9. We\u2019re all playing Elon Musk\u2019s game now<\/a> (Dr Adrienne L. Massanari)
10. Peak woke? The end of identity politics?<\/a> (Prof Timothy J. Lynch)
11. Teaching the 2024 election<\/a> (Dr Whitney Phillips)<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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The 2024 presidential contest was rife with incivility and intolerance. Even before he became the nominee, Tim Walz portrayed Republicans as \u201cweird<\/a>.\u201d In the single presidential debate in September, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris traded insults<\/a>, calling each other \u201cweak,\u201d \u201ccriminal,\u201d and \u201cincompetent,\u201d among other insults. Late in the campaign, Trump escalated attacks against former Republican Congresswoman (and Harris supporter) Liz Cheney by calling her a \u201cradical war hawk<\/a>,\u201d and suggesting that rifles be aimed at her. In the final days of the campaign, he referred<\/a> to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as \u201ca bad person\u2026Evil. She\u2019s an evil, sick, crazy bi\u2014,\u201d letting the crowd supply the word on his behalf.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many<\/a> have examined<\/a> the ways in which Trump\u2019s rhetoric in particular feels like a direct departure from norms of campaign civility, often while also noting<\/a> that campaign politics have been uncivil since our earliest presidential races. Incivility, as Susan Herbst argues<\/a>, is a rhetorical strategy, just like attacking one\u2019s opponent or appealing to individuals\u2019 sense of nationalism or patriotic duty. In the context of a campaign, the decision to use civility and incivility is driven primarily by whether it will increase voter turnout and support for the candidate. More broadly, both civility and incivility can be used to advance democratic and antidemocratic objectives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Research on the impact of (in)civility on election outcomes is mixed; while incivility has been shown to increase interest in voting<\/a> (while civility does not<\/a>), it tends to decrease<\/a> support for both preferred<\/a> and least-liked<\/a> candidates. And our interpretation and acceptance of incivility is partisan. According to data from wave 4<\/a> of the Syracuse University-Ipsos American Identity poll, both Democrats and Republicans agree that the other party and their candidate use too much violent and divisive language. They are far less concerned about the rhetoric of their own candidate. In short, while Americans report a general desire for more civil politics, the 2024 election suggests that they are unwilling to punish their own candidate for incivility. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite these patterns, Harris still deployed civility strategically in her concession speech<\/a>. \u201cWe will continue to wage this fight in the voting booth, in the courts and in the public square,\u201d she said  \u201cand we will also wage it in quieter ways, in how we live our lives, by treating one another with kindness and respect, by looking in the face of a stranger and seeing a neighbor, by always using our strength to lift people up to fight for the dignity that all people deserve.\u201d Harris\u2019 speech highlights the democratic possibilities of civility. Here, civility is a vehicle for articulating a politics of recognition<\/a> premised not on any single identity but on everyone\u2019s basic humanity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is not always the case. Polite language can be used to sanitize<\/a> injustice and discrimination, as was seen in much of the South during the civil rights era<\/a>. It\u2019s this use of civility to strategically undermine citizens\u2019 democratic rights that has critics<\/a> calling for an alternative approach\u2014the strategic use of incivility to advance democratic values. As a starting point, consider the following 2015 tweet<\/a> from writer Robert Jones, Jr.: \u201cWe can disagree and still love each other unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist.\u201d The quote is now frequently misattributed<\/a> to James Baldwin, but regardless, I have seen its sentiments echoed in TikToks<\/a> and other social media posts throughout the 2024 campaign and its immediate aftermath. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It might feel as if cutting people out of our political conversations and our lives is the opposite of democracy, which is grounded in a sense of shared civic community. Even incivility deployed in an attempt to garner greater inclusion could lead to negative outcomes, including increased political cynicism<\/a>, anger<\/a>, and an inclination towards violent and combative politics<\/a>. But those reactions might be a necessary part of the national conversation about what comes next. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On November 7th<\/sup>, Atlantic <\/em>staff writer Jennifer Senior asked<\/a> \u201cHow do we move forward without venom, without looking at strangers\u2014and people within our own party\u2014as potential enemies?\u201d One step is to decouple incivility from enmity. Yes, much of the vitriol in the political world is intolerant, reinforcing inequalities and exclusion from the political sphere. It is likely that Trump will continue to use uncivil rhetoric in this way. But it can also be used towards other more productive goals; we should all be attentive to the difference and to our own strategic use of civility and incivility in our political conversations. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr. Emily Sydnor Associate Professor in Syracuse University\u2019s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and Senior Researcher at the Institute for Democracy, Journalism and Citizenship. Her research focuses on political incivility, disagreement and state identity. Her first book, Disrespectful Democracy: The Psychology of Political Incivility (2019, Columbia University Press), explores how individual level predispositions towards conflict and an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":1004,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-919","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nStrategic (in)civility in the campaign and beyond - Election Analysis - United States<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.electionanalysis.ws\/us\/president2024\/section-1-democracy-at-stake\/strategic-incivility-in-the-campaign-and-beyond\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Strategic (in)civility in the campaign and beyond - Election Analysis - United States\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Dr. Emily Sydnor Associate Professor in Syracuse University\u2019s S.I. 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