Discursive Dominance by Tweet: How the GOP Became the Party of Trump
Under Review
A defining feature of Donald Trump’s presidency was the willingness of his Republican colleagues to play along with his illiberal and erratic behavior. This tendency to “follow the leader” extended from endorsing particular policy positions to parroting the false claims of election fraud that led to the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. The transition of the GOP into the party of Trump has threatened the pluralism and liberalism often thought to define American democracy. Yet, this change did not occur overnight; instead, Trump’s dominance increased over time as his particular discursive style became mainstream within the party. To examine how Trump transformed the Republican Party in his own image, this study utilizes a dataset of tweets issued by Republican members of Congress during Trump’s term (2017–20). I employ quantitative text analysis techniques to investigate how the party’s discourse coalesced around Trump, as well as the extent to which anti-Trump factions remain vocal within the party. This study increases our understanding of elites’ political communication strategies on social media by tracing how a single leader’s discursive style spreads through a network of copartisans. Furthermore, this research contributes to the ongoing scholarly discussion on the legacy of the Trump presidency for American democracy and the Republican Party.
Measuring maga using text as data
Under Review
In this manuscript, I develop and validate several different methods to use text from Twitter to measure Republican politicians’ alignment with the MAGA movement of former President Donald Trump. After constructing these measures, I evaluate their robustness using real-world data on alignment with Trump. I then introduce a dataset including the “MAGA score” for each GOP member of the House of Representatives and Senate for the 115th Congress (2017–18) and 116th Congress (2019–20).
Anger and Immigration Salience
Under Review
Under what conditions does immigration become politically salient? Although scholarly interest in public opinion about immigration has flourished in recent years, we know too little about what makes this issue salient for ordinary citizens. This paper proposes that immigration salience is catalyzed by emotionally-resonant political discourse. Specifically, anger-inducing discourse increases immigration salience more than anxiety-inducing discourse, as anger is known to heighten group-oriented predispositions, such as nationalism and ethnocentrism. To assess this argument, I analyze Spanish political parties’ tweets (N=651,796) and monthly survey responses (N=406,327) from 2009 to 2021. I find that immigration salience is highest when anti-immigration political discourse is frequent and angry, with this relationship strongest among right-wing individuals. I then present data from a survey experiment conducted in Spain (N=1,467) to demonstrate that anger has a causal effect on immigration salience. These findings highlight the importance of emotions—especially anger—in anti-immigration politics.
Women’s Representation in presidential elections
Under Review, With Cynthia McClintock
Does the runoff rule disadvantage women candidates? Research from the U.S. South suggests that runoff historically reduced the electoral success of Black candidates, with some studies suggesting a similar effect on women candidates. Yet, little research has investigated the generalizability of this finding to non-U.S. contexts. As runoff is used in more than 70 percent of presidential elections worldwide, such a negative effect on political inclusion would significantly detract from the rule’s otherwise beneficial effects. In “The Impact of Runoff on Political Inclusion,” Cynthia McClintock and I assess the impact of the runoff rule on the electoral inclusion of women. Analyzing more than 250 presidential elections worldwide between 1990 and 2022, we find that runoff is not associated with worse outcomes for women candidates. We further use qualitative analysis of cases to examine the factors that contribute to higher rates of political inclusion. By placing the debate on runoff and inclusion within a comparative context, we demonstrate the importance of contingent factors in determining women’s political inclusion, rather than features of the runoff rule itself.
Electoral RuLE Reform for mayoralty elections in large u.s. cities
Working Paper, With Cynthia McClintock
Over the course of the twentieth century, the majority of large U.S. cities replaced the plurality rule with runoff for mayoralty elections and, in recent years, several cities have replaced runoff with ranked-choice voting (RCV). Our research examines how and why these large U.S. cities engaged in electoral-rule reform for mayoralty elections. We found that the repeal of plurality was often catalyzed by concerns about plurality winners without majority support and by a shift to non-partisan elections—which was an overarching political-reform goal, particularly during the Progressive Era. Support for non-partisan runoff mayoralty elections was broad and the system was unusually stable; only recently was runoff replaced by RCV in several cities, primarily due to concerns about turnout and cost under runoff. Given the increasing interest in and importance of electoral reform at the municipal, state, and federal levels, this analysis is timely and important.
Anger is the new fear
In Progress
In this manuscript, I assess the state of the scholarly literature on the distinction between anger and fear/anxiety. Using quantitative text analysis techniques, I examine the titles and abstracts of articles published in the top political science journals, showing that scholars discuss fear much more than anger. I then build on recent research to argue that anger is more important than fear in explaining contemporary political trends, including the rise of populism, the electoral success of the far right, and democratic backsliding.
Rhetorical Coercion and Mainstreaming Anti-Immigration Discourse: Why the Far Right Feigns Support for Progressive Causes
In Progress
Why do far-right parties link their opposition to immigration to progressive causes, such as gender equality and LGBTQ rights? Recent scholarship suggests such progressive appeals are employed to increase these parties’ popular support and to stigmatize Muslim immigrants. Yet, this discursive strategy also challenges the boundaries of permissible political debate and serves as a mechanism for mainstreaming anti-immigration discourse. By emphasizing progressive issues, far-right parties exercise a form of rhetorical coercion, which forces mainstream parties to engage in a substantive debate about immigration—or else risk distancing themselves from widely-accepted values and principles. This study illustrates this dynamic by analyzing tweets from political leaders in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States (2010–22). Quantitative text analysis and regression analysis demonstrate how mainstream parties are more likely to engage with anti-immigration arguments grounded on progressive claims than those tied to other issues, such as economic and security concerns. This study contributes to the literature on far-right politics and anti-immigration politics by examining a mechanism through which the far right mainstreams its opposition to immigration.
Joseph Cerrone 