The Historical Presidency: Fear and Loathing in Presidential Candidate Rhetoric, 1952–2016

Abstract

In this article, we build on research on affective (emotion-based) polarization in American politics by investigating whether and how it has manifested in campaigns for the presidency. Drawing on a new data set of more than 11,000 statements about opponents from presidential stump speeches over the 1952-2016 period, we use quantitative content analysis to examine trends in negativity, fearful content, and anger content in these statements. We also conduct case studies of the 1968, 1992, and 2016 elections to examine qualitative patterns in these statements. We find compelling evidence that negative, fearful, and angry content in candidate statements about their opponents has been increasing over time among presidential candidates. We also find indications that fearful and angry rhetoric toward opponents is becoming more directed toward opponents' character flaws rather than their issue stances. Our research suggests that affective polarization in presidential campaigns is a long-term, and likely durable, development.

The States of Inequality: Methods for Mapping Legal Pluralism in Reproductive Autonomy

“…This is not unexpected in terms of reproductive autonomy, but it does also call into question the false dichotomy of calling some states "nanny"-or intervention heavy-and some libertarian states because those labels do not appear to show libertarian "hands-off" policies in conservative states or nanny-esque meddling in liberal states. The ideology for or against restricting personal liberties used in typical polarized discourse is not evident here (Rhodes and Vayo 2019); rather, we are seeing a matter of which-and whose-liberties are restrictable in each state, and those with higher percentages show a willingness to restrict autonomy when it comes to reproduction.…”

“…When law and rights are so different or inconstant across the fifty states, especially laws relating to bodily autonomy, we must ask whether we are living not only in legally plural environments but also in different socio-legal realities. As the United States continues to grow more polarized along partisan lines that target explicitly political issues (Rhodes and Vayo 2019), socio-legal scholars should be poised to expose the ways in which widespread partisan polarization may be leading to these different legal realities across state jurisdictions, calling into question the existence of rights at all. Legal mapping will provide a vital tool for this project.…”

Driving a Wedge? Republicans, Immigration, and the Impact of Substantive Appeals on African American Vote Choice

“… 9. The texts of presidential campaign speeches were acquired from the Presidential Campaign Speeches Corpus maintained by Jesse Rhodes (see, e.g., Rhodes and Albert 2017; Rhodes and Vayo 2019). …”