Thread by @LilyMasonPhD

There needs to be an honest conversation about asymmetric expectations of civility. (Thread)

It is not “hateful” to point out the influence of systematic and institutionalized racism on public figures.

It is not “incivility” to object to inhumane treatment and dehumanization of children and babies. It should, in fact, be a common cause with pro-life activists, whose commitment to infants should not depend on country of origin or race.

Calling a white person “deplorable” is not the same as calling a person of color a racial slur that has been used for generations to justify widespread violence, enslavement, kidnapping, rape, and murder.

Missing out on your pasta course (but receiving your cheese plate for free) is not similar to party-wide chants supporting the imprisonment of political opponents or making laws that humiliate millions of LGBTQ citizens.

What we (political scientists) know is that self-identified conservatives tend to hold generally left-leaning policy positions. Self-identified liberals are also left-leaning.

See this article in which, on a scale of 0 (all left-leaning positions) to 1 (all right-leaning), the most leftist liberal scores 0.08, and the most right-wing liberal scores 0.33. The most leftist conservative scores 0.29, most right-wing scores 0.75. academic.oup.com/poq/article/82…

So there are very few, if any, liberals who hold positions from the right (greater than 0.5) end of the spectrum. There are a significant number of self-identified conservatives who hold attitudes on the left end of the issue spectrum.

What this means is that policy-centric campaigning will only work for Democrats. The GOP needs to use more identity- and threat-based appeals.

This is backed up by my research with @julie_wronski demonstrating that the GOP is more powerfully fueled by (white, Evangelical) identity politics than Democrats are fueled by their own groups’ identities. economist.com/democracy-in-a…

So, there is empirical evidence that the GOP is better incentivized to use rhetoric based on identity threat. They are therefore more prone to using inflammatory language, and more threatened by challenges to their supremacy.

This puts Democrats in the position of needing to respect the feelings of their opponents, while those opponents are motivated largely by the power of outrage. It’s not an even fight. So it is important to avoid equalizing civility claims.

It is also important for the media to understand that they are being forced into this reduced frame in which Republicans’ feelings must be protected because they are more sensitive to identity threat than are Democrats.

I realize that this sounds completely opposite the common narrative, but empirical, scientific research supports this narrative. Science itself might be polarizing, but this is the best I can do to explain.

There’s a lot more than I can tweet here- check out my book for the psychological and historical reasons for all of this. amazon.com/dp/022652454X/…