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Matt Grossmann Profile picture
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2 May, 4 tweets, 2 min read
The run-for-President successful Republican agenda is apparently:
- restrict mail voting
- fine social media for bans
- riot / protest restriction
- ban vaccine passports
- ban transgender in girls sports
- spend the federal stimulus
miamiherald.com/news/politics-…
Noem is pursuing a similar focus on symbolic cultural politics & appeals to conservative media:
nytimes.com/2021/05/02/us/…

In Red State Blues, I find that Republican control of states polarized cultural politics but didn’t shift state economic policy much:
amazon.com/Red-State-Blue…
Meanwhile, Democratic state governments are continuing to move leftward on economic & cultural issues, though without reinvention:
seattletimes.com/seattle-news/p…
Federal $ means size & scope of gov will continue growing across Dem & Rep states, continuing long patterns I found
Longstanding party asymmetries in state governance also continue, with Reps more focused on rules & symbolic politics & less concerned with policy efficacy for problem solving & Dems expanding scope of government, responding to many constituencies. Trump accelerated, didn’t shift

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More from @MattGrossmann

Matt Grossmann Profile picture
7 Apr
Biden’s reconciliation-driven spend without strings or reform policy agenda seems to reverse Obama-era technocratic trends in Democratic policymaking, with a return to old Dem pol constituency distribution objectives. But it also reflects updated & diversifying academic advice
Economists have largely changed their balance of concerns on deficit spending & on cash benefits. Biden is also relying on more diverse & sociologically-inspired academic advice, visible in defining infrastructure to include social care & greater attention to racial equity.
Points 3 & 4 in @ezraklein's column are similar, but he emphasizes economics losing credibility & change in public mood:
nytimes.com/2021/04/08/opi…
Point #2 about the new generation of staffers also applies to the academic help: more diverse, liberal, & less tied to traditional econ
Read 4 tweets
Matt Grossmann Profile picture
18 Mar
Infrastructure plan is likely to substantially raise both high-income individual taxes & the corporate tax rate. Biden’s 2nd most likely major agenda item is going to be more difficult to pass & not primarily due to the filibuster
axios.com/corporate-tax-…
Business opposition & high-income voter opposition are both associated with difficulty enacting proposals, even if they are supported by the public as a whole. Democratic leaders are not aligned with business, but business still has the power to block most change
It is also the norm for intra-party disagreement to stop many major party priorities from becoming law:


Much discussion of bills with near zero chance of passage, but even the next most likely bill to pass (infrastructure, after COVID) faces big obstacles
Read 4 tweets
Matt Grossmann Profile picture
2 Mar
Republicans are more optimistic about (relative & absolute) social mobility, but no less accurate. Democrats (public & officials) understate social mobility. Dems think mobility is constrained by race & parent wealth; Reps think it’s hard work.
dartmouth.edu/~nyhan/mobilit…
In estimating chance of making it from the bottom quintile in childhood to the top quintile in adulthood, the public is more optimistic than policymakers. In predicting children’s chance of making more $ than their parents, Republican officials are the most optimistic Image
Partisans (in the public & among officials) divide on factors that matter for social mobility. Everyone thinks education is important. Republicans are more likely to cite hard work & not having kids until marriage; Democrats are more likely to cite race & parent wealth Image
Read 4 tweets
Matt Grossmann Profile picture
26 Feb
New report from our Michigan policy insiders panel:
ippsr.msu.edu/sites/default/…

State political elites are more trusting of state & local government than the public, but not the federal government

They also see Whitmer as an effective actor in the pandemic, but not federal actors
Michigan political elites had lower levels of white identity, racial resentment, SDO, & moral traditionalism than the public & higher levels of white guilt & egalitarianism. There were also big differences on sexism:
ippsr.msu.edu/sites/default/…
We followed up on our prior article on aversion to social change:
journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.11…

Elites remain less averse to value change & more accepting of increasing diversity than the public, but both the public & elites have become more accepting of social change since 2016.
Read 4 tweets
Matt Grossmann Profile picture
20 Feb
Rep opposition to COVID stimulus hasn’t mobilized public against it. But we don’t know yet whether that signals that Trump cultural resistance politics can’t fit with economic conservatism (as it did under Obama & Clinton) or if it’s specific to this bill
nytimes.com/2021/02/19/us/…
@jonathanchait makes the case timid Republican opposition to Biden stimulus means they know the base never cared about big government & are giving in:
nymag.com/intelligencer/…
We’ll get another opportunity to see soon with infrastructure.
I’m open to real change, but so far it could be about the (perhaps accidental) dynamics of this particular Bill, Trump distractions, & COVID environment (& despite that, Reps are still voting against it & belatedly trying to build opposition). More time & bills could help them
Read 4 tweets
Matt Grossmann Profile picture
24 Dec 20
Both district policy opinion & symbolic ideology influence how lawmakers cast roll call votes; the operational-symbolic divide in public opinion explains why Republican lawmakers vote more inconsistently with district policy opinion
#polisciresearch
cambridge.org/core/journals/…
Democrats approve of their representative more when the member votes on bills in alignment with their policy preferences; Republicans approve more when they their representative votes in alignment with their ideology (even if their policy-specific views are unaligned). Image
Republican districts differ only a bit on policy preferences from Democratic districts but a lot on symbolic ideology. Republican representatives vote more in alignment with their district’s ideology, Democrats more in alignment with their district’s policy-specific preferences. Image
Read 4 tweets

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