This interview will be on “St. Louis on the Air” over the noon hour Wednesday. This story will be updated after the show. You can listen live.
It may be no surprise to hear that the state of politics makes Americans angry. Beyond feelings, though, a new academic paper finds political anger has dire social consequences and threatens democracy itself.
Betsy Sinclair, a political science professor at Washington University, co-authored the paper. After surveying nearly 3,500 Americans, she found the level of political anger put on display during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot is driving Americans to discriminate against people of the opposite political party.
“It’ll make you not water your neighbor’s plant,” she said.
Politicians who manipulate anger using partisan loyalty is not a new concept. The Wesleyan Media Project found nearly 50% of campaign ads that aired in election cycles between 2010 and 2016 appealed to voter anger.
And, former President Donald Trump was accused of using his platform to incite the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. But Sinclair says it’s not just Trump — both Republicans and Democrats are capitalizing on anger to get higher event turnouts, more votes and more clicks.
On Wednesday’s St. Louis on the Air, Sinclair will detail the findings in her paper — and share the antidote to political anger: flexing civic engagement muscles.
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“St. Louis on the Air” brings you the stories of St. Louis and the people who live, work and create in our region. The show is hosted by Sarah Fenske and produced by Alex Heuer, Emily Woodbury, Evie Hemphill, Lara Hamdan and Kayla Drake. Jane Mather-Glass is our production assistant. The audio engineer is Aaron Doerr.
