Anger Can Be Good for Political Campaigns but Bad for Democracy – By Dora Mekouar (VOA News) / Sept 29 2020
Rage is a powerful motivator in American politics, capable of boosting voter motivation and filling campaign coffers, according to political science and public policy professors who have studies the matter.
They say that stoking voter anger helped elevate Donald Trump to the White House in 2016, and helped Democrats retake control of the House of Representatives in 2018.
“Politicians themselves are deliberately seeking to make Americans angry and they do this because when people are angry, they tend to vote loyally for their own party’s slate of candidates up and down the ballot,” says Steven Webster, assistant professor of political science at Indiana University.
“So, put simply, an angry voter is a loyal voter and because politicians are concerned with getting reelected, they make us angry to further that goal,” he added.
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