Civic Language + Political Party and Political Ideology

The impact of political identity on civic language.

One of the prevailing narratives in our current political climate is that we are deeply polarized and divided by political party and ideology. In our Civic Language Perceptions Project, we see the ways in which these political differences manifest in the language that people prefer related to democracy and civic engagement. Yet, this is not the only storyline. In these data, we also see places of opportunity to make connections and build bridges across political lines. On Tuesday, June 21, PACE joined the Democracy Funders Network for the last Deep Dive session in our series to reflect on how political party affiliation and political ideology impacts the ways in which people use and perceive civic language.

You can find the recording of the session here and below and a link to the slide deck here.

These data reveal several interesting storylines, centered around the following questions:

1. How does political party and affiliation impact people’s perception of terms?
2. Who do Democrats and Republicans associate with using civic terms?
3. What is the overlap between political party and ideology and how do they impact perceptions differently?

In our survey sample, the largest group of respondents identified as moderates (36%), 28.2% identified as very or somewhat conservative, 27.1% identified as very or somewhat liberal, and 8.6% said that they were not sure about their political ideology. Party affiliation had a somewhat different breakdown with 37% of respondents identifying as Democrat, 19.6% identifying as Republican, 7.9% not sure, and 35.4% identifying as Independent. When we look at an overlap of the two data sets, we see that 73% of Republicans identified as either somewhat or very conservative whereas 44% of Democrats identified as either somewhat or very liberal. Exactly the same number of Independents were somewhat/very conservative as somewhat/very liberal — 16% combined in both cases. 83% of ideological moderates lean or consider themselves Democrat, while only 52% of ideological moderates lean or consider themselves Republican. Thus, there is a stronger association of Republicans as conservatives than Democrats as liberals.

All data by Citizen Data. All graphs and charts by Kyle Chambers.

Analysis and Findings

Because our project produced so much data on this topic, for the purposes of this Deep Dive, we primarily focused our analysis on civic language perceptions by political party affiliation. In doing so, we found the following results.

• Overall, Democrats viewed terms more positively than Republicans, with Democrats being more positive on 16 out of the 21 terms.
• 4 out of the 5 words with the biggest spread are more positive for Democrats than Republicans (diversity-25% difference; racial equity-22% difference; social justice-28% difference; activism-29% difference).
• The 5th word — patriotism — actually has the biggest spread overall at 37%, but Republicans are more positive than Democrats.
• Regarding the word democracy, we see an almost 20% spread with Democrats being more positive than Republicans.
• There is close agreement among the parties on privilege (though overall, not very positive), pluralism, and bridge-builder. Interestingly, unity is very aligned (only 3% spread) and also very positive at 72–74% positive.

• When we look at the data through the lens of political ideology, we again see that liberals are more positive than conservatives on 16 out of the 21 terms.
• All of the same words with the biggest spread by party have the biggest spread by ideology: diversity, racial equity, patriotism, activism, social justice. But here, the biggest spread wasn’t patriotism; it’s racial equity at 43%, with liberals being more positive.
• By ideology, Americans are a little closer on the term democracy; there is a 13% differential by ideology versus a 17% differential by party.
• By ideology, there is alignment on positivity, but with different words: justice (5% spread), belonging (7%), civility (5%) and civil society (3%).

Democrats and Republicans also have different views on which activities they think are important to ensure democracy works. Democrats prefer advocating for issues, joining a cause or movement, volunteering, donating to causes, attending a protest or rally, and working in public service. Republicans prefer discussing politics with neighbors, serving on a jury, and serving in the military or another civilian program. Both groups had the most members selecting voting as important and had the same low number of members who selected posting on social media as being important.

When we turn to the question of associations of terms, we see both similarities and differences between Democrats and Republicans in terms of which groups of people they associate with using the various terms. The table above is showing only the top selection by members of each group. For example, it’s not that all Republicans think that only working class people use the term activism, but it is their top choice. Looking at the data this way allows us to learn something about association alignment between the two groups.

In analyzing these top choices for Democrats and Republicans, we see that both groups associate all but three of the terms with college graduates. Democrats associate all of the terms with college graduates, whereas Republicans associate three of the terms with non-college graduates: justice, liberty, and patriotism. Looking at racial and ethnic group associations, we also see that both Democrats and Republicans have the same association for 14 of the 21 terms. Neither group’s top association was Asian or Hispanic people for any of the terms. Republicans associate all but 6 of the terms with White people. Like Democrats, they associate the terms activism, civic health, diversity, racial equity, and social justice with Black people. The only term that both groups associate with conservatives is patriotism and the only terms that both groups associate with upper class people is privilege. Republicans associate 17 of the 21 terms with working class people, whereas Democrats associate 13 of the 21 terms with the working class. It is also interesting to note that Republicans associate liberals and progressives with the word privilege, and Democrats associate conservatives with the word privilege. Privilege is the word that has the lowest positivity rating for both Democrats and Republicans, and both associate it with the other group.

We also looked at how the groups define the terms democracy and civic engagement. Democrats and Republicans generally agreed on their preferred definition of democracy as being of, by and for the people at 55% and 58%, respectively. Fewer Independents selected that option at 43%. Similarly, Democrats and Republicans had similar views on the definition of civic engagement. The majority in both groups, as well as the majority of Independents, selected the option ‘both’ — making communities better and influencing government functions.

As this was our last Deep Dive, we concluded by looking at how far apart Americans are on these terms by different identity categories. Gender had the lowest differential and political ideology had the highest differential. Black and White had a slightly higher differential than political party. Age, education level, and religion were in the middle. We think this is important to understand. We all exist with multiple identities that often intersect, but this data shows us that not all identities are created equally in terms of how easy it is for us to use civic language to connect across differences. For example, according to this data, it is three times harder to use civic language to connect to someone of a different political ideology than to someone of a different gender identity from ourselves.

These trends and findings in the data invite further investigation and exploration. In particular, these questions and topics were raised during the deep dive session as potential areas for future exploration:

• What insights from the data might give Americans ways to understand how to better communicate across the parties and ideologies?
• What else do we need to understand about the way various groups use and understand the word privilege, given its low positivity across both political parties?
• Given that unity has high positivity for people in both parties and members of both parties are most likely to associate the word with their own party, what else do we need to understand about how to create opportunities for unity across the political parties?

We are grateful for all who joined and shared their insights on these data. Keep an eye on our Medium page and twitter as we publish more learnings on this topic, and please keep us updated on how this data is helping you and your work by emailing Language@PACEfunders.org. We look forward to learning from you!

To learn more about the Civic Language Perceptions Project, please visit www.PACEFunders.org/Language.