Nasty Politics: The Logic of Insults, Threats, and Incitement Cover
Podcast Mentions

Nasty Politics The Logic of Insults, Threats, and Incitement

Thomas Zeitzoff

A novel explanation for why politicians insult, accuse, and threaten their opponents, even though voters say they don't like it. Why do politicians engage in nasty politics? Why do they use insult, accusations, intimidation, and in rare cases violence against their domestic political opponents? In

Podcasts 1
Quotes 5
The Fox News Rundown

The author, a professor of public affairs, discussed their book, which examines the relationship between intense political rhetoric and increased polarization and concerns surrounding political violence. The book was mentioned in the context of the podcast's discussion about the recent assassination attempts against former President Trump.

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So there's really, really, really intense rhetoric. And I think that's definitely led to heightened polarization and concerns around political violence. I think those things are not debatable right th...

— Episode: Is Fiery Rhetoric Inspiring Political Vi...

Episode: Is Fiery Rhetoric Inspiring Political Violence?

The author, a professor of public affairs, discussed their book, which examines the relationship between intense political rhetoric and increased polarization and concerns surrounding political violence. The book was mentioned in the context of the podcast's discussion about the recent assassination attempts against former President Trump.

"

So there's really, really, really intense rhetoric. And I think that's definitely led to heightened polarization and concerns around political violence. I think those things are not debatable right there.

I think to think about the rhetoric is that so the way that I would sort of put this is that both parties are offering starkly different visions of the future.

And both parties have basically said that 2024 election is pivotal key and potentially could be the last election that matters.

And that's a really disconcerting place when we're in democracy, because the way I think about democracy is that democracy is where parties lose elections. And they're like, OK, we lost now, but we will fight another day.

And when parties and partisans and politicians start saying this is the main election and only election that matters, then the stakes of that get raised dramatically.

Note: The book recommendations on this page are discovered automatically from podcast transcripts, and may be incorrect or incomplete.