Polarized Attitudes and Anti-Democratic Orientation: Robust Evidence for Paradoxical Relationships Among American Partisans

Influential perspectives on polarization in the United States imply that partisans will be more willing to degrade democracy when they are ideologically aligned with their own party and negatively oriented toward the opposing party. But psychological accounts of political ideology suggest that conservatives will be especially anti-democratic regardless of partisanship. Integrating insights from these areas, we argue that there are reasons to expect paradoxical partisan asymmetries in the ideological correlates of democratic attitudes. Across numerous surveys we find that cultural conservatism and out-party favorability are reliably associated with anti-democratic orientation among Democrats (but not Republicans), while left-leaning economic attitudes are reliably associated with anti-democratic orientation among Republicans (but not Democrats). These findings provide context for understanding how polarization might impact American democracy. They also suggest that increased centrality of sociocultural conflict and Republican cultivation of a right-wing populist reputation might sort anti-democratic Americans into the Republican Party.