The language used by members of the US Congress between 2009 and 2019 reflects a 23% increase in profanity among lawmakers, particularly Democrats, according to a study published Thursday.
Tweets about former President Donald Trump (2017-2021) are largely responsible for the deteriorating manners in Congress, said Robb Willer of Stanford University in California and one of the study’s co-authors.
The researchers used artificial intelligence to examine about 1.3 million Twitter messages sent by members of Congress to identify rude content, which they define as expressions that observers would normally classify as rude or offensive.
While vulgarity and profanity in public language can be found across the political spectrum, the study found that disrespect between members of the Senate and House of Representatives was most notable among the more “progressive” Democrats.
This partisan difference may be explained, at least in part, by these lawmakers’ reactions to former President Trump, the researchers speculate.
A team of researchers led by University of Winnipeg’s Jeremy Frimer found that the most acrimonious Twitter messages are those that receive the most likes and are forwarded with the greatest enthusiasm.
Just because the most inflammatory tweets get more buzz on social media doesn’t necessarily mean they get more approval, say the authors of the article in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science.
“Rude tweets are likely to get more likes because they get retweeted so many times that they reach a lot more people,” Willer said.
In January 2021, The New York Times published a compilation of hundreds of slanderous and provocative statements in Twitter messages Trump had sent since announcing his candidacy for the presidential nomination in 2015.
Trump tweeted about 8,000 times during the 2016 presidential campaign and about 57,000 times during his presidency until he was banned from this social network in the final days of his tenure, according to analysis by CNN Television. .
Previous studies have shown that despite the damage disrespectful language can cause, using it can help politicians draw attention to specific issues, raise funds, and excite their supporters.
“Our research cannot determine whether this trend is good or bad,” Willer said. “People have to draw their own conclusions on this issue. We are interested in analyzing the long-term toxicity of political discourse.”