Party Foul: The Effectiveness of Political Value Rhetoric is Constrained by Party Ownership

Politicians use political value rhetoric to win elections or persuade constituents towards policy positions, but the effectiveness of this rhetoric is unclear. I argue that partisan forces constrain the effectiveness of this rhetoric and that this constraint is conditional based on the value evoked and the match between the politician’s and message recipient’s partisanship. To examine this, I conduct a survey experiment with a diverse U.S. national population and show that politicians’ value rhetoric is disproportionately evaluated based on the value evoked as well as whether the politician is in-party or out-party: in-party politicians are punished—and out-party politicians rewarded—for trespassing on the other party’s values. I then use individual-level variables to examine what drives this result, finding that both party-congruent value endorsements and affective polarization levels moderate the asymmetric responses to political value trespassing. Lastly, I replicate this experiment and reproduce the same findings. The results speak to political values, the effectiveness of political rhetoric, party betrayal signaling, and the true object of out-party distaste, which seems to be more about the party than the party member.