The Public Consequences of Presidential Legitimacy Rhetoric

• In Event: Presidents and the Public

Abstract

Does presidential rhetoric delegitimizing a single institution undermine Americans’ confidence in other democratic institutions? Previous studies contend that elites undermine the legitimacy of institutions through negative messaging and bolster legitimacy through positive messaging, while other researchers find presidential rhetoric minimally impactful on constituent attitudes. Additionally, a long literature studies the legitimacy of the U.S. Supreme Court, neglecting whether potential effects of legitimacy rhetoric extend to attitudes about other institutions. This project resolves these gaps by determining whether a significant relationship between elite rhetoric and constituent views on legitimacy holds for other institutions including Congress, the presidency, U.S. institutions generally, and democracy generally. I deploy an original survey experiment through Prolific with multiple legitimizing and delegitimizing treatments attributed to U.S. presidents. I expect to find that exposure to statements undermining institutional legitimacy decreases confidence in that institution and U.S. institutions generally, while exposure to statements defending institutional legitimacy increases confidence in that institution and U.S. institutions generally, conditional on partisanship. I conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for presidential rhetoric’s efficacy and the health of democratic institutions in the U.S.

Author

• Stephanie Wise, Central College