{
  "id": 10695380,
  "title": "As America shifted left under Trump, emotional hostility widened the partisan gap",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/29/as-america-shifted-left-under-trump-emotional-hostility-widened-the",
  "topic": "health",
  "section": "Health & Medicine",
  "published": "2026-09-29T13:00:51.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "PsyPost",
    "slug": "psypost",
    "url": "https://www.psypost.org/as-america-shifted-left-under-trump-emotional-hostility-widened-the-partisan-gap/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Between 2016 and 2020, public opinion in America moved towards greater liberalism, driven by shifts among independent voters and left-leaning individuals. However, the gap between Democrats and Republicans widened on various policy issues. This divergence in viewpoints was accompanied by heightened emotional animosity between the two major parties. The research, published in American Politics Research, tracked these changes using the concept of public mood, which behaves like a thermostat. When a conservative administration is in power, the public typically moves left, and when a liberal administration takes over, the public usually shifts to the right. This analysis, conducted by researchers Alan Yang and Robert Y. Shapiro, examined data from the American National Election Study (ANES) and the General Social Survey (GSS) from 2016-2020. The overall public mood trend showed a liberal rebound after the election of a Republican president, Donald Trump, who was not a traditional conservative. Nonetheless, this trend masked a significant partisan divide that expanded between the parties. Democrats and Independents became more progressive on issues like government spending and racial equality, while Republicans remained relatively stable or moved slightly to the right on specific topics. The emotional temperature of the country also changed, with Republicans becoming significantly more partisan towards their own party and less supportive of Democrats compared to Democrats' shift towards their own party.",
  "summary": "During Donald Trump’s first presidency, American public opinion broadly shifted leftward. But a new study reveals this \"liberal rebound\" was accompanied by surging emotional hostility between political parties, driving voters further apart on key policy issues.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}