Elite Messaging and Partisan Consumerism: An Evaluation of President Trump’s Tweets and Polarization of Corporate Brand Images

• DOI: 10.1177/1065912920939188
• Date: 01 December 2021
• Author: Kyle Endres,Donald P. Green,Costas Panagopoulos
• Published date: 01 December 2021
• Subject Matter: Articles

2021, Vol. 74(4) 834 –851

https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912920939188

Political Research Quarterly

© 2020 University of Utah

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DOI: 10.1177/1065912920939188

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Article

President Donald J. Trump is a prolific user of Twitter,

boasting more than 62 million followers on one of the

most visible accounts on the platform.1 Through his fre-

quent use of Twitter, President Trump regularly engages a

variety of subjects and actors. He has used Twitter at

times to spotlight his friends and at other times to direct

criticism at his foes. Many of the recipients of President

Trump’s public admiration or disdain are not inherently

political, but rather become politicized when the head of

the Republican Party features them on his Twitter feed. In

fact, some of the most successful American brands, such

as Apple, Macy’s, Nike, Nordstrom, and others, have

been jolted into the political limelight either during

Donald Trump’s presidential campaign or during his ten-

ure as president. For example, he has explicitly or implic-

itly called for boycotts of Apple, Macy’s, and Nike using

Twitter. His daily barrage of tweets often generates atten-

tion beyond his millions of followers, as they are shared

by other users and are further amplified by media cover-

age (Wells et al. 2016). The sudden politicization of these

brands presents an opportunity to evaluate the president’s

ability to guide consumer attitudes and behavior toward

these brands.

President Trump’s transformation from reality TV per-

sonality to the foremost Republican official occurred dur-

ing a period of heightened polarization in the United

States, in which Democrats and Republicans increasingly

view their own party favorably and the opposing party

negatively (Iyengar, Sood, and Lelkes 2012). Many

recent studies have shown that partisans’ views and

behaviors can be influenced when they begin to associate

seemingly nonpolitical entities with one of the major

political parties (e.g., Banda, Carsey, and Severenchuk

2020; Panagopoulos et al. 2020). In recent years, politics

939188

PRQXXX10.1177/1065912920939188Political Research QuarterlyEndres et al.

research-article2020

1University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, IA, USA

2Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA

3Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

Corresponding Author:

Kyle Endres, Department of Political Science, University of Northern

Iowa, 2304 College Street, Cedar Falls, IA 50614, USA.

Email: kyle.endres@uni.edu

Elite Messaging and Partisan

Consumerism: An Evaluation of

President Trump’s Tweets and

Polarization of Corporate

Brand Images

Kyle Endres1, Costas Panagopoulos2, and Donald P. Green3

Abstract

One of the hallmarks of the Trump Administration has been the president’s frequent use of Twitter to express his

approval of or disdain for firms such as L.L. Bean or Macy’s. The suddenness with which corporations have come

into the political spotlight presents a research opportunity to scholars interested in opinion leadership and partisan

polarization. To what extent do presidential tweets lead to polarization of Democrats’ and Republicans’ opinions

about the firms that are praised or excoriated? Are these effects especially strong among co-partisans? How long-

lasting are they? Using weekly evaluations of firms that came under fire from President Trump’s tweets, we model

the net brand ratings of Democratic and Republican respondents. Our time-series results suggest that presidential

criticism via Twitter typically has strong immediate effects on net ratings that subside after a few months. One

noteworthy exception is presidential criticism of Apple, which coincided with criticism from prominent Democrats as

well. Overall, the magnitude of the immediate effect demonstrates the role of elite opinion leadership in precipitating

polarized assessments of firms that were previously evaluated similarly across the political spectrum.

Keywords

consumerism, boycotts, buycotts, polarization

Endres et al. 835

2 Political Research Quarterly 00(0)

has infiltrated the marketplace, with large percentages of

Americans reporting boycotting or “buycotting” products

or companies for political reasons (Endres and

Panagopoulos 2017) or for their association with

President Trump and his family’s products (Copeland and

Becker 2019). The dynamics of an affectively polarized

citizenry that, at a minimum, claims to engage in “parti-

san consumerism,” and a president who does not shy

away from voicing his own negative views of (and dis-

agreements with) American companies, creates an oppor-

tunity to evaluate the influence of elite partisan opinion

leaders via social media on affective polarization in the

marketplace, as showcased by President Trump’s tweets

calling on the public to embrace or shun specific brands.

We examine the president’s ability to lead public

opinion by monitoring shifts in overall brand evalua-

tions of partisans following the president’s public

expressions of scorn toward multiple U.S. companies.

Modern presidents routinely avail themselves of the

“bully pulpit” to appeal directly to the public, and presi-

dential pronouncements have the capacity to influence

public opinion (Canes-Wrone 2006; Edwards 2003).

Cavari (2013) argues presidents are uniquely positioned

to shape public attitudes by virtue of being, “the most

dominant actor in American politics” (p. 336), but presi-

dential leadership of public opinion varies depending on

specific contexts or conditions, message attributes, or

individual characteristics (Cavari 2013; Cohen 2015;

Tedin, Rottinghaus, and Rodgers 2011). Partisan iden-

tity has been shown to condition responsiveness to pres-

idential cues, for instance (Cohen 2015; Zaller 1992);

while co-partisans may be receptive to such cues, oppo-

sition party identifiers may be resistant or may react

negatively (Cohen 2015; Zaller 1992). These arguments

imply elite cues will polarize partisans’ views, but these

effects could also be asymmetrical if co-partisans are

more responsive to presidential cues, as several studies

have demonstrated (Cavari 2013; Cohen 2015). We

expect that public responsiveness to presidential signals

extends to consumer settings.

Aggregating daily surveys of Americans’ brand per-

ceptions into a weekly time-series that stretches from

January 2014 through January 2019, we assess the

extent to which President Trump’s tweets affect how

Democrats and Republicans view consumer brands.

We test his influence separately among self-reported

Democrats and Republicans and find that the president’s

calls to boycott and/or endorsements of emerging boy-

cotts have immediate, negative effects on Republicans’

brand perceptions while having the opposite effects for

Democrats. These shifts in opinion are often large,

highly significant, and persist for up to five months. Our

results also suggest the effects are most potent among

the president’s co-partisans.

Background and Expectations

Most Americans self-identify as either Democrats or

Republicans,2 and their attachments to one of the major

political parties influence both their political participation

and their views of many policy and political issues

(Campbell et al. 1960). The reach of partisanship in the

United States, however, extends beyond the political

realm and has become a central component of some parti-

sans’ social identities (see, for example, Mason 2018).

Over the last forty years, partisans have become more

divided, with many Democrats and Republicans viewing

their fellow partisans more positively while viewing

opposing partisans more negatively—a phenomenon

known as affective polarization (Iyengar, Sood, and

Lelkes 2012; Lelkes 2016). This in-group bias favoring

one’s own party combined with animosity toward the

other party is consistent with social identity theory (Tajfel

and Turner 1979) and has both electoral and non-electoral

consequences. Partisan divisions, for example, can elicit

emotional responses (e.g., anger or incivility), which in

turn can drive political attitudes, vote choice, and voter

turnout (Huddy, Mason, and Aarøe 2015; Miller and

Conover 2015). Affective partisan polarization has grown

so strong in the United States that it rivals other societal

divisions, such as racial polarization, and can contribute to

discriminatory evaluations of, and actions toward, the

individuals affiliated with (or perceived as affiliated with)

the other party (Iyengar and Westwood 2015). Outside the

political realm, how partisans view and treat each other

can be affected by their perceptions of other people’s party

affiliation. Both contract workers (McConnell et al. 2018)

and employers (Gift and Gift 2015), for example, have

demonstrated preferences for co-partisans.

Positive (negative) views and actions toward individu-

als affiliated with the same (other) political party could

extend to corporations that become associated with either

the Democrats or Republicans. Sizable percentages of

Americans claim their behavior in the marketplace has

been influenced by political or social factors (Endres and

Panagopoulos 2017; Newman and Bartels 2011).

Consumers can express their opposition to a brand’s poli-

tics by avoiding the brand through boycotts when they dis-

agree with its politics. Alternatively, consumers can seek

out brands through “buycotts” when they agree with their

politics (Bennett and Entman 2000; Neilson 2010; Shah et

al. 2007; Stolle and Micheletti 2015). Corporate political

activity often occurs under the radar but can influence con-

sumer preferences if partisans become aware of a brand’s

allegiance to one political party instead of the other, such

as through exposure to political contributions in past elec-

tion cycles (Panagopoulos et al. 2020). Given the poten-

tially negative consequences of communicating a partisan

position to their customer base, corporations generally