Joe the Plumber and Partisan Schadenfreude

We're all vulnerable to it.

Samuel "Joe the Plumber" Wurzelbacher greets supporters during a campaign rally with Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) in the gymnasium at Mentor High School October 30, 2008 in Mentor, Ohio. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

1. Partisanship

Here is one of the nagging feelings that’s been in the back of my mind over the last few years:

We’ve developed a political culture in which one party has affirmative policy goals and the second party is committed mostly to making the first party angry. And this incentive system has created a market in which the first party campaigns on healthcare reform and infrastructure spending while the second party campaigns on performative cruelty.

Turns out there’s enough evidence here to support a scholarly article: “Partisan schadenfreude and candidate cruelty,” in the new issue of Political Psychology.

But the data is more nuanced than you might expect and presents a cautionary tale not just for one side, but for all of us. Especially when it comes to people like Joe the Plumber.

It’s going to be a bit of a ride; so let’s get to it.