How to Dehumanize the Political Opposition

There are two ways we dehumanize others: focus on their machine-like qualities or stress their animal nature. Mechanistic dehumanization characterizes people as unemotional, cold, and rule-bound, like robots or automatons. Animalistic dehumanization portrays people as overly emotional, impulsive, and childlike.

And this is how liberals and conservatives dehumanize each other. Conservatives portray liberals as immature, hysterical, and impatient. Liberals portray conservatives (and businessmen) as hard-hearted, rigid, and miserly.  The other side is either too hot or too cold.

 Reference:

Jarret T. Crawford, Sean A. Modri, Matt Moty Bleeding-Heart Liberals and Hard-Hearted Conservatives: Subtle Political Dehumanization Through Differential Attributions of Human Nature and Human Uniqueness Traits Journal of Social and Political Psychology, 2013, Vol. 1(1), doi:10.5964/jspp.v1i1.184