Angry about Fraud
How Congress Took up Trump’s Claims of Fraud
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 13057794 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Heath Brown (0000-0002-8423-2700, City University of New York, corresponding author), Lindsey Cormack (0000-0001-8464-1806, Stevens Institute of Technology) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 19 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 77-95 |
| Publication date | 2021-07-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Forum (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2194-6183 • E-ISSN: 1540-8884 |
| Publisher | De Gruyter (PUBLISHER • DE) |
| DOI | 10.1515/for-2021-0004 |
| OpenAlex | W3192302993 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 34 |
Talk of fraud dominated President Donald J. Trump’s campaign and time in office. In this article, we explore whether members of Congress followed Trump’s lead in discussing all types of fraud, including electoral fraud as well as fraud, waste, and abuse. Using a unique dataset of the universe of congressional electronic newsletters from 2010 to 2021, we show that Republicans wrote to constituents about fraud much more than Democrats, especially about electoral fraud after Trump’s election, but it was Democrats who used angrier rhetoric to discuss fraud, a check on the President and many of the false claims about voter fraud in 2016 and 2020. These findings show an important aspect of the inter-party and inter-branch dynamics at play during Trump’s presidency; once keen to focus on fraud, waste and abuse in government congressional Republican attention shifted once the head of the executive branch was a co-partisan to parroting the claims of electoral and voter fraud made by the President
Government (linguistics · House of Representatives · Patriot Act · Political science · Politics · Presidency · Rhetoric · Terrorism · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Law · Media Influence and Politics · Populism, Right-Wing Movements · Public Administration
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How the Tea Party Captured the GOP
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Asymmetric Politics
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Hard White
The Myth of Voter Fraud
Between Anger and Engagement
No Deal
President Trump and Congressional Republicans
Presidential Home Style
Who are President Trump’s Allies in the House of Representatives
Political Advertising in 2014
Legislator Adoption of the Fake News Label
The Strategic Promotion of Distrust in Government in the Tea Party Age
Trump and the Republican Congress
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Response to John L. Campbell’s review of Reactionary Republicanism
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The De Facto Independence of Federal Offices of Inspector General
The Anger Gap
The Polarization of American Politics
Somos Más
The Tea Party and the Remaking of Republican Conservatism
Divided We Quarrel
Measuring Congressional Partisanship and Its Consequences
Does Congress Still Care about Fraud, Waste, and Abuse
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2026 (2) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |