“Nasty woman,” “Monster,” “Phony”. These are some of the insults Trump has lobbed at Kamala Harris. The president is no novice when it comes to personal jabs. So versed is he in putdowns and slurs, Wikipedia has devoted a page to the “List of nicknames used by Donald Trump.” Far from exhaustive, the inventory of nearly 90 monikers includes derogatory epithets slung at fellow American politicians (“Lyin’ Hilary”, “Low energy Jeb”), foreign leaders (“Rocket man”) media figures (“George Slopadopolu”, “Fredo”), and a host of other personalities who have been sucked into Trump’s orbit (“Horseface”, “Jeff Bozo”).

More recently in the 2024 presidential contest, Trump called the Vice President a “bum”, (reportedly also a “bitch”), and mockingly mispronounced Harris’ first name, declaring “I couldn’t care less”.

In recent days, some members of the GOP told Trump to tone it down. Former Trump employee Nikki-“birdbrain”-Haley warned him to “quit whining” and stop hurling slurs at Harris. Ex-Trump adviser Kellyanne- “your husband is a ‘moon face’”-Conway said her former boss’s “winning formula” includes “fewer insults, more insights.” Meanwhile the as-yet-nickname-free Peter Navarro, a Trump economic adviser declared, more indirectly, that the president is not “sufficiently focused” on his policy differences with Harris. 

Despite the surge of sympathy following Trump’s assassination attempt, the GOP fears his boorish sloganeering is failing to keep converts and win wavering voters. 

It is reasonable to say that members of the Democratic Party — and to be fair, most Republicans — don’t approach the volume Trumpian taunts. Still, the left-leaning political classes aren’t above adopting different forms of mockery. Less used are the offensive soubriquets than sneering scorn and snobbery, a contempt that large swathes of voters are dumb, easily duped, and fail to grasp simple home truths. As Hillary Clinton mused during her 2016 presidential campaign: “You know, just to be grossly generalistic [sic], you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables.” 

Vice President Harris and her wingman Tim Walz are also less inclined to adopt Trump’s mud-slinging modus operandi, but in recent weeks engaged in some — albeit milder — belittling of their own. Describing their opponent and his sidekick J.D. Vance as “creepy” and “weird as hell”, perhaps they momentarily misremembered Michelle Obama’s memo — “When they go low, we go high.”

Commentators commonly consider Clinton’s sweeping comment on a vast proportion of the American public to be a factor that contributed to the collapse of her campaign. Meanwhile, in the 2024 presidential race, Kamala Harris seems to be edging past Trump, or at the very least, is seen as the less “unfavourable” option. 

While the American pundocracy and media often engage in their own populist parlour gossip and partisan besmirching, is it politically savvy to slur one’s opponents? Aside from the soap opera value of slanging matches, do insults work? 

In fact, evidence suggests the electorate generally disapproves of uncouth discourse. 

In 2018, a study explored whether civility or incivility affected how people perceived politicians, especially in highly partisan environments. Conducting observational and experimental studies with thousands of participants, psychologists Jeremy Frimer and Linda Skitka found that courteousness improved or, at a minimum, didn’t hurt a speaker’s reputation. In contrast, discourteous remarks diminished a speaker’s reputation. 

Beyond this, Frimer and Skitka found insults carried limited clout: they had little impact on the reputation of the targets of the verbal onslaught, judgments about the perceived winner of the debate, or opinions about whether the country is moving in the right direction. 

Even President Trump’s self-proclaimed “diehard supporter”” viewed him more favourably when he responded to a personal attack with civility. In an experimental set-up, positive tweets such as “A fantastic day in D.C. Met with President Obama for the first time. Really good meeting, great chemistry. Melania liked Mrs. O a lot!” (Trump, 2016) were received with increased approval from both Trump’s backers and his detractors. Playing nice — perhaps surprisingly — scored points.

In another study conducted by a team at the University of Buffalo, Northeastern, and Harvard, both Republicans and Democrats tended to agree about the quality of Trump’s tweets. Both sides generally disapproved of his insults and condemned his highly negative posts while endorsing his highly positive ones. The investigators concluded that this shared outlook could be explained by, “a simple desire for civility and objectivity”.

Further blows against the use of personal slurs come from findings that people are more open to alternative perspectives when they feel genuinely listened to and respected. They respond better when their “opponents” show sincere interest in the nuances of their point of view. For example, a recent study found that high-quality listening fuels greater self-insights and fosters openness to change.

The truth is, as we’ve all experienced, insults are the easiest weapon to load, and the fastest to fire off. However, the alternative to a combative politics of slurs and contempt needn’t be a cosy, Kumbaya consensus. While goodwill and good faith debates might seem like a weak, wet, watery way to conduct policy-making, as the Stoic philosophers recognised, it takes a special mental strength, supported by institutional and civic muscle, to resist intolerance and engage dialogue constructively for the common good. Doing so is not only a better way to seek the truth it is a slicker way to get stuff done. 

Positive messaging can steal the show. At the Democratic National Congress, when Michelle Obama uttered the words “America, hope is making a comeback” she instinctively knew: to get ahead, politeness is more politic than flooding debates with personal put downs.