US political rhetoric: Analysis of 8 million speeches shows increased reliance on personal beliefs over facts

Computational analysis of US congressional speeches reveals a shift from evidence to intuition

Pursuit of honest and truthful decision-making is crucial for governance and accountability in democracies. However, people sometimes take different perspectives of what it means to be honest and how to pursue truthfulness. Here we explore a continuum of perspectives from evidence-based reasoning, rooted in ascertainable facts and data, at one end, to intuitive decisions that are driven by feelings and subjective interpretations, at the other. W…

US political rhetoric: Analysis of 8 million speeches shows increased reliance on personal beliefs over facts

Discussion of "alternative facts" has gained sad notoriety in US politics. Yet the question has been around much longer: How do people conduct political debates—is the focus more on facts or personal opinions? In the journal Nature Human Behaviour, a team of international researchers led by the Cluster of Excellence "The Politics of Inequality" looked into the matter.

The rise of "gut feelings" in US political rhetoric

Analysis of eight million political speeches reveals: never before have members of the US Congress based their rhetoric more strongly on personal convictions – and less on facts. Researchers from the Cluster of Excellence "The Politics of Inequality" at the University of Konstanz observed a decline in the use of evidence-based rhetoric by US politicians from both political parties since the 1970s.  

US congressional speeches are getting less evidence-based over time

An AI analysis finds that since the 1970s, speeches by US Congress members have shifted to favour language such as “fake news” and “mislead” over words such as “science” and “statistics”

Analysis of Political Debates through Newspaper Reports: Methods and Outcomes

Discourse network analysis is an aspiring development in political science which analyzes political debates in terms of bipartite actor/claim networks. It

The rise of "gut feelings" in US political rhetoric: Discussion of "alternative facts" has gained sad notoriety in US politics

April 10, 2025 – Discussion of “alternative facts” has gained sad notoriety in US politics. Yet the question has been around much longer: How do people conduct political debates – is the focus more on facts or personal opinions? A team of international researchers led by the Cluster of Excellence “The Politics of Inequality” looked […] The post The rise of “gut feelings” in US political rhetoric: Discussion of “alternative facts” has gained sad …