Fig. 3.

Relative usage frequency for each of 14 frames by Republicans compared to Democrats, both for the late 19th/early 20th century (Left) and the past 2 decades (Right). Farther to the left on each plot represents more frequent usage by Democrats and vice versa (plotted as log frequency ratio). Circle size represents the overall prominence of the frame in speeches about immigration, relative to all speeches. To ensure the robustness of these findings, we leave out each word in turn from each frame and show the full range of possible values obtained using horizontal lines (not visible when the full range is contained within the circle). “Dehumanization” is an aggregation of metaphorical categories (see Measuring Dehumanization). Compared to the absence of polarization a century ago, certain frames today are disproportionately used by Republicans (“crime,” “legality,” “threats,” “deficiency,” and “flood/tide”) and Democrats (“family,” “victims,” “contributions,” and “culture”). Republicans also show significantly higher use of implicit dehumanizing metaphors like “animals” and “cargo.”.