James Pethokoukis points me to a paper in PLOS ONE about different word usage on Twitter among Democrats and 
Republicans. Some of it was unsurprising. Democrats curse more, use more internet slang, and are more touchy-feely. Republicans are more religious and like to emphasize group identities.
The authors also report on the results of an algorithm (too complicated for me to understand) that ranks the top words among Democrats and Republicans. Some of them are just products of the time the tweets were collected (June 2014). The Kenya references among Democrats, for example, were related to the Kenya hotel bombing on June 16. We also learn that Republicans refer to President Obama as bho while Democrats prefer pbo.
But here’s an interesting tidbit. Compared to Democrats, Republicans appear to tweet much more about specific political figures, and to tweet about things they’re mad at. Five names make their top 20, and (by my count) 16 things they’re outraged about. Among Democrats, one political name makes the top 20 and two things they’re outraged about. I can’t really account for either of these results. There are plenty of Republicans that Democrats don’t like, and plenty of things they’re outraged about. But apparently Dems don’t tweet about them much.
One caveat: despite being a registered Democrat myself, there are a whole bunch of top Democrat words that I can’t make sense of. What is qampa? Is journey the band, or do Democrats just like to talk about travel? What about maya and nene? Are those the poet and the singer? Or the Mesoamerican civilization and the bird? And what’s up with arsenal? Is this the football club or the place where weapons are stored?
Conversely, the top Republican words are all too easy to understand. I’m not quite sure about loi, but that’s it.
To summarize: Republicans are pissed, and Democrats are young enough to use lots of words I don’t get. Sigh.
