Abstract: This paper studies the supply and returns of causal rhetoric in politics: politicians' language linking political actions to outcomes through blame and credit. We fine-tune a language model to measure its use in 4.2 million congressional tweets spanning 2012--2023. Causal rhetoric is central to politicians' communication: it accounts for more than one third of tweets, is the language of political disagreement, and rises over time. Political returns are concentrated in blame. Combining campaign contributions with quasi-exogenous geographic variation in Twitter adoption, we find that exposure to blame has the largest effects on small donations. Using voting intentions from survey data and an event-study design around blame-only and credit-only days, we find that politicians' support rises in the week after blame-only days. Additional evidence suggests causal rhetoric, and especially blame, can turn complex economic mechanisms into underqualified yet plausible, politically convenient claims.

For Information contact angela.baldassarre@unibocconi.it or giulia.zenoni@unibocconi.it