Political parties influence how people engage with the political world, shaping their political preferences, beliefs, and behaviors. Using motivated reasoning as a theoretical lens, the authors argue that a person’s political party affiliation (in particular the idea that partisanship becomes an identity unto itself) can dominate how certain people interact with and process information. The goal for individuals with this type of motivation is to defend their partisan identities in proportion with the strength of those connections, so people with weak partisan ties may moderate their issue attitudes in response to new contradictory information while those with strong partisan identities will fiercely counterargue and reject it. In times when polarization is high, partisan cues may overwhelm other types of psychological motivation (such as wanting to be objectively accurate). For climate change, these partisan motivations are firmly apparent in the polarized state of public opinion on the issue, with Democrats in favor of climate action and Republicans opposed. This line of research suggests that depolarizing and depoliticizing climate change will be a battle of psychology as much as facts.