Why do good people vote for bad ideas? Emotion

There is still one piece of the recent election results that puzzles me, but first let me say this isn't so much a political piece, but a psychological piece. I'm fascinated by what makes people tick, what motivates them, what they believe and why, and, more specifically, why people who are presented with overwhelming evidence act against their interests. Even more specifically, why do good, smart people vote for bad candidates with horrible ideas?

As a society who wants to move forward we need to figure this shit out.

We all have friends who are somewhat or very conservative, and just like any other personality trait, it just makes them who they are. They aren't blinded by religion, hate, racism, or a "nation of idiots" as the comedian Andy Borowitz joked after the election this month, even though a small vocal minority can make it seem that way. (I really do believe the bile posted on social media is the exception and not the majority; maybe I'm naive or underestimating the Fox News brainwashing power, but I know many conservatives who are great people.)

People who have the conservative personality trait are usually hard-working, honest, smart, and driven. (Think of your friends, neighbors, and co-workers here, not FB trolls.) So my question is how can they allow such a ridiculous set of people (Palin, Cruz, McConnell, Limbaugh, Coulter, etc.) with really bad ideas (trickle down economics, climate change denial, overt racism and bigotry, etc.) lead the party?

In other words, how has the GOP turned into a party where knowledge and thought are a weakness and blindly consuming Fox News falsehoods and narratives is virtuous?

The day after the election I read something by The Rude Pundit that stuck with me:

"Here's everything you need to know about the 2014 midterms in a single anecdote: Last week, as he's mentioned, the Rude Pundit convinced the Rude Brother to vote for the Democrat, Mary Landrieu, in the Louisiana Senate race. The Rude Brother has long been Republican, but he is also for raising taxes on the wealthy, doesn't care about gay marriage, thinks abortion should be safe and legal, and agrees that humans contribute to climate change, among other beliefs. By just about any measure of politics, the Rude Brother is moderate-left, a Democrat. When the conversation ended, RB had said he would vote for Landrieu.

"Cut to Election Day morning. The Rude Pundit received a text from RB: "And, in the end, the kid couldn't pull the trigger for Mary." A little later, he got another message: "It felt dirty voting for Landrieu." RB went with Bill Cassidy, the Republican, who believes the opposite of everything RB believes in. In fact, Bill Cassidy will try to take health insurance away from our Rude Sister and her family. RB had said he has no problems with Obamacare. Well, he does now.

"There you have election 2014. A voter goes into the booth believing the world should be a certain way and then pushes the buttons for the candidates who will do everything they can to stop the world from being that way." --The Rude Pundit 11/5/2010

So, we have a country who voted progressive on almost all the ballot initiatives presented--gun control, personhood amendments, gay marriage, marijuana tolerance, minimum wage hikes--yet voted in the very Republicans who vow to act against them. One of the bigger "What the fuck?" political moments of our time, right?

The great question is "Why?!"

If we're going to move forward and not be held hostage by insane tea-party candidates with backwards ideas, we really have to figure this out.

We know from the great Jonathan Haidt why people vote either left or right. His book "The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion" was groundbreaking in the field of moral psychology by explaining how our brains are hard-wired to influence our world perceptions and therefore dictate how we operate politically. (If you're interested in moral psychology then this book is a must read.) Here's a Ted Talk with him presenting his research if you're interested.

But it still doesn't explain the Rude Pundit's brother, who agrees with progressive principles but "feels dirty" voting for progressives.

It doesn't explain how a country of smart, hard-working people can look to a party where Sarah Palin is seen as a rockstar or where a lady who literally ran a campaign based upon hog castration is able to win. Nor does it explain how a state such as Kansas, whose economy has been so decimated by conservative trickle-down economics that leading state GOP voices crossed lines and openly endorsed the democratic candidate, and yet the people of the state could not bring themselves to make that change.

For that, I have a few ideas.

Democrats are the party of the mind, and GOP is the party of the heart. The pervading wave of anti-intellectualism has created perfect conditions for nationalism to take hold without a "pull back the curtain" moment to discover the underlying racism and bigotry that hides beneath it. (And at its worst the nationalism is actually driven by the racism and bigotry, and the degree to which you see these motivating forces is based upon your overall confidence and optimism in your fellow Americans.)

When fears are presented and promoted as what should be the top political issues, people will go with heart. Images of bald eagles, soldiers, guns, and American flags resonate deeper than charts, graphs, and endless opportunity cost discussions. They give a sense of safety and security.

If I can create a sense of fear and then present the following solutions, then I have you. Turn your brain off, you have no use for that anymore. I will tell you what to fear, but I will also tell you the solutions. Don't let those bleeding heart liberals, who care about everyone and everything, sway you from protecting yourself and your family. God, Guns, and Power are all you need. You are chosen, you are special, and you must fight to keep it! 

It is so simple and so effective that I don't think the progressives will ever be able to match it.

A few weeks ago we voted in candidates who brought no new ideas to the table, and, worse yet, came with ideas and world-views that have been overwhelmingly discredited by anyone who gives a serious look to the issues. But we voted in people who give us simple, forceful solutions to what we've been told to fear.

We were motivated by conviction over practicality, by ideology over reality, and by emotion over reason.

Somehow we have to figure out how to combat emotion with the complex nuance of real solutions, and that's a tough thing to do. There are no easy answers, other than just have the confidence that we can trust each other to understand complex solutions for complex problems. We are not a nation of idiots--we've solved some very tough problems throughout our history. The historical precedent is there, but we just can't let ourselves be sidetracked with emotional dead-ends.

--Brian Paul Swenk

If you like the posts please share and sign up for emails on the left.

Keep up with me here:
Facebook
Twitter

Pontificating on Poor People's Political Plight

So it has been a long time since I've written anything here.  I'm not completely sure why,  although I do have a couple of theories.  But I will say that it truly amazes me that people dig the things I write.    I like the process, but I also like connecting with people in this fashion.  I'm like everyone else, I just want to help the world be a little bit better than yesterday.  Maybe I'll succeed, maybe I'll fail, but at least I can say I tried.  How I view the world tomorrow might be different than yesterday, but this is a fun way to look back and see a growing process for me.  As long as there are billions upon billions of people sharing this world together, then there will be many truths for us to discover.  Don't ever settle on just one.  My favorite saying ever:  "Don't believe everything you think."

I should probably point out that pontificating on poor people's political plight is as easy as parrots pulling pianos out of a pond.  But what the hell, let's give it go...

It seems to me that this election cycle is really based on one thing: poor people.  The political stand-off that is occurring with a culture-war veracity is based solely on the alternating views of what it means to be poor and the reasons behind being poor.  This is a fascinating concept, because it rises above the conservative/liberal back and forth sniping, and forces us to confront the fact that different people view the world, and the poor, in completely different ways.

When the economy is strong and growing, and everyone is working, then the size of pie slice that goes to the poor isn't that important.  But when the recklessness and greed of Wall Street has cut the world's wealth in half, then it becomes a central issue.  

A conservative and a liberal can argue endlessly about the intended direction of public policy and only go in circles that would make a small town Saturday night dirt-track racer proud.  The reason they will not find common ground is because they can't, or won't, agree on their definition of what the poor experience means.

This fundamental disagreement would be similar to looking at the edge of the Pisgah National Forest in the Appalachian mountains.  I would see it as a place of refuge, peace, solace, comfort, and a place of rejuvenation.  Someone beside me could see it as a place of danger, threats, discomfort, and flat out terror.  So the chance of us finding middle ground on policy and funding for this land would not come easy, and the chance of both of us leaving happy is even smaller.

Are we both right and both wrong?  Yes, even though I think I'm a little more right than they are.  You don't have to go far to find proof of both perceptions of the woods.  Our differing views can be traced back to life experience, especially if I grew up in the woods and my friend's experience only consisted of "When Animals Attack" videos on TV.  But there's more to it than that; there can be a distinct personality difference between us, too.  I may find enjoyment in the unknown, in the adventure of new places with limited safety, whereas my friend might get happiness from consistency and insured safety.  Two completely different outlooks that shape who we are and how we interact with our surroundings, and they are both valid.  Another example: look at people's vacation habits.  We all know people that enjoy going to the same beach, staying in the same condo, on the same week every summer.  We also know people that would never visit the same place twice.  When it comes to vacation habits we can easily throw out the cliche "to each their own."  But with today's public policy and the idea of financial scarcity that pervades our culture, we enter into the octagon, where mercy is not shown, and we will beat our world-view into your thick skull with facts on one side, and emotional beliefs on the other.

I first noticed the difference in personality and political views in college when George W. was running against John Kerry. I was exposed to a lot of creative people in Boone, NC: musicians, painters, writers, poets, philosophers...and I started noticing that the more creative a person was the more left they leaned.  Why is this?  Since part of my degree was business management, I spent a lot of time in the business building as well, which was the only part of campus that I felt had a stronger conservative presence. The archetypical college conservative's experience was in fraternity/sorority life, with studies leaning towards the business side.  Of course there are exceptions, but anyone who has spent a lot of time in the microcosm of the collegiate experience will understand what I'm talking about here.  

As a lengthy side note, I'm always fascinated by the amount of news stories that come out each election cycle that deal with major artists sending cease and desist letters to the GOP for using their music during rallies, as compared to the Dems having almost a free range of choices. Lately we've seen legal action from the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, John Mellencamp, David Byrne, Sting, Foo Fighters, Van Halen, Survivor (who wouldn't want to use "Eye of the Tiger?") ABBA, Heart, and Dee Snider.  And who can forget Tom Morrello's op-ed piece about Paul Ryan claiming Rage Against the Machine as a favorite band?   From small college bands playing open mic nights to some of the worlds most famous artists, this seems to be the trend. Naming off the few exceptions, such as Kid Rock and Hank Williams, Jr.,  does nothing to this point, as you can prove a broken clock works perfectly if you only look at it twice each day.  Again, it's not a point for arguing or proving, but a point for discussing  and understanding. 

While the urge is strong to argue that since the artists that bring so much beauty into our lives have a specific political leaning, then we/they must be right, I refuse to fall into that trap.  It is more complicated than that, as I alluded to before.  As our personality traits dictate how we view the world around us (as well as whether we dedicate our lives to the arts), our vision of this world dictates how we act both in relation to politics and religion.

As we watch both sides argue about the proper role that our government should play in people's lives we have to understand that the two sides are viewing poor people in a completely different context.  On one hand, you have the type of people that I grew up around in a small mountain town in NC.  You were much more likely to be living below the poverty line than above it, but everyone tried hard to make it.  I grew up around people who would work all week and then work all weekend if their neighbor had some hay or tobacco to put up.  Nobody asked for any help and wouldn't turn down extra work if it was offered.  These are the best and most hardworking people in the world, but they are born poor and they will die poor. It's immoral to allow them to fall through the cracks while healthcare and the cost of living explodes. 

On the other hand, I've noticed that the conservative view of the poor is completely different.  This view, which I believe is strengthened and justified by the neo-christianity of the Joel Osteens of the religious world, is based around the idea that we each choose our own paths, and if you're poor it is your own fault,  mostly because you're lazy and unmotivated.  You would rather live off the government than use the good ole american bootstraps to get yourself into a nice suburban house.  You work the system and use your welfare check to buy booze, cigs, and lotto tickets while having a jolly good laugh about how you're beating the system.

Are both these views a little bit right and a little bit wrong?  Yes, very much so.  Is it impossible to find common ground when the two sides view the issue this differently?  Pretty much.

So how do we fix this mess?  I think the first thing to recognize is that the new research into why we view the world differently is an important part of the reparation process.  If someone believes something differently than you do it is not because they are uninformed, stupid, or immoral, it is because they literally see the world in a different framework, much as color blind people see certain colors differently.

People such as Chris Mooney and Jonathon Haidt are putting out fascinating research into why there is such a thing as a right-wing brain, and a left-wing brain.  Haidt has come up with five intuitions or moral foundations that he believes can show which way your personality will lead you.

1) the sense of needing to provide care and protect from harm
2) the sense of what is just and fair
3) the sense of loyalty and willingness to sacrifice for a group
4) the sense of obedience or respect for authority
5) the sense of needing to preserve purity or sanctity.

Liberals tend to emphasize the first two, while conservatives will typically emphasize the last three.   (One note on #3.  The term "group" is referring more to smaller like-minded groups, such as your church, neighborhood, political party, etc.: people who hold similar life-styles and belief systems.)

Recently a sixth moral foundation has been added, which is how we view liberty and oppression.  If you believe that those terms mean protecting those less fortunate, then it precludes a liberal bias, whereas if you see those terms as "throwing off the chains of big government" you might lean conservative. 

If you've ever noticed that conservatives are so amazingly organized and wondered why they are able to focus that organizational power with laser beam intensity, just re-read 3, 4, and 5.   Makes sense doesn't it?  Whereas liberals (and artists) have as much hierarchical discipline as The Goonies running around the underground caves trying to find their way out. 

So when it comes to the poor, I will accept rich confusion in return for shallow clarity.  Do we allow the less fortunate to go without the basic services to live, such as food, water, and health care?  No, we do not.  Do we accept that some will abuse this system and put effort into stopping these abuses?  Absolutely!  Most people want to make their own way.  If they have the opportunity to do so they will take it, and any serious analysis of the last 50 years of economic policy will tell us what economic environment creates the most opportunities.  In fact, I realized the other day that if half the analysis was put into economic history that is put into Fantasy Football each week, then we wouldn't have the political stalemate on the issue.  

Thanks for hanging with me,
Brian Swenk

A voice for the hardworking people in the bottom 50%

Everyone just wants something to work.  And it is OK to disagree on what works - because what works for the top 1% and what works for people below the poverty line are two completely different things.  But finding what works for the country as a whole becomes an endless game of chasing your tail, since it requires concessions on both ends.  And since nothing is ever completely fair, the larger concessions have to come from the very top, from the people with the loudest and most politically influential voices.  And so here we sit in a stagnant no-man's land.  


I ask you, what more can the bottom 1/3 of this country do?  They/we live paycheck to paycheck, if they can even find a job, and have no savings or extra money for things like decent health insurance.  There's a high percentage that are also facing "up-side down mortgages" (they owe more than their home is worth) and they have run out of options.   And nothing burns me up more than to hear right wing zealots say that these people are lazy and parasitic.  I grew up in a very small rural community where no one had more than a modest house and a tiny amount of savings for an emergency.  And I found out quickly that poor people are some of the hardest working people alive.  They will work repetitious factory jobs (back when there were factories), they will work outside in extreme weather conditions, whether it is building houses in freezing temps, or paving roads on hot summer days, or milking cows twice a day for 365 days a year. They'll work all week and then help their neighbor put up hay, or put on a new roof on the weekend.  For these people to be called lazy only shows the voices of the rich are completely out of touch with any type of reality and should be discounted immediately.  Choose a random person out of my community and I'll bet a month's pay that they work harder than Mitt Romney any day of the week! 

As I was listening to right-wing radio the other day I heard in the first five minutes that the bottom 50% of this country are "nothing but moochers and parasites" and that "the best thing that could happen on election day is for there to be a huge sale of Nike sneakers so the right people will be voted in."  As Matt Taibbi pointed out this new wave of conservative ideology and rhetoric will inevitably bring the GOP down.  This is not the voice for the middle, and who in their right mind would want to be a part of this vitriolic message?


Now, there are people who live off the welfare system and work harder to stay on that system than they do to be responsible.   And all of us, no matter what affiliation, will agree that is a huge problem that should be addressed and dealt with.  But in my poor rural county everyone that I know wants to be independent and make their own way.  For most people it is basic human nature, and when the conservative voices not only forget this, but disgrace us by using words like "moochers" and "parasites" they are only digging their well-deserved grave.   

Taibbi's use of the drug addict metaphor is dead-on.  The voices of the conservative movement have to keep one-upping each other for attention and taking bigger hits until the line where reality begins and ends becomes blurred.  One of the greatest political moves in the history of our great country was the Republican party convincing poor rural white people that they were looking out for their best interests.  "Low taxes, tiny government, and guns, guns, guns!" was the mantra, and it worked!  The party run by the richest of the rich for the rich convinced people living on $300 a week that they had their best interests at heart.  Unbelievably genius, right?   But in today's world of radicalized right-wing talk radio they have become unhinged from that one thing that has kept them competitive in elections.  There just aren't enough one-percenters out there to win the elections for them.  And now they are resorting to disgusting back-room tactics like re-drawing district lines in their favor, and passing various laws that will keep the poorest of the poor away from ballot boxes each cycle. 


What our country loses in this slide down into a radicalized cesspool of rhetoric is the fact that we need some of these forgotten conservative ideals in our political discourse.   The importance of personal freedoms along with personal responsibilities, the 2nd amendment freedoms and the responsibilities that come with it, the genuine desire to not let government overgrow, and financial prudence are all important ideas that have made this country great.  But these topics have no place in today's endless debates when you have unlimited soundbites from people who make the characters of Kesey's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" look visionary. 

Watching this slow motion train-wreck does have a morbid entertainment quality to it, I have to say.   Everyone must admit some joy as we feed energy to these caricatures of politicians, as we push one to the top and watch excitedly as they fall like a slalom skier wrecking at 60 miles an hour tumbling down the mountain.  Then we find another willing participant and push them to the top of the same mountain and wait for the same outcome.  The GOP race has turned into nothing but a Wide World of Sports disaster outtake reel.  

Everyone has to sacrifice to get out of this slump, and some more than others. I only wish the loudest voices of the conservative movement could get a glimpse of what poor people go through everyday to just have a place in this world. (Here's a good start. "Nickel and Dimed: On (not) getting by in America" - read it!)  And if I hear anyone call the simple people of rural communities lazy parasites again I just might fucking lose it.