by Jack Lee
Scientific political research has shown time after time, when it’s a matter of the brain verses heart, the heart wins. And when it comes to which candidate you will support, fear trumps anxiety, anxiety trumps hope and they all trump logic and reason when things get really rough as in 9/11. It’s a flight to security and suddenly all the politicians are talking security..
The experts are saying our little human brains can only absorb so much reason and when the chips are down the brain turns over its power to our base primal instincts, as in flight or fight. Sharon Begley from News Week writes about how voters vote, “It is a core tenet of political psychology that voters know nothing. Or next to nothing.” So they come up with catch phrases us voters can hang onto long enough to cast a ballot. Depending on the moment, this will largely be determined by how we feel. Are we enthusiastic, or are we anxious or fearful? Do we jump for fear or leap for hope? It all depends on the moment, says Begley.
“It is a core tenet of political psychology that voters know nothing.”
In 1992 when it was Bush v Clinton polls showed that barely 15% even knew both candidates supported the death penalty, but a far greater number knew Bush hated broccoli and Clinton wore briefs.
Begley writes, “The fact that people have what is euphemistically called cognitive-processing limitationsmost cannot or will not learn about and remember candidates’ records or positionsmeans voters must substitute something else for that missing knowledge.” That is why 60% of us vote solely on party affiliation, says a study by Drew Weston, psychologist at Emory University. The next criteria are the single issue voters. Anti-war or Peacenik, pro-choice or anti-abortion…one issue decides the vote. Isn’t that brilliant?
Getting nervous? You should be. They are talking the mainstay of democracy, the American voters.
When voting your party doesn’t apply, and when the candidates don’t differ much on the issues, you have to choose on some other basis,” says political scientist Richard Lau of Rutgers University, coauthor of the 2006 book “How Voters Decide.” And this is where we come full circle and back to that “gut feeling” that involves so much fear and anxiety. The conservatives in Spain had a lock on the election until the Muslim terrorists blew up a train station and people thought, “You can’t protect us!” So, they voted in the socialists who promised a new direction for security, which was based largely on just staying away from the USA.
Lets take this a bit further. 12% of the population thinks Gandhi, Stalin and Churchill were mythical figures, but half of these believe Robin Hood and Sherlock Holmes were real. After tens of thousands of traffic deaths, fully 20% of the drivers still don’t wear a seat belt. Only 17 percent of young adults in the United States could find Afghanistan on a map, according to a new worldwide survey released in 2002! The youth vote in 08 will likely be the deciding factor, how do you like that? It’s scary….and this is what we are up against!
For more information on this I suggest you read “The Reasoning Voter” by Samuel Popkin of the University of California, San Diego. His book is now considered a classic for explaining the precocious whims of the voter. One example from his book shows Gerald Ford attempting to eat tamale without removing the husk. He nearly choked. This faux paux sent a signal to Hispanic voters, “hey this guy is out of touch with us and obviously he must not care very much about our vote”, so they voted for Reagan instead. Right choice, wrong reason. Ah, the precocious voters!
Attempting to eat tamale without removing the husk, it cost Jerry Ford.
All this makes the primaries unpredictable and voters…well, untrustworthy. It is yet one more explanation why we too often get the kind of government we get, that we so frequently criticize for all its flaws, ignorance, ineptitude and corruption!
Governments R Us!
57% of us are expected to vote (down from 70% in the 1960’s) in California this year, this includes the senile, the crack whores, coke heads, derelicts, the yet-to-be-convicted psychotics, pedophiles, the emotionally insecure and immature, reckless drivers who vote recklessly, chronic alcoholics, gang members without a felony record, the “dead people for democrats” and many others that all make up what we jokingly call “society” and oddly not a zoo. And then there is Y-O-U-R vote. You the thinking, the responsible citizen-voter v. THEM. Your quality, informed vote has never mattered more! America is under seige by too many of the other kind of voters and that is the biggest threat to us and not from any foreign invasion!
Now get out there and
VOTE SMART!
