George Lakoff: 'Fear. It's the emotion at the heart of Trump and the GOP.
Fear of immigrants. Fear of people of color. Fear of equality for women and LGBT people. Fear of religions other than Christianity. Fear of non-existent conspiracies. Fear of the media. Fear of social progress. Ever wonder why?
Republicans understand that fear activates conservative attitudes in the brain. So, they stoke fear.
John Bargh is a hero of mine and he wrote this in the Washington Post:
"Brain imaging studies have even shown that the fear center of the brain, the amygdala, is actually larger in conservatives than in liberals. And many other laboratory studies have found that when adult liberals experienced physical threat, their political and social attitudes became more conservative (temporarily, of course). But no one had ever turned conservatives into liberals.
Until we did."
I encourage you to read this piece and discuss it with your friends and family. We all need to be aware of how fear is being used to manipulate our politics. And what is the antidote to fear? How do we counteract the politics of fear in challenging and dark times?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/…/at-yale-we-conducted-an-…/…
UPDATE: For those who aren't Post subscribers or can't access the link, here's a direct link to the study: http://theramshuddle.com/…/yale-study-turning-conservativ…/…
At Yale, we conducted an experiment to turn conservatives into liberals. The results say a lot about our political divisions.
When my daughter was growing up, she often wanted to rush off to do fun things with her friends — get into the water at the beach, ride off on her bike — without taking the proper safety precautions first. I’d have to stop her in her tracks to first put on the sunscreen, or her bike helmet and knee pads, with her standing there impatiently. “Safety first, fun second,” was my mantra.
Keeping ourselves and our loved ones safe from harm is perhaps our strongest human motivation, deeply embedded in our very DNA. It is so deep and important that it influences much of what we think and do, maybe more than we might expect. For example, over a decade now of research in political psychology consistently shows that how physically threatened or fearful a person feels is a key factor — although clearly not the only one — in whether he or she holds conservative or liberal attitudes.'>>>
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2017/11/22/at-yale-we-conducted-an-experiment-to-turn-conservatives-into-liberals-the-results-say-a-lot-about-our-political-divisions/?
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but that may be it; OR they think it would take too much TIME for them to get a handle on. 
