Reply #16: We are emotional animals. [View All]

[msmcghee]

People vote for ideology or emotion - not for logic or reason or to make good government work. Well, some do that but not very many. Very few conservatives do that - more liberals do that because we believe good government is a process. Voting supports the process.

That's why when people are rational and not emotional about government - liberals win. The repukes figured this out before we did. I think the DNC still doesn't get it. Gingrich had it down - Rove knows it backwards and forwards and inside out. George Lakoff is on the right track.

We are emotional animals. Most people are only interested enough to vote to either impose their own world-view (ideology) on others - or to defend their own world-view from being trashed by the opposite side.

Liberal vs. conservative are the two classic views. They represent the aggressive/peaceful, male/female, competitive/altruistic, yin/yang dichotomy of all human cultures.

The repukes have raised the partisan emotional content of politics to a generational high. By telling people who are psychologically conservative that it's OK, even good, to hate liberals - they've led many poor and minorities to vote against their interests and have given their side the opportunity to impose their world-view on us and have forced us to defend our world-view or capitulate.

When politics is emotional and not rational conservatives tend to win. But this time they've gotten many of us pissed off enough that we too have become very emotional. This will be a record turnout - thanks to the repuke's efforts over the last 30 years to make politics hot, emotionally.