A lot of political psychologists and cognitive scientists are claiming that Democrats will continue to be unsuccessful at changing minds because they try to appeal to facts and figures. This does not resonate with people. The claim is that we need to start appealing to people's moral intuitions, feelings, and values. This is the real reason why we vote anyhow, whether we are aware of it or not. We vote because of how the candidate makes us feel, which is tied to their values. The contemplation of any policies that serve our interests likely happened after we liked or disliked them. See notes (i). There is nothing to be ashamed of; voting is not like purchasing a mutual fund. There are lots of good reasons why voting based on our feelings towards the candidate and party affiliation is desirable.
Democrats put themselves in a precarious—and I think ultimately hopeless—position when they are motivated by empathy but wind up reasoning and arguing from interests—when they promote programs and tax policies to serve the "interests" of the middle class or the uninsured, or victims of discrimination, or immigrants. They set themselves up for attacks as being unfair to ordinary Americans and promoting "special interests." They set themselves up as being a special interest themselves for courting voting blocs. And worse, they never argue based on empathy, the real motivator of the policies. They fail in two ways: they fail to activate empathy—their moral foundation—in the brains of voters, while they succeed in activating self-interest, which conservatives specialize in. [1]
A Summary For Those Short on Time
First, all the evidence suggests that our feelings towards a candidate, particularly the values they hold, predict voting behavior better than simply sitting down and reasoning. Not that we didn't use any reasoning at all, but it was the feelings that the candidate triggered in us that made us vote. Even when voters were torn between their reasons and feelings, 80% of them went with their gut. Second, if this is true, then Democrats would be more successful if they started to frame the issues in a way that triggers our emotions, which means they should focus more on our values, such as caring for others. They have to be slogans like those used by conservatives. Conservatives came up with the slogan "welfare queen," which triggers a conservative into thinking that welfare is bad. This is because it is contrary to their values of self-reliance, etc. It is this that drives them to the voting booth, not facts and figures. Third, there is nothing wrong with voting based on party affiliation or our feelings, as it is a shortcut. It is a shortcut because we know Democrats stand for our values and interests.
Caveat: Studies pick up our positive or negative associations with the candidate. Presumably, this is equivalent to us liking or not liking them. Although voting like this is a good heuristic because it will likely reflect our values and interests, once we like or dislike someone, our objectivity regarding their performance tends to wane. This is one of the many costs of being partisan.
Why I'm a Semi-Ideologue
One of my first posts here was on "Why I'm Not an Ideologue." What do we think was my motivation for writing this? Was it because I was an aspiring intellectual who despised emotions or because people judge us if we are not rational? Probably a little bit of both. I went through a stage where I studied bias and thought ideologues were victims of groupthink and tribalism. They often are. But I was smart enough to hedge the post. Because I said by not being an ideologue or partisan, we will be politically impotent. Then, I read a few books on the voting process. I started to study what rationality means. I learned that our culture, which relies on Western philosophy, has been plagued with the idea that reason is separate from emotion. It is not. This pristine idea of a true intellectual divorced from feelings was, in fact, fiction. And if I am honest, I have morphed into a semi-ideologue.
Then I came across Gad Saad, who is criticizing liberals for voting against Trump because of their visceral hate and contempt. Five years ago, this would have prompted me to mount a defense of how I carefully selected my candidate by examining their stance on key policies, voting records, and so forth, as I wanted to demonstrate that I made informed decisions. But that is not how the mind works. We feel first, which biases us to go in one direction. It takes practice to separate our feelings from a political candidate (i). This is because we care about values, not just our interests. The former evokes more emotion, while the latter would take conscious thought or rationality. We want to identify with the candidate, which means we want them to hold the same attitudes, beliefs, and values as we do. We like people who are similar to us. There is no reason to apologize or mount a counterdefense.
If interests are essential to us, such as economic interests, we would be better off using conscious reasoning to choose a candidate. If we did not and interests were important to us, then that would be irrational. Take the value of how we treat others. If this is important to us, then not liking Trump is arguably a rational stance. The fact that sharing similar values and beliefs with others enables us to advance our group's interests collectively. The idea of being tribal is no longer looking so bad. Even if we unquestioningly vote against Trump based on gut feelings, which eighty percent of us do when torn between our reasons and feelings, it would still be rational to vote based on partisanship because it is a heuristic. It is a shortcut that increases the likelihood that our values and interests will be carried out.
To be clear, I am not saying that ideologues are rational because we often are not. This is due to my bias and a strong emotional commitment to one's beliefs and values. We frequently confuse our beliefs with scientific facts and tend to favor evidence that confirms our existing beliefs. However, being tribal does not require scientific rigor. We value tribalism for other reasons, such as sharing identities and beliefs with others, which fosters group cohesion. What I am saying is that deciding to be ideological and voting based on party affiliation is a rational choice. I am certainly not saying that this puts us in a good position to evaluate arguments objectively because it does not. If anyone wants to understand why in more detail, I recommend the book "The Bias that Divides Us" by Keith E. Stanovich. It is startling how irrational we can be when it comes to accepting facts that contradict our beliefs.
When we get emotional over a candidate or politics in general, it means that either their personality, behavior, or values have affected us. We have a rich set of emotions that get triggered by values. See Jonathan Haidt's work if you are interested. Values are how we view the world, the way we think people ought to behave, and typically reflect our interests. Once values are accepted as norms in society, then they become morals. But the moralities of conservatives and liberals are distinctly different. Which one we prefer is based on what we think an ideal world should be like, which in turn is influenced by our personality. For example, the values of self-discipline and personal responsibility are heightened in the conservative worldview. So much so that they believe that a teenager who had an unwanted pregnancy should pay the consequences of her actions, so the teenager should not have been indulging in sex in the first place and should have been practicing self-restraint. Conservatives believe that punishment leads to self-discipline.
There are further values that influence why they are against abortion. Regardless, it does not matter if we do not like this reasoning. There is probably no reason that we can offer to change their mind. This is because they have an emotional attachment to their values. In political or moral reasoning, emotions guide the way, and reasons are often after the fact. What are the reasons for this? At least in politics, to back up our values and beliefs, which are formed by our feelings. Conservatives can utilize these shared values as a collective force to advance their interests, which become their priorities. Likewise, liberals use the emotion of compassion (or resentment) to press upon their value of equality, whether it be through race, gender, nationality, or socioeconomic status. Conservatives do not share this value since they are proponents of hierarchy and meritocracy (iii). But how do we ever make a difference without voting based on values? We must sometimes go with our feelings, which tell us what we value or not.
What Does Rational Mean
In the everyday sense, rational means that we consider our long-term interests and do not let our emotions get the better of us. It also means that which is agreeable to reason. We give reasons to justify our position to persuade others that we are right. There is good reason to believe that we evolved the capacity to argue to convince others of our worth and positions. But not to find the truth. A desire to find the truth must be some byproduct of evolution. This explains why we have strong biases that are quite stubborn to facts that contradict them. Biases may thus be a feature, not a bug. They help us to stick with our point of view to persuade others. Think of the survival advantage that we possess if we can influence others to get what we want.
When we say that we vote purely on the issues and separate personalities, it is because we want to convince others that we are rational and unbiased. Why would we need to do this? Because we have a strong drive to conform with a payoff of approval. But where did this definition of rationality come from? It originated from the Enlightenment era, which emphasized maximizing our self-interest or, in economic terms, "utility." The Enlightenment era assumed that reason was both conscious and emotion-free. Most reason is not, though. This is so deeply ingrained in our worldviews that it may be difficult to accept that this is just a definition. It has heavily influenced both evolutionary theory and economics. We are self-interested, but we can also be empathetic and altruistic.
Let me provide an example of the unconscious reasoning that conservatives employ, as described in "The Political Mind." This type of reasoning does not fit the definition of Enlightenment rationality. Many conservatives often vote against their interests because they prefer to vote based on values. Why did so many impoverished blacks in the South vote for Reagan in the 80s? Because they got nothing from Reagan. What Reagan did was introduce the stereotype of welfare recipients as being lazy and immoral. In a conservative's morality, if we are not wealthy enough, then that means that we are not self-disciplined enough. These two facts made it easy to appeal to blacks, and they believed that they did not deserve it. The reasoning that they carried out was unconscious and activated the conservative values within their mind. However, liberals would have seen a handout as empowering them to be successful (iii).
We may criticize voters who go against their interests as being uninformed or misguided. On the other hand, perhaps there is some value to be gained by earning everything on our own. And does everything need to conform to maximizing our self-interest? Ultimately, I am justified in voting based on how I feel towards the candidate, as my feelings will align with my values.
Notes
i). We vote based on how we feel towards a candidate, the values they represent, and our interests. But feelings predicted our voting behavior better than either our judgments about the candidate's competence or personality or our reasons why we like or dislike a candidate. Gut-level feelings are three times better at predicting a candidate than "rationality." We can predict who we will vote for based on two factors: our partisan leanings and our feelings toward the candidate. Even when we are torn between reasons and emotions over a candidate, eighty percent of us will go with our gut. Since voting based on feelings is more closely associated with values than interests, which include candidates' foreign policy and stance on fiscal policy, etc., it is values that lead us to be tribal [2].
ii) For those who insist that they found reasons for not wanting to vote for Trump, these would have, in all probability, come after the fact—that is, after your feelings made you dislike him. This bias can easily pick out policies that Trump has that are not aligned with liberals' values and interests. If we liked him, then his transgressions would have been excused or downplayed. Not wanting him may have led us to overlook some things that would have worked in our favor or that we could have compromised on. That is the cost of being partisan. Although I tried to stay neutral, I disliked Trump from the beginning because he was a bully. Gad Saad would argue that Trump is an alpha male. Narcissists have a survival advantage over non-narcissists because they seek loyal people and exploit them. I agree with him on alpha but with caveats, which I will discuss in an upcoming post. Abusive alpha males usually get ousted.
iii) As one justification for welfare, Income disparities and social class differences reflect those who have earned it, the "winners," and those who have not the "losers." They do not care if the system is not fair, as not everyone has the same abilities and privileges to achieve relative success. I have consistently said that I have an argument based on epidemiological studies, which have proven that relative socioeconomic status differences result in reductions in health and happiness for those lower in status. In any social milieu, those who are higher in status have an increased lifespan and greater happiness than those who are lower in status. Those who make a household income of 40k relative to those who make 140k are at three times the relative risk for death. Therefore, we do not have to assume that hierarchies are inherently immoral solely because we can appeal to science. The objection I commonly receive is that we are intrinsically hierarchical. This is true because status hierarchies form quickly based on factors such as ability, appearance, intelligence, and so forth. But we are also cooperative by nature. Many anthropologists have hypothesized that we lived in egalitarian tribes before the agricultural revolution. We would keep a check on both the bully and free rider under the values of egalitarianism.
References
[1] Lakoff, George. "The Political Mind"
[2] Westin, Drew. "The Political Brain"