Making sense of nonsense
Published February 29, 2016
by Gary Pearce, Talking About Politics, February 29, 2016.
On the eve of what could be the decisive day in the presidential primaries, let’s ponder why politics seems illogical, irrational and just plain insane.
If you read this blog and other political punditry and journalism, you think of yourself as a reasonable, rational, thoughtful person. So you’re oft perplexed by how irrational people can be about politics. We wonder: What are they thinking?
How can anybody vote for Donald Trump? How can evangelicals vote for Trump?
Hillary supporters don’t get why their millennial children support Bernie. Hillary-haters don’t see how you can trust her.
Here is the best explanation I’ve seen, from a column by Oliver Burkeman in the Guardian. Exploring the minds of Trump voters, Burkeman quotes Gregg Henriques, a professor of psychotherapy at James Madison University in Virginia:
“This is how politics works, Henriques and many other psychologists argue: we’re attracted to certain candidates and parties for intuitive, emotional reasons that barely register in conscious awareness. Then, we use our rational minds to construct convincing-seeming arguments for views we already hold. The tricky part is that you can’t condescendingly think about Trump supporters this way for very long before realising that it must be true for you, too.
Henriques adds: “If you look at life like a psychologist, one of your first principles is: we’re all full of shit. We see ourselves as having the facts, while others can’t see through their emotions to get to the facts. But the truth is we’re all in this boat.”
And so we row on.
BTW, Burkeman’s column is a consistently good read. I recommend it.'http://www.talkingaboutpolitics.com
February 29, 2016 at 3:52 pm
Norm Kelly says:
But, trust Billary? Nope. Not for a second. Not even to go to the corner store to buy a bottle of Coke. Not with my dime! The main difference between Bill & Hillary is their lie(s). Bill lies. When his lips are moving, he's telling a lie. But something inside seems to propel many to try to believe him. He seems so homey, so friendly that he MUST be telling the truth. Then you find out you were wrong, he really was telling a lie, and you should have known based on his history. But with Hillary it's different. She lies. When her lips are moving, the lies are spewing forth. The difference is with Hillary, you have a gut-wrenching reaction to her that tells you before she's closed her lying lips that she just lied directly in your face. Then someone, not in the main-stream media, does a fact check on Hillary and proves that your first thought about her was right, she was lying. But, it goes beyond that. She's a terrible liar. You absolutely know that she can not be trusted. You absolutely know that if something can be done in the most dishonest, untrustworthy way possible, Hillary will be in the middle of it. Something shady going down, Hillary is right there. The evidence of her lies, deceit, 'misrepresentations' are right smack in front of you and she chooses to ignore the facts, hoping that you will also, and she just lies to you. With Bill, your not immediately sure, with Hillary it's obvious before she shuts up that she lied. Look up 'liar' in the dictionary and there's a picture of Billary as an example. It's not that I hate her. It's that a liar is a liar in my book and a dishonest person is a dishonest person, and I trust neither.
Now that I identify as a black female, will I be voting for Trump? Probably not. He's done what is necessary this time. He has dragged the Republican party from the precipice of liberalism. We do NOT need 2 liberal parties. The demons are liberal enough; too liberal actually. So Trump is doing what is necessary to force Republicans BACK to the party of Reagan. We need Constitutionalists, conservatives, thinkers running our nation. What we should end up with is Cruz. But for now, Trump is doing a great job forcing Republicans to be Republicans instead of 'the other liberals'. If it came down to Billary-the-liar or Trump, would I vote? Yes! Would I vote for the liar? Not on your life or anyone elses life! Cuz I love my country and my family. I could not do that to anyone I love. But is Trump better than Cruz? Nope. Conservative over socialist every time! We've already had 8 years of a socialist, and it ain't going so good.
Cruz 2016! Billary for prison 2016!
