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[winterbadger]

What Makes People Vote Republican?

My apologies--I don't recall where I came across this article, but it's quite interesting nonetheless in its analysis of how emotional overpowers reason in our efforts to make rational choices in politics. Despite coming from a"liberal academic", it's not a polemic so much as an attempt to understand what makes people work. The concluding paragraphs alone are enough to make me want to read the whole piece.

"If Democrats want to understand what makes people vote Republican, they must first understand the full spectrum of American moral concerns. They should then consider whether they can use more of that spectrum themselves. The Democrats would lose their souls if they ever abandoned their commitment to social justice, but social justice is about getting fair relationships among the parts of the nation. This often divisive struggle among the parts must be balanced by a clear and oft-repeated commitment to guarding the precious coherence of the whole. America lacks the long history, small size, ethnic homogeneity, and soccer mania that holds many other nations together, so our flag, our founding fathers, our military, and our common language take on a moral importance that many liberals find hard to fathom.

Unity is not the great need of the hour, it is the eternal struggle of our immigrant nation. The three Durkheimian foundations of ingroup, authority, and purity are powerful tools in that struggle. Until Democrats understand this point, they will be vulnerable to the seductive but false belief that Americans vote for Republicans primarily because they have been duped into doing so."

Comments

[azbound.livejournal.com]

You want to know what really makes people vote Republican? They see stuff like this, think, "HUH???" and then realize that the Dems will never understand them and are elitist intellects, so whatever, I'll vote GOP.

Seriously, I'm smart and I had problems with all of that....

[winterbadger]

Well, I wasn't suggesting that the average voter read this. I had aimed more at my friends list, which is composed largely of people (like yourself :-) whose intellect I rate pretty highly.

But if that selection is a bit abstruse, how about this, from the beginning of the piece:

People vote Republican because Republicans offer "moral clarity"—a simple vision of good and evil that activates deep seated fears in much of the electorate. Democrats, in contrast, appeal to reason with their long-winded explorations of policy options for a complex world.

...This is the first rule of moral psychology: feelings come first and tilt the mental playing field on which reasons and arguments compete. If people want to reach a conclusion, they can usually find a way to do so. The Democrats have historically failed to grasp this rule, choosing uninspiring and aloof candidates who thought that policy arguments were forms of persuasion.

...the second rule of moral psychology is that morality is not just about how we treat each other (as most liberals think); it is also about binding groups together, supporting essential institutions, and living in a sanctified and noble way.

When Republicans say that Democrats "just don't get it," this is the "it" to which they refer. Conservative positions on gays, guns, god, and immigration must be understood as means to achieve one kind of morally ordered society. When Democrats try to explain away these positions using pop psychology they err, they alienate, and they earn the label "elitist." But how can Democrats learn to see-—let alone respect-—a moral order they regard as narrow-minded, racist, and dumb?

[winterbadger]

Or, to summarize further, in my own words:

Liberalism's values are about structuring society so as to avoid the doing of harm and creating fairness.

Social conservatism's values include those, but place an equal (often higher) value on loyalty, respect, and purity.

Haidt suggests that because liberals often reject those other three values as being integral to creating a moral society [in some part, I would suggest, because those values have been misused by opponents of liberalism to repress their social opponents], liberals are tone deaf to many concerns of the broader society.

He makes a compelling argument that these values need not be antithetical to liberal ones, but can have complimentary aspects.

And he posits that until liberals understand and respond to the appeal of these values, they will continue to fail to sway a large portion of the electorate towards their positions.

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

Good summary. I'd seen that article, too, and then lost the reference.

[snolan.livejournal.com]

There are a variety of different kinds of Republicans in their tent, just as there are a variety of different Democrats in the Democratic party...

Some are really easy to understand:

- greedy, narcissistic bastards who want to pay nothing in taxes, and to hell with everyone else (I totally understand them, I just happen to disagree)

- single issue voters who are so passionate about one "broken" issue that they cannot and will not look at any other issue until that one is fixed first, and their issue is one of the Republican party's core values/issues (pro-lifers, abstinence-only education folks, theocrats, private education only folks, corporate welfare only folks)

- racists; though for them the Republicans are simply the lessor of two evils, for they really want to be in the American NAZI party or some other splinter group that simply does not show up on ballots regularly... In an odd irony, they've have to shift from Democrat to Republican as their lessor evil party over the decades; as the sheltering of their ilk has transitioned over time (this includes the purity crowd you mentioned above)

- free lunchers; again for them the Republicans are the least of the evils, they really want ultra-libertarian officials as both parties are two big government for them, of course most of them are where they are in life today because of benefits they choose to ignore...

- apathetic beauty pageant voters... and frankly, they vote for both parties; there were more of them voting for Bill Clinton a few elections ago because he was prettier, I suspect they are split between Obama and Palin these days. None of them can actually even name an issue that is important to them, but they vote, when it's not too inconvenient, about as reliably as rolling dice

- Amway distributers, oh wait - they are already covered above (full disclosure: I used to be an Amway distributer before I came to my senses and realized it was a thinly disguised Republican voter turnout scheme)

- people incapable of seeing shades of grey, they only see things as good or bad, and they project their feelings onto groups and even whole nations; they get especially perplexed when you try to discuss which is better or worse amongst a list of clearly all bad guys... The loyalists and purists hit this crowd pretty hard, some of them are also hawks and very loyal to old alliances and imagined glories

It's an interesting argument/article, with more depth than can be effectively conveyed in a few short paragraphs.

I myself am perplexed because some of my favorite characters in American history have both good and bad actions attributed to their names; that makes it hard to decide if I like the iconic figure or not...

Teddy Roosevelt did some pretty kick-ass cool things, and set progressive politics in motion in the early 20th century, but he is also responsible (at least in part) for some pretty sad things we can be ashamed of as Americans. Sometimes these are the same deeds! Panama Canal; good thing? bad thing? Huge positive impact on trade and shipping, but we sponsored a rather illegal war and split Panama off from Columbia to see it happen. How many values, good and bad, get rolled up into that great deed?

Hoover Dam, water for Imperial valley, power for the SouthWest; but it also dries up the mouth of the Colorado river losing us a lot of wetlands and keeping water out of some Mexican's hands... Good outweigh the bad? Could be argued for centuries (and likely will).

As a former Republican; I can tell you that I was once quite disgusted with the waste of a government I thought was controlled by social trustees of a welfare state... now I know a little more, and the Republican party has enjoyed a lot of control and been no less corrupt than their Democratic predecessors; in fact, far, far, more corrupt.

For me, as for many single-issue Republican voters, there are over-riding issues.

I do not believe we should be in a state of perpetual war just to fatten the coffers of the elites controlling the military-industrial complex. That overwhelms many other issues for me, and rules out Republicans.

Am I any different than a Pro-Life voter who only votes against politicians who are pro-choice?

Only in what I consider important.

[winterbadger]

the Republicans are simply the lessor of two evils

Are you saying the Republicans are just a lot of rent boys?

:-D

[wcg.livejournal.com]

He seems to me to be arguing that a lot of people vote Republican because the Republican party represents the American mos maiorum, the way of the ancestors, as the Romans put it. (It's that Latin phrase which gives us the English word morality.)