The Silence of the Lambs

Recently some registered Republican voters in Charlotte, NC were asked what’s happened to their taxes since President Obama was elected.  The majority of the group said their taxes had gone up.  After some actual IRS facts were put on the table, these folks had a sudden moment of clarity, “oh yes, that’s right my taxes did go down last year.” 

It’s true.  Attached to the $787 billion stimulus bill was a $115 billion tax cut that was felt by 95% of working families.  I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised when tax cuts by a Democratic President fall through the cracks of memory in Republican voters. What is far more surprising is that Democrats didn’t seem to remember it either.  

In the months leading up to the election the evening news was a symphony of Republican rhetoric laser focused on blaming the Democrats for just about everything with the intent of removing as many Democrats from the Congress as possible.  After all, the Democrats bailed out the Wall Street devils, they plan to cancel the Bush tax cut and they want to spend billions on Obama’s outrageous Health Care Reform bill which will push the country deeper into debt.  All the while not a syllable was uttered by the Democrats about successes brought about in the first 2 years of the Obama administration.  Surely this $115 billion tax cut, typically the air that only Republicans and Tea Baggers breathe, would be a Democratic bullet to be used in this fight.  As it turned out, this tax cut victory was as invisible in the election debate as Iraq’s WMD were in 2005.  

Face it; Republicans are tougher, quicker and smarter than Democrats when it comes to spinning their message of liberal failure and carpet bombing the electorate into believing that Democrats are to blame for everything that’s wrong with the country today including the current economic crisis which of course was the handiwork of W with some help from Bill Clinton.

For as long as I can remember, conservatives have been the punchers, the organized pack of attack dogs brilliantly editing the day’s news into carefully parsed sound bites to make the liberals look far more incompetent than they might actually be and certainly more culpable for whatever mess the country was in at the time.  How is it the successes achieved over the past two years by the Democrats remained so neatly tucked away in some dark closet of the American voter? 

According to an interesting piece in the Miller McCune newsletter reported by Tom Jacobs, there may be some interesting psychology behind the methods of these two groups.  The article cites 50 years of research as well as commentary by John Jost of NYU, a book written by science writer Wray Herbert and theory from Jacob Vigil, professor of evolutionary psychology at the University of New Mexico all of whom are quoted here.

I don’t agree with everything in this theory, but it would still make for some lively conversation over a pint at Pfaff’s Bar.  What follows is paraphrasing on a Homeric level.  

Fifty years of scientific research suggests that a person’s belief systems are developed partly by of the realities of their situation in the world but also by their psychological needs. 

This research shows that “conservatives tend to be more easily threatened and to perceive the world as dangerous in comparison to liberals.”

If you perceive the world as a threatening place, you’re more likely to cling tightly to those you trust and to warily eye those you don’t”. 

“People who are the most fearful seek safety in stability and hierarchy, where more emotionally secure people can tolerate some chaos and unpredictability in their lives.”

“The implication is that conservatives are somehow emotionally impaired, and vaguely inferior to the more open-minded people on the left.”

This obviously doesn’t shine a pretty light on conservatives.  So Dr. Vigil’s theory tries to explain this fundamental difference without labeling conservatives as abnormal. 

His thesis essentially says, “Conservatives tend to be more oriented toward dominance, tend to acquire a larger group of friends and associates than liberals and are more sensitive to potential threats because there are more people in their orbit, and thus the danger of their being hurt by a duplicitous person is greater. Liberals, being more inward-oriented, have smaller, tighter social groups and thus feel less threatened, which in turn allows them to be more open to unfamiliar experiences.”

“Humans are highly dependent upon one another biologically,” he notes. To foster the good will of others, he argues, we “advertise” either trustworthiness or competence.”

“The basic idea is that folks who have small social spheres are going to be demonstrating more trust cues, and those who have bigger social spheres, more capacity cues.” Liberals, in other words, are demonstrating trustworthiness as a way of attracting the social support they need, while conservatives are demonstrating power for the exact same reason.”

There’s more but I think you get the idea.

Recently some registered voters were asked to bet on which team would lead a candidate to victory in a national election – the Elephants led by Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck or the Donkeys with Bill Maher, Rachel Maddow and Frank Rich. 

I know who I would trust but I also know who would win. 

Wolves manipulate by loudly showing competence and lambs manipulate by quietly showing trust. 

http://www.miller-mccune.com/politics/a-new-take-on-political-ideology-24683/