It is a wondrous idea that the very people who have benefited most from the ACA and the medicaid expansion would vote for candidates who seek to repeal that act. Voting against one’s interests is not new, and rational people often wonder why this happens. It happens because passions overrule rational thought. “Don’t give me the facts, I don’t care. My gut tells me so.” Faced with facts about climate change, for example, people don’t want to believe it, because it may cause them to change their lifestyle a little. So the nay-sayers find a scientist who disagrees with the facts, a scientist who works for Exxon or Shell perhaps, and can say that it’s not settled science because here’s a scientist and he disagrees. A politician can then go on television to tell the public that it’s really not yet an issue because not every scientist agrees.
Politicians who appeal to people’s emotions are going to be attractive to a large portion of the public by telling them lies that they want to believe are true, or that they think maybe it’s true. Working people into a emotional state, the crafty politician, like the revivalist preacher, can work the audience into such a frenzy that they are ready to believe anything he or she says. Numerous examples of this are to be found in the history of elections in this country.
The rational and reasonable politician, who trades on facts, appears then to be cold and uncaring. The emotional politician, however, tells people he cares about their lives, and they will vote for him regardless of his platform, because that is unimportant. It doesn’t matter that he promises to enact legislation that will ruin their lives, because he cares about them. They felt that care when they were in an emotional frenzy, akin to the emotional high that comes from a revival meeting. And they tell their friends about this emotional high and how good it felt and how much he cares about us.
There are a couple of things that can be done to create a fact and reason based public. The first is education. Knowing how the system works, where it came from and what it can and cannot do is important for people to know. Education can also teach about logical thought. One of the biggest errors of logic that occurs in our election process is the ad hominem attack. While it appeals to the emotion, it is considered a fallacy of logic. It is attacking the messenger and not the message. It says “don’t listen to that person’s ideas, because that person is a ______ (insert your own insult).” Yes, character is important. But the person who uses the ad hominem argument is showing his/her own lack of character.
Another factor that could change the way we do elections, is to begin a conversation that asks some questions. “Does this person have an upright character? Does this person have a well trained mind? Does this person have mature experience?” In other words, “Is this a person who is honest, capable of doing the job, and who has accumulated experience, practical and life experience that would make him/her qualified for the job?”
Changing things does not occur overnight. It takes time, but it can be done if dedicated people decide to raise the questions enough that the public can begin to realize that there might be some other reason to vote besides “He makes me feel good.”