Notes on "The Republican Brain" by Chris Mooney

                                                   (Meeting Chris Mooney)

Here’s some shocking news.  Conservatives and Liberals have different personalities. 

Hierarchy is important to Conservatives; egalitarian principles to Liberals.  It comes down to individual versus community.

An April 13, 2012 study shows there are many nonpolitical differences between Liberals and Conservatives.

But what influences people?  The author began the book believing differences lie in allegiance to God and/or money, but research suggests otherwise.

We are in a 35-year period of more and more Conservative mistrust and suspicion.  Fear - the psychology of ideology

Even when shown to be incorrect, Conservatives double down on wrong information after receiving facts - the “smart idiot” effect.  An example is that with more and more evidence that humans are affecting the planet’s climate, fewer and fewer conservatives believe it.  Even education doesn’t significantly affect this phenomenon.   In fact, with higher education, Conservatives tend to accept science less.  The reverse is true for Liberals.  Many Conservatives still believe Obama is a Muslim.  Environmental factors are inadequate to explain.

Our views and opinions feel naturally right to us and are rooted in our personality, psychology, and physical traits.  In other words, they’re largely inherited.

Experiments reveal that Liberals are messy and like abstract art.  Conservatives are neat and tidy and prefer realism and portraits.  Conservatives tend to dislike rival teams and their fans, and tend to be germophobic, and elect law-and-order candidates. 

Alcohol will make anybody more conservative.

Actor Colin Firth commissioned a study because, in his words, “I wanted to find out what was wrong with people who disagreed with me.”  That study revealed that Conservatives have more grey matter in the right amygdala, the fear center/emergency response/fight-or-flight part of the brain.  Liberals, on the other hand, have a more developed anterior cortex (anterior cingulate), the part of the brain that detects errors.

The amygdala (Conservative):

The anterior cingulate (Liberal):

Liberals tend to be highly abstract, complex, and open to new experiences; comfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty.

Conservatives are dependable and less neurotic; preferring stability, structure, hierarchy, and certainty.

Conservatives tend to place greater value on earnings; Liberals on education.

A lack of openness enables Conservatives to deny reality, and the Fox News campaign of misinformation enables this. 

Conservatives have less intellectual flexibility.  Liberals are exploratory and sensation-seeking.  Not surprisingly, the scientific community tends to be liberal.  J.J. Rousseau and Galileo were Liberals.

School doesn't make you liberal; Liberals just tend to go to school and stay.  Schools and universities are like playgrounds to people who like new ideas; therefore, not surprisingly, Liberals have more advanced degrees.

Rick Santorum branded college as a place you don’t want to stay.  (Bush is a moderate in comparison.)

64% of self-described Republicans believe Obama was born in the US; 55% believe Saddam Hussein masterminded the 9/11 attacks; 18% believe humans are affecting global warming.

Conservatives and Liberals have different ideas of morality and respond differently to different situations, and those responses can be predicted.

Priorities:  Conservatives hate government intrusion (except when it comes to sex).  Community is important to Liberals.

Liberals are suspicious of large concentrations of power and tend to believe scientists, which is why many Liberals’ suspicion of childhood vaccines causes much anxiety and stress.

In a study that tracked eye movement, Liberals’ eyes go towards happy, pleasant images and Conservatives’ eyes go toward scary and disgusting images.  Because it confirms our views of the world...? 

When asked “what kind of child do you want: an obedient one or a creative one?” you can probably guess who chooses which.

Emotions defeat critical thinking.  If you want to change a Conservative's thinking, don’t appeal to their logic or reason; appeal to their emotions.

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Some of the author's conclusions are obviously controversial, but they make a lot of sense to me!

The end of an era. And this is not your father’s Republican party.

I’ve long considered Indiana senator Richard Lugar, who served six terms, to be reasonable, moderate, cooperative, decent, and willing to “govern.”  When Obama won that state in 2008, I was shocked and more shocked about that win than South Carolina or Virginia.  They said the president “reshaped the electoral map” back then.  But what’s the matter with Kansas Indiana today?

With Dick Lugar’s defeat, in a recent primary no less, politics becomes significantly more cynical and unrewarding to independents and mavericks, and this is a trend we should be aware of and ready to push back on.  We should address it and the rationale behind it forthrightly and maturely.  Senator Lugar was defeated because he cooperated with the president, even though the president was trying to stave off a depression, among other pressing issues, and still is.   It’s a disturbing trend lately that representatives are punished for governing responsibly rather than selfishly or serving their corporate masters.

This coming election is the most crucial election in my lifetime, and there have been many presidents who have held that office in my lifetime.  If a Republican wins, it will be worse than when Reagan held the office, despite the fact that Reagan made education more costly and less accessible (and we see the effects of that today), and even despite the fact that Reagan, in the words of Hillary, “made it okay not to care about each other.”  Too many Republicans have become more pernicious, more dastardly, and more craven than ever before and they are more willing to be so publicly, making no bones about it.

Sen. Lugar’s defeat signals danger, that compromising, cooperating, and respecting your opponent will not be tolerated.  His defeat is a clear signal to other moderate conservatives that if you govern moderately, you will be punished.  That’s not good for our democracy.  Our democracy depends on open, honest debate, but the corrosive, corrupting effect of money has changed that.  Money and a largely uninformed electorate spells trouble, and we should be willing to fight against the polarizing trends. 

Dick Lugar is an intelligent, decent, soft-spoken foreign policy expert who served his state and his country honorably.  If he hadn’t served honorably or if he had been tarnished by scandal or was out of step with moderate voters in his state, one might better understand his ouster, but the fact is, until recently he was well-loved and well-respected by his constituents and colleagues.  Unfortunately, low-information voters are easily influenced by clever, costly advertisements and attacks whether true or not, and the money spent on Lugar’s opponent’s campaign (an opponent who is, as they say, a real piece of work) was money well spent, again, unfortunately.

If people want to criticize Obama for walking a conservative line, it may be because he has a more clear-eyed view of American voters than you or I.  If the president plans to get anything substantively and long-lasting done, he must be re-elected, and to be re-elected in this country, he has to walk a fine line, because in this country, if you try to govern like a moderate or, god forbid, an independent statesman, you will be punished.  (We’ll see how badly he’s punished (or rewarded) for his support of marriage equality for all people.)

So they cast aside Dick Lugar as part of a hyper-partisan cleansing of the party, but a cleansing of what?  Corruption?  On the contrary. 

It’s a clear message to others:  If you’re going to govern moderately, beware.

To make matters worse, Richard Mourdock, the man who beat Richard Lugar for the Indiana senate seat, for sixteen years served as vice president of a coal subsidiary of Standard Oil Company, and eventually became vice president of Business Development for that company, so who’s he in the pocket of?  Mourdock's campaign criticized Lugar's willingness to work with Democratic lawmakers, and Mourdock himself rejected bipartisanship, arguing that "the most powerful people in both parties are so opposed to one another that one side simply has to win out over the other.”

Mourdock was endorsed by several conservative interest groups, including The Club for Growth, FreedomWorks, Citizens United, and the Tea Party Express.  If you’re not familiar with the Club for Growth or FreedomWorks, they’re the modern-day John Birch Society.  If you’re not familiar with the John Birch Society, you should become so.  Mourdock has also adopted Herman Cain's 9-9-9 tax plan, which calls for a 9% income tax, 9% federal sales tax, and a 9% business tax.

On Tuesday night, Texas Rangers outfielder Josh Hamilton tied a Major League record when he hit four home runs in one game against the Baltimore Orioles IN Baltimore.  Although the Rangers won that game decisively, 10-3, Baltimore fans gave Hamilton a loud standing ovation as he rounded the bases in the eighth inning and did so again at the bottom on the eighth.  Like true fans, true patriots celebrate victories that benefit and elevate all of us.  To do otherwise is bad sportsmanship and bad governance.  It also tarnishes the game of politics and endangers our democracy.  We're better than that.  Aren't we...?

  

The saga of John Edwards, my first choice

Who here hasn’t fallen in love with someone they shouldn’t have, or had an abortion, or taken something that wasn’t theirs, or hurt somebody deliberately, or let someone down callously, or fallen short in some other significant way?  If getting involved with somebody outside your marriage and making a baby results in all of your lifelong friends and colleagues turning their backs on you, then it’s true what they say:  With friends like that, who needs enemies?  I’m pretty sure that when John Edwards was living the good life, his friends and associates couldn't be nicer, and promised their loyalty, and local NC merchants couldn’t do enough for him, but at a time when he needs his friends' and colleagues' support the most is when they run for the hills, and worse than that, they disparage, insult, and judge him publicly.  That’s very sad to me, a sadder commentary on America than it is on him.  We too often tear down the successful instead of being happy for their successes, even if hard-earned.  I’m saddened and disappointed by how pilloried and disparaged he is because he had an affair.  Narcissist or not, everybody does things they’re not proud of or are ashamed of -- or should be if they’re decent people.

Am I the only person in the country who’s not afraid to publicly state that I still have a high regard for John Edwards's achievements and the work he did?  Sure seems like it!  I certainly don’t despise him like so many others seem to.  In fact, I don’t even regret my campaign contributions to him, not because I refuse to admit I was wrong about him, but because I know politicians and candidates are as fallible and as flawed as the rest of us; they represent us.  I know that putting faith in any person is risky business because we are so flawed and fickle.  Given the kind of work he did, he had proven his commitment to our society enough to satisfy me.  He screwed up, no doubt about it, but in a way, I understand how he could or why he did.

There’s a part of this story that looms large and that I can’t ignore when I judge his actions.  His wife seemed to me, even back then, and apparently it’s confirmed by others, to be an angry and sometimes mean woman.   There was an energy about her that made me wonder why they were married.  I know that she’s dead, and apparently it’s verboten to speak ill of the dead (btw, I didn’t sign on to that agreement), but her premature and unfortunate death doesn’t change the fact that she was cruel to and dismissive of the people around her.  I agreed with her politics, as far as I understood them, but she was somebody I had a hard time envisioning her husband being happy with.  Maybe he stuck around for the children.  Losing a child is a grief I can only imagine and I pray I never experience, but it changes your view of life and family.  As much as I admired him, I never warmed up to her.  Her smile seemed brittle and unconvincing to me.    

An opinion for which I have been pilloried and banned from a certain ultra left web site (because Elizabeth is my example) is that husbands and wives have an obligation to keep themselves fit and healthy and should work to remain healthy and attractive to their mate, because if you don’t, the competition will be fierce.  We do have the choice not to do that, of course, but if one chooses to put on weight and stop caring about their appearance, one’s spouse may look elsewhere.  Is that really so shocking and outrageous to people?  Mrs. Edwards put on weight and seemed to stop caring about her looks, her hair, and her fashion before she got ill.  I'm not a psychologist, but I believe that decision can be interpreted as hostility toward your mate.  Did that decision not affect her marriage?  Is it wrong to expect it would?  Maybe that’s why he strayed…?  Is it really fair to let yourself go and expect your spouse to either ignore it or give up passion and sex for the rest of their days?  I certainly wouldn't be happy with it, and I would not expect or ask my mate to accept it -- all things being equal.

If Elizabeth did decide not to keep herself fit, she should have at least treated her husband well and been a loving wife.  This, it appears, she did not do, by many accounts.  By many accounts she was mean to him both privately and in public, and to others as well, which is a fact his attorneys could but have not raised in the trial, probably out of respect to Elizabeth and out of consideration for their children’s feelings.  Her cruelty is evidenced by her last decision days before she died to leave her husband out of her will, as a final punishment to him, regardless of how it might affect her children and regardless of the fact that all she had, he provided for her.  It bespeaks a vindictiveness and entitlement that I sensed years ago.   Yes, she was a mean one, and as someone said to me once and with which I agree: if you’re going to be homely AND mean, you’re going to have a very difficult life.  I don't mean that to sound harsh, although I know it does.  I believe it to be true.  Some will say I'm shallow, but I think I'm being realistic.  This is a debate I’ve had with others for years, and few people will agree out loud... 

As I follow these last couple of weeks, I admire his daughter for sticking by her father when few others will, and I’m glad that her mother’s anger hasn’t appeared to diminish Cate’s loyalty for her father.  Daughters tend to love their fathers no matter what, but I hope his love for his children is genuine and is realized by them.  I hope he'll find love again and if it's with Rielle Hunter, I hope she's not as nutty as she appears.  I hope that one day he’ll be able to hold his head high and not be judged so harshly by others all too willing to cast the first stone.
ETA: 5/31/12.  To all you people on DailyKos who insulted and harrangued me and then censored and banned me for my support of Edwards and daring to speak a controversial opinion:  !Ha and ha!!  There's no justification for your intolerance and cowardly group-think, and Edwards's freedom is made all the more sweet to me knowing that you know that I know you were wrong and I was right.  However ostracized I am, I'm right, and you merely suck.   Have fun with each other.   One shouldn't gloat, but you all were pretty awful to me AND, may I say again, wrong.