This article presents a theory for understanding U.S. voters and their preferred government policies, based on two fundamental emotional orientations.
Do the policies of the opposing party sometimes seem ineffective, harmful, or even immoral? Do their supporters sometimes appear illogical, uninformed, or naïve? If so, it may be because you haven't fully considered that, while you are trying to process those behaviors with your rational mind, they—and even your perception of them—have their foundation in the emotional mind.
People tend to have one of two dominant emotional orientations when thinking about social policy:
Care and nurture - a deep-seated need to care for others. The feeling that people should look out for one another and for all living beings.
Independent and competitive - an intuitive reality of self-reliance. The feeling that nobody owes them anything—that nature itself is a competition where there will be winners and losers.
It's not that the caring voters necessarily dismiss independence or competition. It's just that caring is their dominant emotion. Conversely, it's not that the independent voters necessarily dismiss caring and nurture. It's just that independence is their dominant emotion.
This should give you the framework now to understand the actions of the other party. Here are some examples 1.
Voters of the care-nurture party tend to prefer social policies that emphasize sharing and support. They lean toward open borders and social welfare systems and services, supported by the collective resources of its citizens. They don't mind paying extra taxes if it helps someone less fortunate. They consider it immoral to leave anyone behind. Conversely, voters of the independent-competitive party tend to prefer social policies that encourage self-reliance and achievement, and allow people to retain as much of the benefit of their own efforts as possible. They would rather be free to take their chances than be financially tethered to a collective support system. They prefer secure borders, limited government services, and limited government intervention.
Care-nurture voters tend to view rights as those things that the government should provide to all its people. Statements such as "Housing is a human right" and "Medical care is a human right" are common. Conversely, independent-competitive voters tend to view rights as freedoms from government control. Examples are the right to bear arms, and freedom of speech.
Care-nurture voters tend to assume that government agencies help and support people in the areas for which they have jurisdiction. Independent-competitive voters, on the other hand, tend to assume that those same agencies primarily impose unnecessary government control and bureaucracy.
You might also ask, how could voters in the other party be so blind to the immoralities, missteps, or incompetence of their own leaders? The answer is two-fold.
1. The primary concern of most voters is that their leaders lead the country in their preferred direction according to their dominant emotion 2. If the leader does that then any missteps are rationalized and overlooked. Voters will however condemn these same sins in the leaders of the other party, because they already believe that those leaders are leading the country in the wrong direction.
2. The political machines of each party, often with little regard for truth, and with their own power and billions of dollars at stake, are completely dedicated to convincing their potential voters that their leaders are virtuous and their policies effective, while the leaders of the other party are losers and dangerous, and their policies destructive. We are predisposed to believe what we're told if it aligns with our dominant emotional orientation.
The same political machines that bias us against politicians and their policies, also bias us against each other by extension, and magnify the differences between us.
Political division among voters is best understood by first recognizing their deeply ingrained emotional orientations—care versus independence. Once we recognize this, we can better understand why voters think the way they do and say the things they say. Instead of assuming that they are merely irrational, or immoral, we can see that their views, like ours, stem from fundamental human emotions.
Political machines deliberately exploit our dominant emotional orientation to magnify these differences, making it even more difficult for us to understand and empathize with each other.
1. Thomas Sowell wrote an eye-opening book that looks at this subject from the next layer above emotions. That is visions for humanity. The title is A Conflict of Visions. Sowell starts by defining a constrained and unconstrained vision of humanity and then outlines the characteristics and historic evolution of the two visions and how they shaped political policies. He never mentions Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative. You will pretty quickly recognize, however, which is which. Even the first eight pages of chapter 2 are worth many times the price of the book if you're interested in this topic.
2. The two directions lead to significantly different worlds after all.