If you’re required to analyze American politics all day for work, or you somehow enjoy this form of pain, it’s hard to miss how emotional the whole enterprise has become in recent decades.
I notice the studies on emotions and party affiliation were done prior to Trump's election. I wonder what the studies would show now? What I'm seeing from Democrats since last November is fear bordering on hysteria. And I get it. I was in a constant state of terror over Trump's election from 2016 to 2020. By 2022, I realized I'd been manipulated - badly - by legacy media like the NYT, Wapo, and mostly by MSNBC (which I watched religiously).
I voted for Trump last November, and he did what I voted for: closed the border, got males out of female sports, and gave his solid support to Israel. I'm feeling pretty content.
People are more emotional, because federal governance is no longer incremental and remote. Historically, much of what happened in DC did not greatly affect Americans personally, day to day, unless they were military members, we had a war or a national tragedy, like 9/11.
Then for many, the medical system they utilized their entire lives, came to an end. If you liked your doctor, no one cared. They were no longer your doctor. Suddenly, your new MD was far more interested if you had firearms in your home, then in your cholesterol levels.
That was encored by Americans being informed, eventually they would only be allowed to drive one type of vehicle and prepare dinner, only on a certain cook top. The piece de resistance, however, was the open border. Life will never, remotely, be the same in some parts of the country. US education will, likely, never be the same. 10 million mostly impoverished and sparsely educated people, purposefully imported into a knowledge economy, on the cusp of AI and robots, that will soon cause massive job losses all across the country? What could possibly go wrong?
Moreover, the moment Dems return to power, the intrusions into everyday American life are likely to return, or be worse. There is absolutely nothing to prevent the dissolution of the Southern Border again. In a matter of weeks, 5K-10K unvetted people a day, could again be walking into Texas.
Perhaps next time Dems run the electoral table, air conditioning, far more necessary in Red States than Blue ones, will be regulated to the point it becomes unaffordable for 75% of Americans. Maybe electricity is suddenly a buck a kWh, meat is rationed, or Kindergartners are handed plastic appendages to try out, changing genders. The list of realistic terrifying possibilities is endless. People are more emotional, because there is far more at stake.
No surprise. The business model of major media is to click bait their chosen political demographic. Challenging a given station’s narrative on air is quite simply bad for business. Even more than our generally substandard politicians, American media writ large has failed the challenge and opportunity of supporting a well-informed electorate. Hence their demise.
It is really quite simple--the mass adoption of social media, via smartphones, meant the mass application of social media algorithms to everyone, all around the world, at the same time.
These algorithms are not optimized for long-term engagement, because it is harder and costlier to measure long-term engagement. Long-term engagement is composed of more complex relationships, like friendship, and more long-developing emotions, like fellowship and affection.
The easiest and cheapest way to generate clicks and get people's attention is to stoke the 'fight-or-flight' instincts--fear, anger, and paranoia. That's what the algorithms are optimized for, and those are the emotions they augment at the expense of more stable, productive, but longer-gestating ones.
The algorithms also work invisibly--unlike traditional advertising, people do not know that they are being manipulated. They are also constantly adjusting, at the micro-level, by way of processing personal user data, which smartphones are constantly generating, and which is what social media companies capture and sell to advertisers to generate profit. Most people don't know that X, Google, Meta, etc.'s 'product' is not their platform--it is information about *you*.
Apply that to billions of people, at the global level, and you get mass paranoia and crankiness. Conspiracy theories rise in popularity, and demagogues whose whole schtick is generating anger, paranoia, and crankiness see the most success in politics. Trump was the pioneer here and among the most mendacious beneficiaries of the trend--but AOC is very much cut from the same cloth. That's how the vote share of BOTH Trump AND AOC rose in AOC's district. They are two sides of the same political coin.
Oh please, stop. When some -- hardly a majority -- of Americans fail to distinguish between "overly emotional politics" and burning Teslas or shooting federal ICE agents, then civil order breaks down and lawlessness becomes the norm. The cause-and-effect here is not rocket science. Nor, left unchecked, is the predictable ultimate consequence when members of Congress, by their words and deeds, encourage escalation of fact-free disruption.
The above is correct, to a point, but avoids the historical policy decisions that cost Dems the election and are causing unusual levels of political bifurcation.
Inflation caused by trillions in needless spending, the purposeful dissolution of the Southern Border and the social engineering of children, cost Dems the election. Other issues are rounding errors.
Social media or not, Biden's administration was so far Left, not even Carter compares. Had 100 staunch Reps been gathered in a room a month before the 2020 election and told Dems planned to purposefully dissolve the Southern Border and wave in 10 million unvetted migrants, 99 of the 100, would have never believed the plan. It was that audacious and out of the historical norm.
To all but the Dem ruling class, the policy is incomprehensible. Yet Dem leaders continue to loudly advocate for unlimited migration of nonviolent migrants. Until a Dem leader, at least, feigns repudiation of the Great Biden Migration, emotions are going to run, very high.
Guys, I hear this a lot. As a historian, I have to say "Nyet." Our politics, even with all the "anger," today are vastly more civil than 200 years ago. President Madison was so threatened by a senator arguing with him that as the Senator reached for his pistol in his coat, Maddie grabbed the fireplace poker. Nothing came of it. In the 1830s there was a KNIFE FIGHT on the floor of the Arkansas House that left one dead, gutted. Well up until the eve of the Civil War, it was commonplace for Congressmen and Senators to carry weapons onto the chambers' floor. Of course, most people know of Preston Brooks, who nearly beat Senator Charles Sumner to death with a heavy cane. Even into the 20th century, Teddy Roosevelt threatened to throw business leaders "out the window" if they didn't comply.
When Democrats learn that emotions rule they can start winning. Policy discussions aren’t listened to except by elites. Gut issues determine elections.
So by this piece it is Republicans that are emotional and Democrats are all rational, logical, calm and pragmatic.
You see, this isn't even the issue. The issue is crap fake facts like this that masquerade as legitimate while people out in the world see and experience reality. Sure, Republicans are protesting and rioting and burning down low-income communities. Sure, it is the Republicans that are all emotional.
What are you talking about? The piece doesn't say that at all and clearly charges both Democrats and Republicans with overly emotional and angry rhetorical politics as seen in the data.
Check the graphs from the "unbiased" Harvard study.
There is no way.
The analogy is the Democrat wife goes insane in anger because the Republican husband tell her she does in fact look fat in those jeans... she kills the dog, burns down the house and brainwashes the children to think their dad is a rapist and pedophile.
With the violence calls by progressives increasing everyday, when will the killing violence start? Do ICE agents now need over watch protection? I would say yes. Those days are coming. Making light of such threats have never lead the Dems to any logical or peaceful ending to anything. And they have never believed the words of those issuing them if morning line with everyone needs to live in a Democracy. We are well beyond Dem policies that will bring us together. They don’t have them and give no indication they are interested in any such thing. And we could say much the same of Republicans. Except they are no where near the hysterical violence scene like the Dems. But they are much better armed with more guys than Soros is giving his side.
Halpin’s call for a “stop-evaluate-wait and see” approach is admirable in theory, but difficult in practice.
Where, exactly, is the average voter supposed to find reliable, dispassionate information these days? In an era saturated with "alternative facts," conspiracy narratives, and emotionally charged propaganda from all sides, distinguishing real evidence from noise is no small feat.
Even when credible data is available, how many Americans possess the training—or see role models—necessary to weigh it effectively? Critical thinking is rarely modeled in our political culture, which rewards outrage over discernment and tribal loyalty over intellectual honesty.
The result is a feedback loop of emotional manipulation with very few exits.
"Partisan path dependency requires Democrats to uniformly hate and despise everything that Trump is doing and it also requires Republicans to uniformly love and praise his every action."
I notice the studies on emotions and party affiliation were done prior to Trump's election. I wonder what the studies would show now? What I'm seeing from Democrats since last November is fear bordering on hysteria. And I get it. I was in a constant state of terror over Trump's election from 2016 to 2020. By 2022, I realized I'd been manipulated - badly - by legacy media like the NYT, Wapo, and mostly by MSNBC (which I watched religiously).
I voted for Trump last November, and he did what I voted for: closed the border, got males out of female sports, and gave his solid support to Israel. I'm feeling pretty content.
People are more emotional, because federal governance is no longer incremental and remote. Historically, much of what happened in DC did not greatly affect Americans personally, day to day, unless they were military members, we had a war or a national tragedy, like 9/11.
Then for many, the medical system they utilized their entire lives, came to an end. If you liked your doctor, no one cared. They were no longer your doctor. Suddenly, your new MD was far more interested if you had firearms in your home, then in your cholesterol levels.
That was encored by Americans being informed, eventually they would only be allowed to drive one type of vehicle and prepare dinner, only on a certain cook top. The piece de resistance, however, was the open border. Life will never, remotely, be the same in some parts of the country. US education will, likely, never be the same. 10 million mostly impoverished and sparsely educated people, purposefully imported into a knowledge economy, on the cusp of AI and robots, that will soon cause massive job losses all across the country? What could possibly go wrong?
Moreover, the moment Dems return to power, the intrusions into everyday American life are likely to return, or be worse. There is absolutely nothing to prevent the dissolution of the Southern Border again. In a matter of weeks, 5K-10K unvetted people a day, could again be walking into Texas.
Perhaps next time Dems run the electoral table, air conditioning, far more necessary in Red States than Blue ones, will be regulated to the point it becomes unaffordable for 75% of Americans. Maybe electricity is suddenly a buck a kWh, meat is rationed, or Kindergartners are handed plastic appendages to try out, changing genders. The list of realistic terrifying possibilities is endless. People are more emotional, because there is far more at stake.
We used to be a high trust society. We are no longer one.
No surprise. The business model of major media is to click bait their chosen political demographic. Challenging a given station’s narrative on air is quite simply bad for business. Even more than our generally substandard politicians, American media writ large has failed the challenge and opportunity of supporting a well-informed electorate. Hence their demise.
It is really quite simple--the mass adoption of social media, via smartphones, meant the mass application of social media algorithms to everyone, all around the world, at the same time.
These algorithms are not optimized for long-term engagement, because it is harder and costlier to measure long-term engagement. Long-term engagement is composed of more complex relationships, like friendship, and more long-developing emotions, like fellowship and affection.
The easiest and cheapest way to generate clicks and get people's attention is to stoke the 'fight-or-flight' instincts--fear, anger, and paranoia. That's what the algorithms are optimized for, and those are the emotions they augment at the expense of more stable, productive, but longer-gestating ones.
The algorithms also work invisibly--unlike traditional advertising, people do not know that they are being manipulated. They are also constantly adjusting, at the micro-level, by way of processing personal user data, which smartphones are constantly generating, and which is what social media companies capture and sell to advertisers to generate profit. Most people don't know that X, Google, Meta, etc.'s 'product' is not their platform--it is information about *you*.
Apply that to billions of people, at the global level, and you get mass paranoia and crankiness. Conspiracy theories rise in popularity, and demagogues whose whole schtick is generating anger, paranoia, and crankiness see the most success in politics. Trump was the pioneer here and among the most mendacious beneficiaries of the trend--but AOC is very much cut from the same cloth. That's how the vote share of BOTH Trump AND AOC rose in AOC's district. They are two sides of the same political coin.
Oh please, stop. When some -- hardly a majority -- of Americans fail to distinguish between "overly emotional politics" and burning Teslas or shooting federal ICE agents, then civil order breaks down and lawlessness becomes the norm. The cause-and-effect here is not rocket science. Nor, left unchecked, is the predictable ultimate consequence when members of Congress, by their words and deeds, encourage escalation of fact-free disruption.
The above is correct, to a point, but avoids the historical policy decisions that cost Dems the election and are causing unusual levels of political bifurcation.
Inflation caused by trillions in needless spending, the purposeful dissolution of the Southern Border and the social engineering of children, cost Dems the election. Other issues are rounding errors.
Social media or not, Biden's administration was so far Left, not even Carter compares. Had 100 staunch Reps been gathered in a room a month before the 2020 election and told Dems planned to purposefully dissolve the Southern Border and wave in 10 million unvetted migrants, 99 of the 100, would have never believed the plan. It was that audacious and out of the historical norm.
To all but the Dem ruling class, the policy is incomprehensible. Yet Dem leaders continue to loudly advocate for unlimited migration of nonviolent migrants. Until a Dem leader, at least, feigns repudiation of the Great Biden Migration, emotions are going to run, very high.
Guys, I hear this a lot. As a historian, I have to say "Nyet." Our politics, even with all the "anger," today are vastly more civil than 200 years ago. President Madison was so threatened by a senator arguing with him that as the Senator reached for his pistol in his coat, Maddie grabbed the fireplace poker. Nothing came of it. In the 1830s there was a KNIFE FIGHT on the floor of the Arkansas House that left one dead, gutted. Well up until the eve of the Civil War, it was commonplace for Congressmen and Senators to carry weapons onto the chambers' floor. Of course, most people know of Preston Brooks, who nearly beat Senator Charles Sumner to death with a heavy cane. Even into the 20th century, Teddy Roosevelt threatened to throw business leaders "out the window" if they didn't comply.
It's true, Larry. A close reading of the history of American politics makes it a wonder we've come so far. Thanks for adding that perspective.
When Democrats learn that emotions rule they can start winning. Policy discussions aren’t listened to except by elites. Gut issues determine elections.
So by this piece it is Republicans that are emotional and Democrats are all rational, logical, calm and pragmatic.
You see, this isn't even the issue. The issue is crap fake facts like this that masquerade as legitimate while people out in the world see and experience reality. Sure, Republicans are protesting and rioting and burning down low-income communities. Sure, it is the Republicans that are all emotional.
That is inane.
What are you talking about? The piece doesn't say that at all and clearly charges both Democrats and Republicans with overly emotional and angry rhetorical politics as seen in the data.
Check the graphs from the "unbiased" Harvard study.
There is no way.
The analogy is the Democrat wife goes insane in anger because the Republican husband tell her she does in fact look fat in those jeans... she kills the dog, burns down the house and brainwashes the children to think their dad is a rapist and pedophile.
He yells at her in court.
And now he is the emotional one.
With the violence calls by progressives increasing everyday, when will the killing violence start? Do ICE agents now need over watch protection? I would say yes. Those days are coming. Making light of such threats have never lead the Dems to any logical or peaceful ending to anything. And they have never believed the words of those issuing them if morning line with everyone needs to live in a Democracy. We are well beyond Dem policies that will bring us together. They don’t have them and give no indication they are interested in any such thing. And we could say much the same of Republicans. Except they are no where near the hysterical violence scene like the Dems. But they are much better armed with more guys than Soros is giving his side.
Halpin’s call for a “stop-evaluate-wait and see” approach is admirable in theory, but difficult in practice.
Where, exactly, is the average voter supposed to find reliable, dispassionate information these days? In an era saturated with "alternative facts," conspiracy narratives, and emotionally charged propaganda from all sides, distinguishing real evidence from noise is no small feat.
Even when credible data is available, how many Americans possess the training—or see role models—necessary to weigh it effectively? Critical thinking is rarely modeled in our political culture, which rewards outrage over discernment and tribal loyalty over intellectual honesty.
The result is a feedback loop of emotional manipulation with very few exits.
"Partisan path dependency requires Democrats to uniformly hate and despise everything that Trump is doing and it also requires Republicans to uniformly love and praise his every action."
A well-articulated, excellent point John.
It's the media and everyone is in a bubble. The worst part of the bubbles is what gets covered and what doesn't.