Robyn Blumner, Tribune Media Services, July 25, 2007
Democrats finally have a prophet who can lead them to the promised land of winning national elections, and his prescription is simple: Fight back, dadgummit.
OK, it’s not quite that simple, but nearly so. In one exceptionally clear 400-page volume, Drew Westen, a professor of psychology at Emory University, lays out everything that Democrats have been doing wrong. He explains it all in neuroscientific terms according to what regions of the brain control political decision-making, but it comes down to this: In election after election, Democrats have been appealing to the dispassionate, rational, fact-sensitive voter, a being, apparently, who doesn’t exist.
According to Westen’s The Political Brain: The Role of Emotions in Deciding the Fate of the Nation, winning elections is all about influencing feelings and emotions. Westen says bringing more passion into politics requires the use of storytelling narratives and other emotional cues that powerfully engage those circuits of the brain that recruit and reinforce beliefs.
Democrats keep losing presidential campaigns, not because the issues they stand for are unappealing, but because they tend to structure their campaigns to engage the brain’s reasoning centers. And that just doesn’t cut the synaptic mustard.
The results speak for themselves. In most polls, Americans are demonstrably more supportive of the Democratic agenda, yet somehow Republicans keep winning.
The most blatant example of an emotionally dead campaign was that moment during the 1988 presidential debates when moderator Bernard Shaw asked Michael Dukakis whether he would favor the death penalty for someone who raped and murdered his wife.
“No, I don’t, Bernard,” Dukakis responded. “I don’t see any evidence that it’s a deterrent, and I think there are better and more effective ways to deal with violent crime.”
As Westen writes, Dukakis answered in the language of “rational utility,” describing his concerns for the death penalty’s deterrent value. But the average listener heard a different question. They heard Shaw ask Dukakis, “Are you a man?” The answer was a resounding “No.”