{"id":50162,"date":"2015-04-26T09:51:44","date_gmt":"2015-04-26T15:51:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/26\/the-politics-of-fear.html"},"modified":"2015-05-06T07:34:57","modified_gmt":"2015-05-06T13:34:57","slug":"the-politics-of-fear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/26\/the-politics-of-fear.html","title":{"rendered":"The Politics of Fear"},"content":{"rendered":"

This feels intuitively obvious, but apparently is demonstrably true: people vote (and donate to politicians and political causes) less out of love for their own party than from fear of the other. Further, as party affiliation further polarizes and the two "sides" become less like one another, that "fear" has at least some policy-based rationale, which only accelerates the movement, which has been going on consistently since 1980.<\/p>\n

Further, this is a self-propelling engine — politicians are well aware of this, and play to that fear. Politicians and their affiliated media punditry can say outrageous things about Those Other People and get away with it because it's a play to emotions, not reason. <\/p>\n

In 1952, Adlai Stevenson told the Democratic National Convention, "What counts now is not just what we are against, but what we are for." Unfortunately, we seem to have abandoned that message, and today, even someone "for" something often frames it as being "for something cool that those other people are against."<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n
\n
\n<\/a>
\n2 political scientists have found the secret to partisanship, and it’s deeply depressing<\/a><\/span>
\nA chilling new theory of American politics.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

View on Google+<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This feels intuitively obvious, but apparently is demonstrably true: people vote (and donate to politicians and political causes) less out of love for their own party than from fear of the other. Further, as party affiliation further polarizes and the two "sides" become less like one another, that "fear" has at least some policy-based rationale, … Continue reading “The Politics of Fear”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106,532,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plusposts","category-elections-2016","category-politics-law"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":10142,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/08\/24\/how_about_a_rea.html","url_meta":{"origin":50162,"position":0},"title":"How about a real War on Terror?","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 24-Aug-06 3:43pm","format":false,"excerpt":"As in ... not giving in to Terror (and, in so doing, not giving in to the Terrorists) The point of terrorism is to cause terror, sometimes to further...","rel":"","context":"In "Homeland Security"","block_context":{"text":"Homeland Security","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/homeland-security"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/images\/terror.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":12111,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2007\/11\/14\/damned_if_you_do_4.html","url_meta":{"origin":50162,"position":1},"title":"Damned if you do …","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 14-Nov-07 9:09am","format":false,"excerpt":"Ran across this G.K. Chesterton passage today: For fear of the newspapers politicians are dull, and at last they are too dull even for the newspapers. The speeches in our...","rel":"","context":"In "Politics & Law"","block_context":{"text":"Politics & Law","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":48421,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/19\/living-in-a-fear-based-reality.html","url_meta":{"origin":50162,"position":2},"title":"Living in a fear-based reality","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 19-Nov-14 6:04pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Imagine how awful life must be for a guy like Larry Pratt, of the Gun Owners of America. Here is a man whose life is based around fear: instilling fear in others, out of fear that they will make him afraid.If your own motivation -- and the motivation you project\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":138977,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2019\/05\/30\/party-does-make-a-difference.html","url_meta":{"origin":50162,"position":3},"title":"Party does make a difference","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 30-May-19 9:29am","format":false,"excerpt":"Partisan politics are problematic. But there is a difference between the GOP and Dems in the policies they pursue.","rel":"","context":"In "Elections 2018"","block_context":{"text":"Elections 2018","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/elections-2018"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/trifecta-gop.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/trifecta-gop.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/trifecta-gop.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":138391,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2019\/03\/23\/protecting-incumbents-is-not-my-highest-priority.html","url_meta":{"origin":50162,"position":4},"title":"Protecting incumbents is not my highest priority","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 23-Mar-19 7:51pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Maybe the DCCC will stop sending me political junk mail if I post this.","rel":"","context":"In "Elections 2020"","block_context":{"text":"Elections 2020","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/elections-2020"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/Democratic-donkey.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":12983,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/08\/26\/potpourri_on_a_warm_tuesd.html","url_meta":{"origin":50162,"position":5},"title":"Potpourri on a Warm Tuesday Night","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 26-Aug-08 10:42pm","format":false,"excerpt":"POLITICAL Obama\u2019s Likes and Dislikes - Hold the Mayo - NYTimes.com\u00a0- He dislikes mayonnaise. He must be our next president. Sound familiar?\u00a0- So why are the pundits not calling Ahnold...","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging - Technical"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging - Technical","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/blogging-technical"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50162"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50162\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50391,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50162\/revisions\/50391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}