Friday, September 05, 2008
"Feel good"From Ted Rall: Two of Palin's opponents in the 2006 Alaska governor's race were baffled at Palin's lack of substance. "She wouldn't have articulated one coherent policy and people would just be fawning all over her," Republican-Independent Andrew Halcro told The Times. "[Democratic candidate Tony Knowles] and I looked at each other and it was, like, this isn't about policy or Alaska issues, this is about people's most basic instincts: 'I like you, and you make me feel good.'"
posted by Quiddity at 9/05/2008 12:34:00 AM
5 comments
People gravitate towards whatever they find most satisfying, and whoever appeals to their loudest and most responsive basic pre-dispositions gets their vote.
These gut reactions trump any sensible interpretation of even the most obvious realities, giving way to fractured and self-contradictory support of an illusory ideology.
Facts, logic and consistent thinking all become liabilities and fall a distant second to supporting a false dichotomy where finding even the pettiest of wrongness in others helps prove you're right.
This destructive behavior motivates people to lower the bar of discourse to see who is worse than they, so they can crow about being better than someone else.
The closest things come to reversing the downward spiral happens when ideologues concede that everyone makes the same mistakes.
'I like you, and you make me feel good.
This is how Bush got elected, right?
She's the kind of gal ya just wanna have a beer with.
She's America's MILF!
"This is how Bush got elected, right?"
That's what I don't understand. Even when I put aside my liberal-ness, I instinctually found Bush unlikeable, someone who just seemed full of sh*t.
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