The Great American Divide

What happened on November 8?  Why did the pollsters get it so wrong?  Why did so many working class voters support a party that for decades has stood on the side of the rich and privileged?

Change is happening in America, and it’s not being handled well.

We’re used to referring to the Democrats and the Republicans as the “Liberals” and the “Conservatives”.  For a long time, this meant that the Democrats supported socio-economic improvement for the less-well-off, the disenfranchised, and others whose rights were limited by the ruling elite.  An extensive role for government was often involved.  The Republicans fought a rear-guard action to keep their privileges intact and their wealth protected, usually resisting government regulation.

But the old “Liberal” and “Conservative” labels no longer work.  This year’s election was not decided on the basis of which policies were better for the country or even for the individual voter.  This election pitted the Fearful against the Hopeful, and the Fearful think they won.

Why is there so much fear in America?  Why do so many people ignore the facts of economic and social improvement and believe the unfounded lies that tell them their country is being stolen and destroyed?

The reason is relatively new, in terms of human history.  It is simply this:  Change is happening far faster than the bulk of humanity can cope with.  If you had transported a farmer from the 15th Century to the 17th, he might have found styles different, and equipment better, but his activities would have been the same, by and large, and he would not have needed to change his way of thinking about things in order to raise crops and make a living. 

But consider the pace of change since the beginning of the industrial revolution.  At first, it was simply a matter of improving technology enabling the farmer to work more land with the same amount of labor, to raise and harvest more crops, to increase his income.  By the end of the 20th Century, he was having to deal with constant equipment upgrades, with the encroachment of vast agribusinesses, with the financial complexities of loans, mortgages, and insurance, with comprehending the appropriate use of a wide variety of fertilizers, with working his way through the maze of genetic modification.  The pressures are enormous, and few of them have anything to do with working a spade into the earth.

The amount people have to know in order to cope with day-to-day existence in the 21st Century is staggering, pushing many not only to their limits, but beyond.  And when they feel they can no longer cope, when they feel they can’t rely on themselves and their own decisions in order to survive with reasonable expectations of security — when they become aware of their own powerlessness — that’s when panic sets in.  It may not be full-blown hysteria, but it is panic, nonetheless.  They stop making decisions based on logic, because their efforts to use logic and sense have ceased to lead anywhere.  Instead, they fall back on emotion.

When things don’t go right, people tend to look for whatever help and reassurance they can find.  They stop listening to the people who tell them things will turn out all right.  They used to believe that, but where did it get them?  Instead, they turn to those who tell them their panic is reasonable, that it’s not their fault, that they can blame something or someone outside themselves.  If only that evil outside agency could be brought under control, they’re told, they’d regain control over their lives.

Is it true?  Hardly.  But it certainly relieves them of responsibility and self-doubt.  Is it any wonder that they’re happy to accept lies that relieve their panic rather than facing the facts that show how little power they have?

Until this election, candidates of both parties have told voters things would turn out all right if only they’d vote for a government that pursued the right policies.  The percentage of eligible voters actually voting has become remarkably low, because fewer and fewer people felt capable of making such decisions.  Whether the party was liberal or conservative, it was essentially peddling the argument that “everything’s under control.”  Voting simply determined which group of Washington insiders divvied up the spoils.

But this time around, Donald Trump stepped up from outside.  He mouthed the same scapegoat-blaming lies that had already successfully appealed to the powerless.  He drew forth denunciations from the establishment politicians, clearly demonstrating his distinction from them.  Suddenly, those who had given up on voting years ago had a candidate they recognized as one of their own.

This explains the failure of the polls.  Pollsters build models for correct prediction based on past experience.  Unfortunately, there was no past experience of a candidate appealing to that group previously identified as “unlikely voters”.  This group didn’t vote, so they weren’t broadly represented in the pollsters’ databases.  The polls we saw probably reflected the interests and intentions of traditional voting pools quite well, but they left out a great number of this year’s actual voters.

Generally speaking, the Trump voters came from that quadrant of the voting spectrum in which conservatives have traditionally resided.  Why is that?  Because this is the group that is resistant to Change.  Change in and of itself is a threat to those who have identified themselves as Change’s powerless victims. 

In his article, “Are Conservatives Less Creative Than Liberals?” in Psychology Today (<https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/beautiful-minds/200811/are-conservatives-less-creative-liberals>), Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman reports on psychological studies that suggest “that conservatives prefer simple representational art over abstract art, traditional poetry over the avant-garde, and music that is simple, familiar, and 'safe'.”  Another study featuring a test requiring the completion of creative tasks by the subjects found that

. . . conservatives are indeed less creative than liberals. . . . [C]onservatives may have found the ambiguity of the creativity tasks threatening, and the anxiety associated with this sense of threat may have hindered the expression of creativity. Prior research has indeed shown that those that are more conservative have lower cognitive-complexity and therefore may dislike ambiguity more than those who are less conservative.

. . .

Another explanation is that conservatives are more inclined to follow convention in general. And of course, convention sounds the death knell for creativity. A related possibility is that the authoritarian and anti-hedonistic aspects of conservatism may cause imagination to be devalued amongst conservatives. It is interesting to note that in support of this hypothesis, Dollinger did find that conservatives in the study scored lower on openness to experience.

If conservatives are less creative than liberals, what is the causal factor?  Does a conservative attitude limit creativity, or does limited creativity foster conservatism?  If my argument above is correct — that the pace of change can create panic and resistance in those individuals who lack the ability to adapt effectively — then it is not at all surprising that there is a high correlation between a sense of powerlessness and a conservative outlook.  This may also account for the expressions of violence among Trump followers.  People who feel themselves under threat are those most likely to lash out against their perceived or assumed enemies.

What I want to leave you with as a result of all this verbiage is the idea that the real divide between the voting blocs that supported Clinton on the one hand and Trump on the other may have had nothing to do with any of the policy positions that Clinton kept trying to place before the voters and Trump kept sidestepping during the debates.  Instead, the divide was between voters who felt powerless, desperate, and fearful, and voters who felt hopeful and able to believe that human effort could find a way out of their difficulties.

That divide may be the new demarcation between Republicans, fast becoming the party of Irrational Fear and Resistance to Change, and the Democrats, a party of Hope and Change and all the uncertainty that goes with those factors.  Unfortunately, Fear is far more motivating than Hope.  Fear is susceptible to lies that are intended to reinforce the Fear, where Hope must rely on an optimismic interpretation of the possibilities that are out there.  How the Democrats can build a positive voting bloc in the absence of the emotional power of Fear remains to be seen, but if they are to move forward effectively it will have to be done.  As long as the Republicans can keep fostering fear among the voters, they’ll continue to win elections despite any Democratic appeals to facts or logic.

One final note:  In a country so divided, the rise of either party to power strikes some level of fear in the hearts of the other.  The powerless gain power, those who had been in control lose control.  And as a result, the motivators shift.  When Obama ran on a promise of Hope and Change, he represented — right down to the color of his skin — the possibility of power for a wide range of previously powerless voters, particularly those in groups easily identified and discriminated against.  Clinton’s campaign promised power to one more suppressed group — women — but despite early indications, failed to crusade forcefully for many of those feeling left out, notably African-Americans.  A stronger, more emotional push for reform of the judicial system might have energized these voters and changed the results of the election.

But even if the turnover of the Executive Branch to Donald Trump represents a loss of power for those invested in the Democratic Party, the Democrats remain dedicated to optimistic, positive change,  and thus more resistant to fear-mongering.  It’s a complex puzzle, and true progress for the US won’t happen until it’s figured out.