Political Memes

Oh yeah let me repeat myself to be very clear: I think not voting or a protest vote or a third-party or independent vote is downright stupid. I think anyone suggesting this is either a right-wing operative as it only benefits them, or they're very naive and likely a newcomer to politics. who also lacks an understanding of risk/reward analytics.

Absolutely, at this point we should all vote for Joe Biden.

All I'm saying is that unfortunately you and I are far-and-above average in terms of political knowledge and civic engagement. Most people lack the depth of understanding to look at things logically and so must go off intuition and emotion as shortcuts. So to some extent, I think a party would be crazy not to put a heavy emphasis on this. Unfortunately it benefits the GOP more because of the nature of their deeply-ignorant and gullible and griftable base.

I didn’t say you, I said “people screaming” about old. But you are screaming about charisma.

-you.

Funny because I think it’s the other way around, people screaming “but but but charisma! But but but old!”

I thought maybe it was someone else I just told but no it’s you. These are the supposed logical people waiting for the supposed logical platform. But no, they want emotions. Notice that doesn’t add up?

And you’re still trying to sneak it in. Biden is just fine charismatically.

-Also you. (emphasis is mine, though.)

Also, that's not at all what I'm trying to do and if you've been reading my comment you would know that. What the "he's not charismatic" complaint really boils down to is "I'm not motivated to vote for him." him actually being charismatic or not is not the issue. the issue is, he's not engaging voters and motivating them to vote for him; and neither is his campaign.

as for emotions... what I'm trying to tell you is, that people make emotional decisions. You have to engage on an emotional level., specifically:

However, emotions have value. It appears that without emotions to motivate and push us, we would be passive and do nothing. Decisions are very much informed by our emotional state since this is what emotions are designed to do. Emotions quickly condense an experience, and evaluate it to inform our decision, so we can rapidly respond to the situation.

While emotions serve to direct us, they are driven by our automatic survival nature. As such, most of the time emotions communicate their messages below our level of awareness. It is important to note that because of their speed and survival purpose, emotions are not particularly accurate. Their speed and effectiveness compensate for what they lack in being specific and detailed. This is why the emotional system provides many false alarms, which requires us to reevaluate our response and check if it is appropriate to the particular situation.

(Emphasis mine,)
It's quite literally hardwired into our brain to be emotional. It's a matter of survival; your stress responses are keyed to force quick decisions- and frequently unconscious ones. "Fight, Flight, Freeze or Fawn". When you come in hot, demanding we vote a certain way, you're triggering an emotional reaction- and it's not a happy one.

Even the most rationally-minded people in the world are still fighting an uphill battle against emotions. As a person whose entire career is researching this, and how to manipulate us into making a bad decision says: "The human brain has essentially evolved to feel first and think next,"and in that article, Carolyn also says:

The ability to think can override the emotional state. The more you spend time thinking and bring your cognitive processes to bear ... you have a shot at basically saying, 'No, I think I'm going to pass,' even though that wasn't your first inclination.

Sure, that articles is about not getting suckered on a black friday sale, but persuading people to a vote a certain way is the same science.

Abortion is an easy point for Democrats because it's inherently emotional, right? When we talk about women having ectopic pregnancies, people aren't talking about it with clinical sterility. they're talking about pain, and fear, and hurt. And when you're talking about women dying, the people you're talking to aren't seeing statistics, they're hearing the pain and the fear; and they're seeing their wives, their mothers, sisters, or themselves; and that hits all sorts of emotions.

It's evocative. It's poignant. you can unprime prior emotions about it; by asking open questions. The goal isn't to immediately get an agreement, it might take days, or months. It took my parents years to break the religious brainwashing about it... but by using open questions to get them thinking about it, rather than feeling about it, eventually they came around. More to it, questions can provide emotional priming to encourage a desired decision while you provide the relevant evidence to support that decision. That, is how you influence people.

The Bernie and Obama campaigns understood this. Take a look at the style differences.

Obama was all about Hope and Change, and fighting for it. He gave people hope, and promised to work to a brighter future. Hope is probably one of the most potent emotions out there. Just a little can topple empires. Bernie's campaign was downright authentic. He cared, he gave people a sense of... something I've only seen from 2 other Boomers in my life. (okay, so Bernie is not a boomer, he's silent generation.) He made us feel powerful and heard. And he promised- and not just a bullshit promise- to help, and empowered us to seek change.

The vast majority of my interactions with boomers... is condescension, authoritarianism and straight up bullshit. Most everyone who is in that generation fights an uphill battle with me. Because of that. It triggers an emotional response. that emotional response gets stronger when they fail to respect that I'm a fucking adult and can make rational choices. It then gets even stronger when they get angry and start shouting. basically, by the time we get to that point, I'm no where near a place where I can even hear what they're saying.

Now, compare the Hillary campaign. Entitlement. Arrogance. Bullshit. Condescension. I remember a conversation with one of her organizers here.... the gist of the conversation was basically that I was sexist because I liked Bernie better. yup. very persuasive.

Motivating people to vote for biden isn't about fear mongering, we know trump is bad. we know he's awful, corrupt, stupid, and a raging fucking fascist. We don't need to be told that. we don't need to be told that he's going to kill everyone who doesn't agree with him- Trump tells us that enough on his own.

It's about getting them excited to vote for Biden. Biden himself could be a limp noodle. but somebody coming in, saying 'hey I know it's rough, but here's what I'm doing to help, and can you maybe help?" would be powerful. "Hey, I'm trying to get [something useful] done in congress... can you call your representatives? your senators? can you help me get [something useful] done?" or even "HEY! so I'm trying to do [something useful], do you have any ideas how we can get [people on board]" Or... I know it's daring, actually listening to what we have to say about things.

"Why do you think we shouldn't support Israel?" and then actually listen to the answers. (I mean, it's pretty fucking obvious, but apparently that one's gone over his head.)