Want to Understand Republicans? First Understand Evolution

Chris Mooney, Reader Supported News

08 February 12

arlier this week, yesterday's Republican primary champ Rick Santorum called global warming a "hoax." Yes, a hoax. In other words, apparently scientists are in a global cabal to needlessly alarm us about what's happening with the climate - and why would they do such a thing?

Well, presumably to help advance an economy-choking agenda of global governance - or perhaps, to line their own pockets with government research grants. Seriously.

Santorum's absurd global warming conspiracy theory is the kind of thing that absolutely outrages liberals - but to my mind, they really ought to be getting used to it by now. From global warming denial to claims about "death panels" to baseless fears about inflation, it often seems there are so many factually wrong claims on the political right that those who make them live in a different reality.

So here's an idea: Maybe they actually do. And maybe we can look to science itself - albeit, ironically, a body of science whose fundamental premise (the theory of evolution) most  Republicans deny - to help understand why it is that they view the world so differently.

In my last piece here, I commented on the growing body of research suggesting that the difference between liberals and conservatives is not merely ideological in nature. Rather, it seems more deeply rooted in psychology and the brain - with ideology itself emerging as a kind of by-product of fundamentally different patterns of perceiving and responding to the world that spill over into many aspects of life, not just the political.

To back this up, I listed seven published studies showing a consistent set of physiological, brain, and "attentional" differences between liberals and conservatives. Later on my blog, I listed no less than eleven studies showing genetic differences as well.

Last month, yet another scientific paper on this subject came out - from the National Science Foundation-supported political physiology laboratory at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The work, published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B (free version here), goes further still in helping us understand how biological and physiological differences between liberals and conservatives may lead to very different patterns of political behavior.

As the new research suggests, conservatism is largely a defensive ideology - and therefore, much more appealing to people who go through life sensitive and highly attuned to aversive or threatening aspects of their environments. By contrast, liberalism can be thought of as an exploratory ideology - much more appealing to people who go through life trying things out and seeking the new.

All of this is reflected, in a measurable way, in the physiological responses that liberals and conservatives show to emotionally evocative but otherwise entirely apolitical images - and also to images of politicians, either on their own side or from across the aisle.

To show as much, the Nebraska-Lincoln researchers had liberals and conservatives look at varying combinations of images that were meant to excite different emotions. There were images that caused fear and disgust - a spider crawling on a person's face, maggots in an open wound - but also images that made you feel happy: a smiling child, a bunny rabbit. The researchers also mixed in images of liberal and conservative politicians - Bill and Hillary Clinton, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.

While they did all of this, the scientists measured the subjects' "skin conductance" - the moistening of their sweat glands, an indication of sympathetic nervous system arousal - as well as where their eyes went first and how long they stayed there.

The difference was striking: Conservatives showed much stronger skin responses to negative images, compared with the positive ones. Liberals showed the opposite. And when the scientists turned to studying eye gaze or "attentional" patterns, they found that conservatives looked much more quickly at negative or threatening images, and spent more time fixating on them. Liberals, in contrast, were less quickly drawn to negative images - and spent more time looking at positive ones.

Similar things have been found before - but the big breakthrough in the new study was showing that these tendencies carried over perfectly to the different sides' responses to images of politicians. Conservatives had stronger rapid fire physiological responses to images of Bill and Hillary Clinton - apparently perceiving them much as they perceive a threat. By contrast, liberals showed stronger responses to the same two politicians, apparently perceiving them much as they perceive an appetitive or positive stimulus.

As the authors concluded, "The aversive in life is more physiologically and cognitively tangible to some people and they tend to gravitate to the political right."

What does this mean?

To my mind, it means it is high time to grapple with a fact that we like to conveniently ignore: the left and the right are deeply asymmetrical actors in our politics. If we could acknowledge this, it might explain an awful lot.

For instance, consider a few observations that seem to take on new resonance in light of the latest research:

The Tea Party hates President Obama much more intensely than liberals love him. Or to state things less judgmentally, there is an "intensity gap," as the Pew Research Center puts it, between the right's political base and that of the left.

As of last May, for instance, 84 percent of staunch conservatives strongly disapproved of Obama's job performance, but only 64 percent of solid liberals approved of it. Meanwhile, 70 percent of staunch conservatives viewed Obama very unfavorably, but only 45 percent of solid liberals had very favorable views of him.

What's going on here? To conservatives, the new research implies, President Obama may literally be an aversive and threatening stimuli (or, perhaps, a disgust-evoking one). They fixate on him, and respond to him, physiologically, in a defensive fashion.

For liberals, in contrast, Obama was surely once very appealing, perhaps circa 2008, and excited positive and appetitive emotions. But they've since grown bored or disillusioned with him and gone on to sample many other things in the environment - like Occupy Wall Street - always exploring and searching for the new. (All of which, incidentally, may translate into a very serious electoral disadvantage this fall.)

Conservatives opt for Fox News much more strongly than liberals opt for any single outlet. In a 2007 "selective exposure" study by Stanford researcher Shanto Iyengar, it was found Republicans overwhelmingly chose to read fake articles labeled with the "Fox News" logo, but chose a story running under a CNN or NPR logo just 10 percent of the time. By contrast,  Democrats in the study didn't like Fox, but also didn't show a strong affinity for a particular alternative news source - they seemed to sample information sources more widely.

What's going on here? One possibility is that in a political environment filled with perceived threats, Fox helps conservatives feel secure by giving them ideologically consistent and reassuring information. Alternatively, perhaps Fox's constant negative framing of liberals, and of other news sources, appeals to or even excites conservatives, whipping them up for political battle.

Either way, liberals just don't seem to need an outlet like Fox. Again, they're busy chasing after the new and different - out exploring, rather than hunkering down.

The big question lying behind all this, of course, is why some people would have stronger and quicker responses than others to that which is perceived as negative and threatening (and disgusting). Or alternatively, why some people - liberals - would be less threat aversive than others. For as the University of Nebraska-Lincoln researchers note: "given the compelling evolutionary logic for organisms to be overly sensitive to aversive stimuli, it may be that those on the political left are more out of step with adaptive behaviors."

And thus are we drawn to the only context in which we can make any sense of any of this - the understanding that we human primates evolved. As such, these rapid-fire responses to aversive stimuli are something we share with other animals - a core part of our life-saving biological wiring.

And apparently, they differ in strength and intensity from person to person - in turn triggering political differences in modern democracies. Who knew?

For now, I'll leave it to others to speculate on the root causes of these differences. But whatever those may be, the perceptual gap between left and right certainly seems less than "adaptive" at the present moment. It may be the fault of biology that we're now misfiring so very badly - clashing in ways that, as with the debt ceiling fiasco, could have gravely harmed everybody in America, regardless of their particular ideology.

The Nebraska-Lincoln scientists interpret their results as a powerful argument in favor of greater political tolerance and understanding - and I agree with them. Politics isn't war, and it isn't zero sum. It requires negotiation and compromise. Surely our public debates should be guided by something more than threat responses and fight-or-flight.

So how do we get beyond our political biology? Well, the implication for liberals seems obvious: If they want to fare better politically, they need to learn to go against their instincts and stay focused and committed.

And the lesson for conservatives? Well, here it is tougher. You see, first we'd have to get them to accept something they often view as aversive and threatening: The theory of evolution.

Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.

Rocky Anderson:  "Overthrow the Dictatorship of Money"

By Steven Higgs, CounterPunch

08 February 12

ocky Anderson is always deferential to Occupy Wall Street when asked about the movement, most recently in a Jan. 31 interview with the online environmental magazine Grist. Occupy has been a "very healthy thing in this country," and there’s an "enormous convergence" between its concerns and his. But for inspiration, the Justice Party candidate points to Tahrir Square, not Zucotti Park.

"One of the great inspirations for us was what we saw in much of the Arab world, where people were intent on overthrowing their nations’ dictators," he told Grist's special projects editor Greg Hanscom during a wide-ranging Q&A. "… They put their lives on the line, utilizing democratized means of communication through social networking and engaging in classic grassroots organizing — and they succeeded."

The same sort of populist, new-media-driven movement can succeed in this country, the former Democrat and Salt Lake City mayor said. The American people are disgusted with Congress, hold President Barack Obama in low regard and are ready for fundamental change. They understand that voting for Democrats and Republicans simply reaffirms a failed system and accomplishes little more than moving its players around.

"There really is a perfect storm in terms of the resonance that the idea of a major new political party has with the American people," he said.

And, Anderson argued, it won't require a billion dollars in special interest money to "overthrow the dictatorship of corrupt money in our government." His website says he is fighting corruption by not accepting campaign donations of more than $100.

"What the Justice Party and my campaign are about is to radically change that system so that we can eliminate the plutocracy — that is, government by the wealthy — and ensure instead that our government finally represents the public interest," he said.

To get money out of politics, the first priority in an Anderson presidency would be passing a constitutional amendment overturning the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling.

***

Beyond the corrupting influence of money in governance, Anderson further burnished the antiwar, supergreen reputation he earned during two terms as mayor of Utah's capital city from 2000 to 2008. Ending the wars and taking the lead on climate change were next on his list.

"First and foremost, the wars," he said. "I would end them immediately. They have been devastating to this country and to the world. And they just feed into the corrupt military-industrial complex."

Obama, he noted, started and ended this year's State of the Union speech with a militaristic, cheerleading appeal, seemingly channeling George W. Bush. The president claimed that, through the tragic, wasteful and illegal war of aggression in Iraq, the U.S. is safer and more respected around the world.

"If the American people still buy that, after all the disclosures about the debacle of that war and the lies that led us into it, I really fear for this country," Anderson said.

As for combating the "most catastrophic consequences of the climate crisis," Obama had one "throwaway line" in the speech, which was one more than he had in the prior year's, he said.

While neither the Republican nor the Democratic parties have or will provide the "essential international leadership on climate change that’s required," Anderson said he has spent more than a dozen years working on climate issues. He has spoken all over the world, received the World Leadership Forum’s world leadership award and received the EPA’s environmental protection award.

"I reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 31 percent in three years in city operations when I was mayor, then took our successes and worked to communicate best practices and provide inspiration to mayors not only throughout United States, but many other countries," he said. "I co-founded, with Robert Redford, the Sundance Summit."

For three years, the summit brought together dozens of mayors to learn about climate change, energy policy and the role that cities have in addressing those issues, he said.

But the impact mayors and municipalities can have is limited, Anderson said. Their role in raising public awareness of climate change is vital. And they can adopt policies that save money, demonstrate they are good for everybody and help change national policies.

"We don’t have any time to lose," he said. "It’s absolutely vital that we have far more aggressive and honest leadership on the federal level, because for the long term, there is no more important issue for the United States and the international community to be addressing right now."

***

Anderson said he wasn't impressed with the rest of Obama's speech or his presidency. He was especially irked by his talk about the kind of country everyone wants, where everybody plays by the same set of rules.

"We have a two-tiered system of justice under this president and his predecessor that is unprecedented," he said.

Obama, Anderson said, has raised more money from Wall Street than any other candidate in history and hasn't prosecuted a single person for the financial fraud that helped lead to the economic meltdown, from which "these criminals" still benefit.

"That’s a very good return on investment for these Wall Street bankers," he said.

On jobs, Obama's speech and job performance have been pathetic, Anderson said. Getting done everything he says he wants to do wouldn’t come close to meeting the needs of the nation's working people.

"How does he, with a straight face, talk about getting jobs back to the U.S. without even mentioning free trade agreements and the need to significantly renegotiate those agreements to put them in better balance in terms of worker rights and environmental protections?" he asked.

The answers don’t even have to be creative, Anderson said. Obama can hearken back to Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Civilian Conservation Corps and Works Progress Administration programs. He could put people to work rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure – bringing every one of its buildings over 30 years old up to LEED certified standards, for example.

"He’d be hiring hundreds of thousands of people, putting them to work, reducing energy usage and ending up with a far improved federal infrastructure," he said.

As president, Obama should make the case to the American people the way FDR did on Social Security.

"FDR went out and fought for Social Security because it was the right thing to do," he said. "He didn’t throw it out there and let Congress fight over the little pieces and end up with this horrific compromise."

***

Real leadership, Anderson told Grist, is bringing the American people along to a vision of what is right. It’s not following the polls. "It’s about standing up for what is right and making your case for it and getting the job done."

And that is something Obama has utterly failed to do, he said. "He ran a great campaign. He was in a wonderful position with the support of this country for real change. And he has absolutely blown it."

Anderson's recommended course of action is for the American people to stand up and say they won't take it any more. Regardless of their political affiliations, citizens should be join together and insist on certain fundamentals.

"None of those will be met by either the Republican or the Democratic party because they helped create the system, and they thrive from the corruption in the system," he said.

Obama, for example, didn’t just wake up one day and decide it would be a great public policy decision to veto the EPA’s efforts to reduce ozone emissions, Anderson said.

"There’s only one reason he did that, and it’s the corrupting interests of those polluting industries," he said. "It’s the same thing with climate change. We’re never going to see the kinds of fundamental changes that need to be made to reverse the tide toward catastrophic climate disruption unless we change our system. And to do that we need to get beyond this Republican and Democratic duopoly."

Anderson's prescription starts with the grassroots in 2012.

"The best thing we can do is essentially occupy the elections," he said.

***

Hanscom is the former editor of the award-winning High County News and Baltimore-based city mag Urbanite. Anderson, he wrote, is no stranger to him or Grist.

"When we last spoke with Rocky Anderson," the interview's introduction begins, "he was kicking some serious butt for the planet from his position as the supergreen mayor of Salt Lake City, Utah. Anderson, an unflinching champion of issues ranging from climate action to gay marriage, quit politics in 2008 after two terms in office."

Anderson's presidential bid is backed by a tiny, mostly volunteer staff, Hanscom reported, noting that his Facebook followers reportedly came up with the Justice Party name. Anderson said the campaign, which has upgraded the voterocky.org website and has not focused on fundraising as yet. He estimated the campaign has received $10,000 to $12,000 so far.

"But Rocky is fierce and determined," Hanscom wrote. "And he’s pissed about what short shrift American workers and the environment keep getting while the political elite and Wall Street fat cats get ever fatter. Given the outrage we’ve seen in the Occupy movement in recent months, his message is bound to strike a chord."

Steven Higgs edits the Bloomington Alternative. He can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .