THE POLITICAL BRAIN – NEXT TIME

 The view of democracy that naturally flows from the dispassionate view of the mind is of a marketplace of
ideas. Parties and politicians who want to convince others of their point of view lay out the data, make their
best case, and le ave it to the electorate to we igh the arguments and exercise their capacity to re ason. To the
Western ear, and particularly to the American ear, this view of mind and politics seems eminently
“reasonable.” But this view of mind and brain couldn’t be further from the truth. In politics, when reason and
emotion collide , e motion invariably wins. Although the marketplace of ideas is a great place to shop for
policies, the marketplace that matters most in American politics is the marketplace of emotions. Republicans
have a keen eye for markets, and they have a near-monopoly in the marketplace of emotions. They have kept
government off our backs, torn down that wall, saved the flag, left no child behind, protected life, kept our
marriages sacred, restored integrity to the Oval Office, spread democracy to the Middle East, and fought an
unrelenting war on terror. The Democrats, in contrast, have continued to place their stock in the marketplace
of ideas. And in so doing, they have been trading in the wrong futures. I have it on good authority (i.e., off the
re cord) that leading conservatives have chortled with joy (usually accompanied by astonishment) as they
watched their Democratic counterparts campaign by reciting the irbe st facts and figures, as if the y we re
trying to prevail in a high school debate tournament. They must have heaved a huge sigh of relief (but not on
the air) when Al Gore ran for president pretending that he had not co-presided over one of the most
prosperous periods in modern American history.

 Westen, Drew (2008). The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation (pp. 35 -36).
PublicAffairs. Kindle Edition.