ok, everyone has theories as to why the democrats lost badly tuesday night (although truth be told the democrats didn’t lose THAT badly, as they still control the senate and the executive branches).
there are lots of reasons.
- the economy still sucks (even though it started sucking during bush and republican rule, and was harmed by republican policies and de-regulation).
- the republicans had access to hundreds of millions of dollars that came from anonymous donors
- some people are racist and still hate that we have an african-american president and etc.
but here’s my theory… emotions. more often than not the emotional party wins, the emotional movement gains power, and the emotional candidate wins. for example: in 2008 the democrats were VERY emotional, and barack obama always seemed quite passionate about his beliefs and agenda.
let’s go back to 1980.
1980 carter vs. reagan. reagan won, he was more emotional.
1984 reagan vs. mondale. reagan won, he was more emotional.
1988 bush sr. vs. dukakis. hard to tell, as they were both weird robots.
1992 bush sr. vs. clinton. clinton won, he was more emotional.
1996 clinton vs. dole. clinton won, he was more emotional.
2000 bush jr vs gore. bush won, he was more emotional.
2004 bush jr vs kerry. bush won, he was more emotional.
2008 obama vs. mccain. obama won, he was more emotional (and the republicans had trashed the country).
generally the more emotional candidate/party/movement wins. 2010? obama seems like a robot. harry reid has the emotional charisma of an old towel. and nancy pelosi seems like a stylish wax figure. and those are the public faces of the democrats. the tea party and the republicans might be ill-informed and incompetent and in the pocket of big business, but they are emotional. they have glenn beck and rush limbaugh and sarah palin, all of whom are insane and weird, but they’re emotional. the tea partiers say ‘we are mad!’ obama says ‘i understand that people are upset’. in 2008 obama said, ‘i’m outraged! we can do better!’ and mccain said, ‘well, i understand that people might be upset right now.’
no one wins by saying, ‘oh, i’ve heard that some of you might be upset. i understand how that might be valid. discuss.’ ideally reason and logic should triumph over emotion and vitriol, but unfortunately that’s not how things work. 9 times out of 10 in american politics the emotional candidate/party/movement will win. again, the democrats in 2010 were saying, ‘let’s not be emotional, let’s look at things rationally and in perspective.’ and the republicans were saying, ‘aargh! anger! destroy! argh!’ americans seem to prefer ‘argh! anger! blurgh! argh!’ to ‘perhaps we should have a reasonable debate about the issues and put them into an historical context?’ i mean, who sells more records: angry rappers or thoughtful rappers? which movies make more money: movies where angry people blow up other angry people, or movies where the issues are debated thoughtfully? which has better ratings: fox news or c-span? for better or worse: humans are emotional and politics are emotional and 9 times out of 10 people will vote for the more emotional candidate (there’s always the exception, like harry reid).
so, why did the democrats lose? my theory: they said ‘we understand that people are upset’, whereas the republicans said ‘we’re upset!’ and in 2008 the democrats won by saying ‘we’re upset!’ and the republicans said ‘we understand that people might be upset’. to quote Jonathan Alter: “Logic can convince but only emotion can motivate.”
moby