Politics: An American Telenovela

                

Ugh, why do politics make me feel gross? Why must they be so uncomfortable? Growing up I had little to no interest in learning political views of others. Not because I didn't view other people's opinions as important but because those individuals who seemed well versed in politics always came across as dry, boring know it all’s with little to no personality. I guess I didn’t realize how much emotion and human fallacy was woven into the GAME of politics, honestly, it's like watching a telenovela at times.

Political Chess 

Watching grown adults, who on paper are very well educated, go on national television and or social media and regurgitate false, unresearched, disproven, bias information is WILD! However, this Phenomenon is unfortunately NOT new and occurs on almost every level of political discourse.

Although on some level it can all be extremely entertaining and meme worthy, its mainly just disheartening and confusing. Watching large numbers of people blindly or unknowingly go along with a groupthink mentality and pair it with negative bias, all the while shouting it to the world as fact is unnerving to say the least.

The term “groupthink” was coined by social psychologist Irving Janis in the 1970’s, he borrower the phrase from the book “1984”1. The term refers to a circumstance in where a cohesive group of people prioritizes like-mindedness over critical thinking, leading to decisions or opinions that overlook more qualified and overall better possibilities.

The emotional attraction to a “groupthink” setting lies within its capabilities to create the feeling of camaraderie and a sense of belonging that most of us yearn for. When we as humans feel truly included in a group or society, we are willing to invest whole heartedly in the decisions and identity of that group/society. Therein lies the problem, making an idea or a group your entire personality historically rarely leads to positive outcomes. Some of the deadliest historical moments came from people following the same ideal or person unwaveringly and to their detriment. i.e. The Holocaust lead by Adolf Hitler, The People's Temple cult lead by Jim Jones just to name a couple.

                                   

                                    

Not being able to formulate you own opinion and or making the decision not to speak up on information that may be incorrect, does not make you a reliable source and in my opinion makes it hard to take that person seriously. It also seems a little unpatriotic, it feels like a quite way of getting rid of freedom of speech one of our corner stone civil liberties. Watching the news clip from MSNBC2 it's hard not to point out what seems like a joint effort to ignore contradictory points. At one point during the clip a woman in the MAGA group states That “everyone is excited about her (V.P Kamala Harris) and that’s what scares me” as her fellow interviewees nodded in agreement, and then in the same group when asked about the validity of the election should the outcome be Harris wining one young women said “NO, no one respects her (V.P Kamala Harris)”. My question is, how can both things be true? How can NO One respect VP Kamala Harris and yet EVERYONE be excited about her?

None of the other interviewees attempted to correct or alter either one of the statements made, quite the contrary, they all nodded in agreement. Which would lead you to believe that they all feel the same exact way, which is improbable. How can two people think the exact same way? Per an article published on PsychMechanics.com 4 on July 13, 2024, no two people have the same exact set of beliefs. There are too many other variables in life, individuals experience this world is very different ways.

I understand that in this age of mass technology, the ease of just absorbing the information that is spoon fed to you. This practice seems to have drastically changed the pollical landscape in the last decade. Large numbers of people don’t seem to care to do their own research. Its far easier to take what you see and hear for face value no matter how improbable, than to hold both/all candidates equally accountable for their action and or inactions. In the MSNBC video one interviewee in the “swing vote” group mentioned that she is worried about Trumps “convictions, integrity and moral character” yet she was on the fence when it came to VP Harris because she needed “more information” because she “didn’t know enough about her (VP Harris)

This is one of the parts that made me feel gross, since when was questioning a person’s “moral character” just a passing thought? When as a society did, we decide that a person’s lack of or questionable integrity, was something we could get over if we were told the things that we wanted to hear?

Watching the group of “swing “voters I felt a sense of disillusion, they all seemed to be saying the same thing, “yeah he may not be a good person but and technically he's a felon but….” they didn’t feel like swing voters.

Taking a look at Wisconsin’s demographics where the 80% of 3 its 5.8 million plus residence are white, I could see why even those who say they are unsure don’t really feel like it. That’s NOT to say that all people of one race think the same but that is to say that they would likely have a greater sense of community and belonging within that state amongst people that look like them. So thinking outside the box may not come 1st hand.

My conclusion?  Well, I conclude that maybe as a people (Americans) we need to re-evaluate what we are willing to give up morally, socially and economically for the sake of belonging or not rocking the boat. Is it worth where our society is headed? As a human race we only move forward when we are allowed to thrive as Indvidual's alongside our collective societies and groups. We need to do better as a whole. 

 

Links to cited work:

1.  https://neuroleadership.com/your-brain-at-work/groupthink-history-psychology

2. https://youtu.be/erjhZxwf7cc

3. https://www.neilsberg.com/insights/wisconsin-population-by-race/

4. https://www.psychmechanics.com/are-we-all-the-same/