Politics and Psychology: How Can Smart People Be So Stupid?

By LaToya Prater

 

For those who know me, it may be shocking to see me write something even remotely connected to politics. But with all the braying about the Democratic race and the hoorah of the upcoming election, I wanted to get some things straight.

 Firs of all, I would like to make it clear that the most support I’ve shown anyone over the past 10 years was in the form of a letter to John McDonald, founder and president of Boulevard Brewing Company, lauding his beer (unfiltered wheat in particular) and unwavering service to the Kansas City drinking community.

 McDonald for President!

 This is not really an article about politics, but about human behavior.

 That said, there’s one more thing we might as well get right on the table for the masses in this town: I voted for Bush in the last election.

Who I will vote for in this election remains to be seen. I don’t particularly want a Republican, and I don’t particularly want a Democrat. I want someone who will do their best to run this country, and if kicking the crap out of terrorists and general threats to the well-being of the free world is part of the job, then I want the person that will do just that. However, if there’s stuff going on in another country that really and truly is none of our business, I want the guy that will stay out of it and take care of the issues that matter right here at home first.

 It’s a tall order.

 However, if I see one more liberal hippie freak standing on the corner of 50-something and Ward Parkway with a “WAR = BAD” sign or other completely unfounded, unresearched and inarticulate protest, I’m going to throw my empty Boulevard Wheat bottle at their head as I drive by.

 You can’t tell me that an educated American can actually think it is as simple as “we shouldn’t fight. Fighting’s bad! People get killed and I’m a vegan!” The war in Iraq, along with countless others, have such complicated histories and thorny implications that “to fight or not to fight” is NOT the question. If you think it’s that simple, clearly you are that simple.

 By now, the impassioned Democrats and liberals reading this are inflamed. That’s right, I’m an asshole. But I didn’t start out that way. It took years of people screaming their political opinions at me and everyone else within earshot. Yet these very same people become positively irate if someone else dares to voice THEIR opinion, particularly if it differs.

 I will make my point now: The issue in an election is not actual issues or even the actual facts. It is perception, judgement and the action based thereon. People can only collect data, process it, add a dash of analytical thinking based on their own feelings, opinions and beliefs, and then make a choice.

 And that’s the ideal. Too many Americans are still picking candidates based on criteria like “he’s cute!”

 Still, an educated guess is the most any of us can do, and some of us like to be a lot more vocal about it than others. Although I laugh at the completely one-sided political manifesto emails I get now and then from some of my more…opinionated… acquaintances, so what, it’s a free country. I don’t respond, I just accept it as their opinion and daintily hit “DELETE.”

 By that logic, I can send one out too, right?

 To prove my point, I did just that. I sent an op-ed (i.e., rant) written by Christopher Hitchens, journalist and author of A Long Short War: The Postponed Liberation of Iraq.

 The piece was entitled “All Against Bush: Whom Should the Democrats Nominate?” But it doesn’t matter a gnat’s ass to me who Hitchens personally supports or doesn’t support.

(If you want to read it, go here: http://slate.msn.com/id/2095158/)

 What I liked is that he was thinking through his options and applying his beliefs, opinions and experience to his choices. So I sent an email to people I knew, from liberal Democrats to ultra-conservative Republicans.

 Yikes. My inbox was full the next day, and it wasn’t pretty.

 As usual (and I’m really not trying to pick on them) it was the liberal Ds that ranted and raved the most, even though there were some very intelligent points made that I happen to agree with.

 But what struck me is they wrote to me as if I had written the damn piece myself. Then they proceeded to “educate” me on my apparent complete ignorance and “wrong” opinion (even though I have never once said what I personally think of any of it).

 For example:

 

“Well, since Hitchens wants to play ‘What If?’ I'll indulge him. What if the Bush I administration hadn't told Saddam that they wouldn't take sides if Saddam invaded Kuwait? You do know that, right? Saddam asked us before he went in! We basically gave him a green light and then nailed him after the fact.”

 The “you do know that” was directed at me. Being such a close personal friend and confidant of Hitchens, I’ll pass that information along right away. Really. We had no idea!

 And here’s a nice one:

 

“Oh, man, LaToya.  Don't you realize what the Bush strategy is going to be?

Just you watch.  I'll bet you a bottle of don julio on it. Their strategy will be to paint the other guy as a ‘bad person’ perhaps even an ‘evil doer.’  Bush can't win on the issues, and his unfathomably idiotic interview with Tim Russert showed he doesn't even comprehend them. To win, the Bush campaign has to avoid the issues like the abominable plague which they are. 

 

And to assume the rationale for picking a candidate depends on character is simply to co-op the predetermined positions developed by fundie-republican conservative bastards that were used to oust Clinton.  Thus I don't think a person needs to be a republican conservative bastard in order to ‘think.’ Although Americans often can be a flock of morons, I don't think the public is going to be as obtuse this time around.”

 “Oh man, LaToya”!? What is that all about? Oh forget it. The ruse is up. I’m caught! I’m clearly a prestigious political commentator in disguise. My nom de plume is Chris Hitchens.

 Although I do like “fundie republican conservative bastards.” I don’t mean I like the phrase. I mean I LIKE fundie republican conservative bastards.

 But that’s just me.

 Oh, and Harry. In all fairness, I’ve published the clearly unbiased remarks of the liberal Ds, so it’s only fair to publish Harry Flashman’s rebuttal. God bless him, I really do think I saved the best for last here.

 

“Nice use of the word ‘obtuse’ to validate your elitist liberal sensibilities.  Well, I've got some fucking news for you -- the basic Americano schmoe isn't obtuse.  He's a purblind ignoramus.  How else does one explain eight years of the Clinton Junta?

 

Bush is no worse than any meretricious Lib politician -- he has just staked his presidency on KILLING those who would do us harm.  Clinton would just lean back, grab a quick BJ and try to bribe them with more Chinese nuclear secrets.   Kerry would.... I dunno, go get his hair done and tell two different stories to his stylist.

 

‘I voted for this war, er, no, wait, I voted for this war, but I’ve opposed it every second since then.  Have you seen my medals?  You don't happen to be an heir to a vast industrialist fortune, do you?  Oh, and just a little off the top, please.’

 Maybe it’s because the Zoloft has mellowed me, or because my idea of a good dinner is a beer (appetizer course), a martini (main course) and a bottle of wine for dessert, but I just don’t get why people have to get so damn crazy about politics.

 - www.KCDrinker.com - 2004 ©

LaToya "GfV" Prater is a free-lance drinker and writer. A native of New Jersey, she got hammered in Hoboken a few years back and woke up in Kansas City tied to the passenger seat of a '77 El Dorado with Ed Asner wearing nothing but the hand puppet Lambchop. Now a resident of KC, Mo., Prater indulges her overwhelming addiction to editing other people’s copy to earn a paycheck and spends the rest of her time focusing on her three dearest passions: Alcohol, writing fiction, and acting (Japanese balloon fetish porn).