America is Missing an Important Point about Partisanship
Regardless of Trump’s recent 34-count guilty verdict in a New York courtroom Americans would be in a better position to cast an informed vote on November 5 if they appreciated that even before there was political partisanship there was cognitive partisanship.
In America today there are two distinctly different ways of seeing the world and reacting to it. Each of the two groups has their own beliefs, language routines and membership codes. The former lives in a rule-based system based on resurrecting their perceived past and is inclined to first play defense. Their focus is on grievances. The latter is more open-minded, living more in the current moment and of course is concerned with self but also values the ideals of democracy. As C.P. Snow said in his 1959 Rede Lecture at Cambridge University, these are two different cultures.
When these two cultures work together they can create something new and better than what currently exists. However, since 1959 many things in America have aggravated this divide: political assassinations, Watergate, the Vietnam War, 9–11, military forays into Iraq and Afghanistan, racial prejudices, economic disparities and the advent of social media. Recently, Donald J. Trump has cleaved this duality into what seems like two different galaxies. Today in America we call this divide “Culture Wars.” A growing anger feeds this divide and, as always, festering anger clouds wisdom.
When considering these two cultures the first thing to acknowledge is objectivity is a false idol. Each person constructs their own reality. Eminent neuroscientists such as Antonio Damasio and Lisa Feldman Barrett describe how people are ceaselessly transforming the world into their world. Even Albert Einstein, who is known in popular culture as a renowned scientist, said his ideas about the workings of the universe came to him “through the intuition of his body.”
The brain’s main function is prediction. And when the brain is predicting it isn’t remembering past experience as they originally were experienced. It is associating recollections based on their emotional valence and their symbolic meaning. Emotion and symbolism act as ancient “black holes” that capture perception and feeling. And there is a bias in this operation that can be set relatively early in a person’s life regarding such things as need for succorance, baseline levels of agitation and the rhythm of recurrencies.
Cognitive Partisanship
Every person has patterned tendencies, but Donald J. Trump is an extreme case of what can be called “cognitive partisanship,” probably impressed early on by his father and later by Roy Cohn to do everything Donald can do never to be a loser — if necessary, to cheat, lie, intimidate — and always seek center stage. These tendencies are so automatic and ever-present they seem to be bred in Trump’s bone.
Add to this, Trump is extremely visually-dominant. For example, if there is an immigration problem on the US Southern border, no problem: build a wall (something that can be seen and touched). Likewise, if Trump doesn’t want to hear courtroom testimony from Stormy Daniels or Michael Cohen, Trump closes his eyes. If he can’t see it, it doesn’t exist. Some media mistakenly label this eyes-closed behavior as a show of uninterest or boredom. Even Trump’s hatred of migrants and immigrants — as well as his blaming them for what he calls their illegal voting for Biden during the last election — can at least be partly attributed to them looking unkept or unsavory to him. Perhaps relatedly, Trump likes only to be personally associated with women he considers good-looking. Hence his retort against charges of sexual abuse brought by E. Jean Carroll was not his outright innocence, but “she’s not my type.”
Why this matters is Trump’s forte is not conceptual thinking which is a critical prerequisite for a US president, as most any issue the president must address is complex, has multiple variables and can have several unintended consequences.
Trump has created a context of extreme political partisanship mainly because he is so cognitively partisan. Trump is literal and is emotionally-needy. He also surrounds himself only with people who say “yes” to him. He is not open-minded, nor empathetic. Trump’s concern is only Trump. He might be suited to be president and CEO of Trump, Inc., but not president of America. An American president is not just a person, he (or she) is the embodiment of a nation, its history and its ethic. A president must be strong, but also strategic in using US forces. Personal revenge should not be president’s main motivation. Trump holds grudges.
Musts
Trump cannot — it’s not in his capacity — to do anything but proclaim “Stop the Steal” after losing his 2020 bid to remain in office. The same is true for him overestimating his audience at his 2016 inaugural. These behaviors are not a WANT, they are a MUST to Trump. He must be Number One, he must be attended to and he must “look” good — king of the. hill, top of the heap.
Another curious attribute of Donald Trump is he seems to be most activated by one emotion: anger. When not angry he seems somewhat listless or at least highly routinized. Anger resuscitates him. The same is true for many of his MAGA supporters. For the most part, he and his tribe are pessimists, always assuming danger lurks and must be pounced on before danger actually materializes. In that sense, Trump reminds one of a Komodo dragon, whose repertoire is severely limited to patrolling what he presumes is his territory, looking for anything that is possibly a threat, and that includes things that are simply unfamiliar. Trump is always ready to “go for the kill,” no questions asked. His insults are part of his ammunitions.
Facts and Information are Different from Beliefs
Trump and many of his MAGA supporters are unwilling to accept challenges to their beliefs — certain evident truths entirely falling on deaf ears. But setting aside Republican politicians who are simply looking to garner favor with “The Donald” for their own selfish interests, MAGA extremists have been mistakenly labeled by the press as “unwilling” to accept anything negative about their leader. It’s not they are unwilling, implying it is a conscious choice. Operating on what is as instantaneous as instinct, they can’t hear it. Distrust as no half-life and under such circumstances “The Other” is transformed into an “It.” There is no space for conversation. Conversation implies improvisation and learning; in other words, going beyond what you think you already know.
Rationality is puny in the face of belief, especially when a person feels under threat. Cognitive science has taught us even under normal circumstances the power of confirmation bias, whereby the mind is inclined towards input that confirms what a person already believes.
What’s Next?
Ironically, arguing with Trump and his extreme MAGA supporters based on the facts of the matter only makes them more committed to their position. Identities, not just political issues, are at stake here.
Before Americans next enter the voting booth, the task is not to persuade that Trump isn’t right for America. The task is to evoke the bonds of identification in the service of people’s self-expansion.
All people possess a story about themselves, involving aspects of their lives that are latent and not yet fully constituted. During the now scheduled presidential debates for June and September, Biden, instead of arguing with Trump over policy positions, could show he understands the stories that people have about themselves. Then just maybe regard people have for Biden could grow; particularly the undecided and the non-extreme MAGA suppoters. This would require Biden to relate to those people in terms of the paradoxes, essential dilemmas, core narratives and self-images that are the most important aspects of their lives.
The person who will soon find himself occupying the Oval Office is the one who better entrains the nature of mind — and therefore listens to the non-linear emotional-logic of the subjective experience of the US electorate.
Facts or information are a different knowledge base when compared with beliefs.
