Jim Geraghty on Warren last night:
David A. Graham writes,
“[Warren] seemed to be focusing on emotion.” Yeah, no kidding. Every
presidential candidate prefers to focus on emotion. Obama talked about “hope”
and “yes we can,” Trump vented his spleen and offered a vision of an America
that was “great again.” Every candidate wants to focus on emotion because it’s easier than getting the math to add up. You would
think the electorate would learn after getting so many consecutive cycles of
believing in the next great inspiring hope and then being disappointed by the
results.
Emotion is easy. Everybody’s got a sad anecdote about losing
someone they loved, or knowing someone who faced an unfair, undeserved
hardship. Everybody’s got some inspiring anecdote about someone who fought
through adversity and is now living the American dream. Everybody’s heard about
some kind of injustice that is technically legal but morally wrong, and that
gets an audience’s blood boiling.
You know what kind of people want you to focus on emotion?
Salesmen, con artists, cult leaders, and demagogues. Emotion empowered Bernie
Madoff; math caught him.
You want to know why you have problems, America? Because you
don’t like doing the math. Your checkbook doesn’t add up, you didn’t read the
fine print, you didn’t realize how bad the interest rate on your credit card
was, you didn’t think your adjustable rate mortgage would adjust so soon, and
you can’t believe you agreed to buy that timeshare.
You know why you get lured into bad ideas?
Because people play on your emotions. The people in the commercials using that
product look so happy. They flatter you and flirt to win you over and get you
to let down your guard. They boast about how great their life is to make you
envious and insecure. Human beings shop excessively, or eat too much, or drink
too much, or take drugs because
of how it makes them feel.
The higher the stakes of the decision, the more you ought to
make sure your emotions aren’t clouding your judgment and blinding you to facts
that will cause you problems down the road. Yes, it’s reassuring to hear ‘if
you like your plan, you can keep your plan.” But it turns out that if you make
a ton of changes to what kinds of health insurance plans are legal, some people
will not be able to keep their plan or keep their doctor. Yes, it feels good to
hear that the problem of illegal immigration will be solved by a “big beautiful
wall” that will be paid for by Mexico. It turns out that Mexico is not willing
to pay for a border wall — and that the president will have to keep insisting
that Mexico is indeed technically paying for it through a new trade deal that
is still not enacted by Congress.
This doesn’t mean we have to be Vulcans, but to quote a guy you may have
heard of, “facts don’t care about your feelings.”
