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Stop making sense

If you want power, be emotional, not rational

Drew Westen

Wednesday, 11th July 2007

Drew Westen’s book on the political brain is the talk of Washington. Here, he explains why the path to electoral victory is not governed by reason

In the last 40 years, only one Democrat has been elected and re-elected to the American presidency: Bill Clinton. And during the same period, only one Republican has failed to win re-election: George H.W. Bush. These are astounding facts, given that during those same years, whenever registered Democrats and Republicans were not in roughly equal numbers in the United States, Democrats were in the majority, as they are today.

Democratic voters are confused and frustrated. What’s the matter with Kansas, they ask? Why do blue-collar workers consistently vote for wealthy Republicans who staunchly oppose increasing the minimum wage while giving themselves a $70 billion tax cut?

Because Democrats are starting from the wrong vision of mind and brain: a dispassionate vision, which suggests that if you just marshall the right facts and figures, policies and position statements, voters will compare the candidates on ‘the issues’ and choose the one who maximises their rational self-interest. The problem is that that’s not how the mind and brain work at all.

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Thank goodness we can have a run on the pound when we need one

Martin Vander Weyer

Martin Vander Weyer looks ahead to next week’s Pre-Budget Report and reflects on George Osborne’s contentious remarks about the devaluation of sterling. It looks like Gordon Brown is getting away with his borrowing binge — leaving the Tories isolated

I loved Oliver Stone’s Bush film — and I know why the critics hated it

Rod Liddle

The movie W. did not provide the crude anti-Bush agitprop that the reviewers craved, says Rod Liddle. This was precisely its strength: we need to get inside the minds even of those we most deplore

The great Tory tax and spend battle: seconds out...

Fraser Nelson and Daniel Finkelstein

In the wake of Cameron’s decision to drop his pledge to match Labour spending, Fraser Nelson and Daniel Fin kelstein of the Times trade rhetorical blows over the issue that is gripping and troubling the Conservative party as it adjusts to the transformed economic context

Where is our inspiration when we most need it?

Bryan Forbes

Bryan Forbes remembers listening to Churchill as a 14-year-old evacuee and now looks with envy at Obama’s capacity to galvanise hope. Where are his UK counterparts?

For a bit of perspective, try thinking Jurassic

Christopher Lloyd

The first takeaways originated about 150 million years ago, says Christopher Lloyd; global travel is pretty ancient, too. And as for democracy...

My real focus group scorned climate change

James Delingpole

James Delingpole asks second world war re-enactors what they think of the green agenda: the answer is very different to the consensus around the pine tables of metropolitan London

And Another Thing

Paul Johnson

A leisure class can accommodate the workaholics of wisdom

And Another Thing

Paul Johnson

Eye-stopping glimpses of an exotic and forbidden world

Et tu, Scott? Bush’s press aide turns on his boss

James Forsyth

James Forsyth talks to Scott McClellan, former press secretary to the President, about his new book attacking the Bush administration, its methods and its deceits

Is the Catholic Church sliding towards civil war?

Damian Thompson

Damian Thompson on the bitter feud between the new young defenders of the recently reinstated Latin Mass, and Britain’s ‘magic circle’ of liberal bishops