Mental Moment-Voting with Your Emotions

I am going to put this out there: I am not a republican and don’t won’t republican but I did think this week’s debate was interesting. I thought the president lacked a little enthusiasm and that Romney did a good job. Did this persuade me to vote republican? Nope! Will it sway other voters? Probably! Does this mean that people are voting based on fact or emotion? I would say the latter.

Obama

I am a democrat. Given that I would say that Obama has done a decent job. I am certainly not thrilled with all that he’s done and not done but he did have a lot to contend with when he became president. Could he have done better? Sure! He could have also done worse. I sincerely feel that he’s been (pretty) honest and worked towards making things better.

I feel that I am able to see the good and the bad and still stand strong in my convictions about being a democrat and voting as a democrat.

Republicans

As someone who works in the field of psychology I also understand why people vote republican. Although family values and structures have changed the republicans take a firm stand in upholding family values and structures as they used to be (many years ago). The important agenda items are heterosexual marriage, anti-abortion, education, guns and most everything else that is Chevrolet and Apple Pie. Culturally people are afraid to move away from the (good old boys) basis principles that ‘kept this country together’ for many decades and centuries. I get it! It’s scary to think outside what you know and understand and what your family has known and understood to be fair, right and honest. I also think the republicans at some level firming believe that if they stand strong in their values that they can ‘keep things together’.

The world evolves

Even though I get why republicans are republicans the world has evolved into more than republican values. These values don’t work for all of us. I understand that it’s hard for republicans to ‘get that’ but by trying to dang hard to ‘keep things together’ they are eroding the very thing they are trying they are trying to keep together by excluding people of their right to marry, their right to get an abortion and more strict gun laws.

Can you imagine being 15, having grown up in foster care, feeling as though no one cares about you, finding someone who you think finally does care about you, having sex with this person, getting pregnant and having to live with the repercussions because you can’t get an abortion? There are numerous things wrong with this scenario.

Can you imagine being a 48 year old lesbian, whose been in a long term relationship, wanting to marry your partner, but unable to because something that used to be the product of the church is now ruled by the government?

Whether we want to recognize it or not these two scenarios have always existed. They may have existed to a lesser degree and more quietly but they’ve always existed. In today’s society they are not a lesser degree and they are not quite and continuing to pretend they don’t exist doesn’t mean they don’t.

Voting with your emotions

I don’t really care if you are a republican or democrat. We live in a democracy and I believe that people have the right to believe what they believe even if I feel it takes away a person’s right to be who they are. What I do care about is that people will be swayed by Romney’s gregariousness in this past debate and make an emotional decision to ‘switch sides’. In my mind politics is not emotional (although Michelle Obama did give a darn good speech at the DNC).

Everyday we allow emotions to sway us to do things; things that don’t resonate with us and things we regret. We eat when we are not hungry to deal with life’s stress. We practice more hours than we should and burnout because we think we are not good enough. We stop writing our novel for fear of rejection. We allow our mind to attack us at the most inappropriate moments. We don’t allow ourselves to get the things we really want.

Intrinsically we need to trust the facts and trust our instincts. All of the extrinsic feedback is leaving us with doubt, fear, anxiety, etc. We have intrinsic control but we do not have extrinsic control.

With today’s insight into emotional politics,

Dr. Michelle

Photo credit: trollable.com