Saint George Wasn't Pro-Damsel; He Was Anti-Dragon

I found a dentist that cured me from a life-long phobia about dentistry.  He did so by taking my fear seriously.  He didn’t tell me I was foolish or inform me of the benefits of dentistry, things I already knew.  He started by accepting my fear as real. 

When I recently read an article from Pew Research about the latest research on the American electorate I thought about fear, how it incapacitates, and how it must be faced.  Let me set the stage with a few facts about voters.   

            We know that the electorate of both parties are more dissatisfied with their Presidential choices than they have been in over twenty years.  That is one reason even the savviest political experts in this cycle are confounded with their predictions, projections and pronouncements.  They are dealing with people who are trapped in frustration, fear and anger. We all know that a trapped animal is dangerous; they are unpredictable, guided by hormones instead of reason.  Welcome to the campaign of 2016!   

            A minority of the voters are Republican.  Only 23% of voters identify themselves as Republican and that is down 6% from 2004.  Democrats make up 32% of the voters and 39% identify as Independents.  Of those Independents 17% lean Democratic and 16% lean Republican.  It is these “leaners” that people who want to win elections ought to be studying and this is what research shows us:

Leaners don’t lean because they like the party they tend toward, they do so because they can’t stand the party they lean away from.

 Saint George wasn’t pro-damsel; he was anti-dragon. 

            The intensity of this leaning away from one party is the part of the independent vote that is key to victory at the ballot box.  People who lean away from party “x” do so because they believe that party’s “x’s” policies are dangerously bad for the country.  The enormity of that thought is ignored at a politician’s peril.  If you don’t like what party “y” is offering, but actually fear what “x” stands for, you are going to vote “y.”  Count on it.  In an election where nobody likes the candidates, people are going to make up their mind based on their fears and all the logic in the world won’t break through that barrier.

            It is also important to know that leaners do NOT look with favor on mainstream members of their party of choice.  Republican leaners overwhelmingly (52%) cite party leadership as the seat of their dissatisfaction with difference on important issues second at (40%).  Democratic leaners are approximately evenly divided between these two issues (28% and 33% respectively). 

            Partisan rancor has increased among both parties, and by a great deal, in a relatively short amount of time.  In 1994, at the end of the George H. W. Bush administration, only 21% of Republicans and 17% of Democrats had “highly negative” views towards the other party.  Contrast that with the 58% of Republicans and 51% of Democrats that hold a highly negative view now.  Far from being a mystery, this fact meshes perfectly well with the “leans away from danger” reflex.  This country has been through hard times these past two decades.  We have been attacked on our own soil.  We have been through an economic collapse that rivals the Great Depression.  We have sent our children to war for people who hate us.  All of this is unsettling and none of this is helped by people who assign our distress to superficial and politically convenient causes.

            If you want to win an election, know why people are voting.  It has been a hard week to keep the faith.