A Consumer's Guide to Politics. The Liberal Impulse Buyer Verses The Conservative Employer
Throughout the 2016 presidential election we’ve been told one side can be summed up as a “basket of deplorables.” The other's candidate “should be in jail.” The outcome of the election has led to division and turmoil within the country. Let's take a dive into what I believe can be summed up as the mentality behind a large portion of both party bases. Let’s start with the Democratic Party.
Democratic Party: Impulse buyer mentality
The base of the Democratic Party looks at the office of president and political seats as though they are a product. The electoral base would then be considered the impulse buyer. This leads to a base that purchases what is being offered, but leaves them susceptible to what is being “sold” to them by the retailer. In order to make a case for this opinion we must first identify traits of an Impulse Buyer.
First, impulse buyers are more social, status-conscious, and image-concerned. The impulse buyer may therefore buy as a way to look good in the eyes of others.
Second, impulse buyers tend to experience more anxiety and difficulty controlling their emotions, which may make it harder to resist emotional urges and therefore impulsively spend money.
Last, impulse buyers are less likely to consider the consequences of their spending; they just want to have it.
The DNC recognizes its base as this, and itself as the manufacturer or company. Its marketing campaign targets the impulse buyer’s mentality and markets its platform accordingly. The individuals that make up this base have little control over the message. The company (DNC) uses majority rules propaganda to deliver its messages, and labels those who don’t agree as something less than those in agreement. The DNC thrives on preying on the emotions of the impulse buyers causing them to “buy in” to the lies they sell as truth. Using components like social change and green energy as ways for the buyer to feel better about themselves. The logic, or cost consequences of Socialized Medicine, for example, don’t matter to the base. They are not likely to consider long term fiscal consequences of their decisions. They focus on the short-term, emotional gain felt by doing what that they were told is the right choice. If we look at the way the Affordable Care Act was presented, we see all too clear what the Democratic Party is trying to do. Step one in marketing an impulse buy is making the purchase seem urgent. The consumer will miss out if they don’t buy now! Remember Nancy Pelosi refusing to listen to the Sunshine Act? Preaching to her base that we “must pass the bill to see what is in it.” What were the details? The consequences? Is it sustainable? There was no time to evaluate those factors! Rather preying on the quick emotional response from an impulse buyer. And they bought it. When the party told its base that Global Warming is the greatest threat to civilization on earth they quickly whipped up some scientists that were willing to falsify weather models. Coined the term “deniers” and told us deniers are dangerous fools. The impulse buyer, bought it.
Again, the actual merchandise on the shelves doesn’t matter to the impulse buyer, as logic or research doesn’t go into the decision making. Fueled by a need for emotional fulfillment, all it takes is a tag line and a second rate salesman. Why is it that the DNC is constantly changing its labels on everything. Global Cooling- Global Warming - Climate change, Abortion – Pro Choice – A Woman’s right to her own body. Whatever tag line tickles your fancy and elevates the self-status or emotional fulfillment, the impulse buyer will accept. This emotion led impulse ``purchasing behavior, leaves the democratic base with little control over what their party actually cares about. The DNC knows all it has to do is put some glitter on it with a sense of urgency tell the base the price is slashed for a limited time and voila, sold.
This has become like a drug to a large portion of the younger democratic voting base. Getting their emotional high on impulse buying from their party. Just as there are shopaholics, I’m sure there are what I’ll call Lib-Aholics. The scariest part of this, is that we’ve seen through this election what happens when the Lib-Aholics fail to get their drug. It takes less to get them to buy. All the DNC has to do now is point the finger and hell breaks loose. In order to get that “better than” feeling the impulse buyer must now buy the negative jargon sold to them by their party leaders. When that isn’t enough the withdrawal symptoms kick in resulting in temper tantrums riots and running away from home.
Republican Party: Employer Mindset
The base of the Republican Party looks at the office of president and political seats as employees of the nation. Conservatives, as a whole, view themselves as the employers of the individuals who hold these positions. As employers this base demands the people applying for the position hold the values that are in line with those of “the company,” not the reverse. Conservatives look at the available candidates to determine who is most qualified for the position through evaluating skillsets of applicants and applying those skillsets to the overall “business” goal. This is evident in the constant challenges within the Republican Party. The left often spins this; calling it chaos and disorganization. Yet, this is the healthiest form of a democratic republic, and is an apt representation of the employer mindset within a business.
The employer mindset is what allows Conservatives to remain just that; conservative. This group is unchanged by the narrative set forth by candidates on either side of the aisle. That’s not to say that as an employer Conservatives will not utilize best judgement based on the available employee pool, as we’ve seen in our most election. But rather, that their judgement is based on what candidate is most closely aligned with the mission of the “company” - i.e. the nation.
This is why we have seen such radical change in representation in Washington. The employer mindset gives a higher level of self-accountability to the voter. It means that when their selections for representation fail them, or when they fail as employers to make a strong enough case through the electoral process, change is essential. As within business, when an plan fails to have the intended impact, self-accountability takes action and again, change is made. But what change? As conservatives, the change is not to ideals, making something important that truly isn’t because it targets emotional appeasement, change comes in the form of their employees, not the business motto. It is in turn up to the employers then to figure out how to have a greater chance of getting the employee that best fits their ideals into employment.
Evidence
In summary results of elections, in terms of appointed officials and the reaction of the voter base in general, has showcased the difference in mentality held by each party.
If we look first at the appointed officials there are factual results that back up this opinion. We’ve seen this through history as conservatives have put into office of the president more people out of the mainstream, in terms of political careers, than democrats. In fact the republican party has put 5 presidents in office with zero political experience including:- Ulysses S Grant R 1868 – William Howard Taft R 1908 – Herbert Hoover R 1928 – Dwight D Eisenhower 1952 – Donald J Trump 2016 , The democratic party, however has put zero.
This, to me, is a direct result of the way of thinking on both sides. Appointing presidents with zero political experience would indicate that the employee who showcased best overall attributes to accomplish the task set forth within the business model was elected through the primary, and then went on to be in the office of the president. Looking at the zero on the democratic side would indicate to me that the DNC is the manufacturer force feeding their product to its consumer, as well as the base impulsively purchasing the product that the manufacturer made most appealing to that group.
It is also evident in the initial reaction of both parties to the results of elections. In terms of the employer mindset (Conservatives) in the wake of elections real changes are made. These are not made within the business motto of what is important, it is however made in how the employer does business going forward. For instance after losing the 2008 election, the employer mentality looked at different action plans to accomplish the business motto. Conservatives went on to ensure they took majority in the house, in 2012 still not seeing the results the employer needed, they made sure to control both the house and the senate through voting. The employer prioritized what was most important and made assessments to lower priority items, in addition to this stronger arguments were made within their party backed by a higher sense of urgency towards a common goal. This action plan led to the election of Donald Trump in 2016. Even though Donald Trump was not the first choice of the RNC.
On the other hand, the impulse buyers, reacted as such. Impulsively purchasing what the Manufacturer was selling. It’s platform was based on Man Made Climate Change, an unproven talking track that utilized falsified weather models in which the DNC sold to its consumers, Free College, a knee jerk reaction to college debt, Socialized Medicine, which has proven to have less efficient health care options as well as be more expensive to working Americans and was proven to be sold on a series of lies, and finally Gender Equality, “Wouldn’t it be great to see the first woman president.” These feel good impulse buys flew of the shelves in this base without little thought to the actual need for these purchases or the eventual consequences of the debt that would have to be endured to make these things a reality. What came next was the emotional reaction to having the shopping mall closed abruptly while at the cash register. When emotional appeasement was not met, emotional out lash ensued. The base of the Democratic Party reacted like a 5 year old who went into a tantrum after not being allowed to suck down a go-gert before dinner. We saw this through riots, individuals burning flags, businesses vandalized, people injured and an overwhelming base looking to stomp their foot down cross their arms and run away from home. No solutions based conversations, because solutions based conversations are not lead by emotion, impulse buys are. Anger was then directed by the manufacturer in every direction but its own, in order to save that trust it has with its consumers.
In Closing, The Republican Party will always be evolving. Not out of disorganization or chaos, but out of a changing business model the employers develop to best execute what they feel is needed to accomplish the businesses most important goal. The Democratic Party will continue to impulse buy the talking points the DNC sells them. Their internal mindset has, again, left them helpless in terms of reform. Their viewpoint of, “Well whatever the DNC is selling, I’ll take three,” doesn’t leave much room for challenging their parties narrative.. If the consumers continue to leave the manufacturing machine unchallenged the outrage of not getting emotional appeasement through their impulse purchases may lead to the manufacturer (DNC) going out of business.
Rob North, Sons of Lincoln
* Quotations are excerpts from an article written by Ian Zimmerman Ph.D on psychologytoday.com. The opinions expressed in this article are those of Sons of Lincoln and not of either Ian Zimmerman Ph.D or psychologytoday.com
