Where The Republican Party Went Wrong

Back in 2001, right after September 11th, I heard a twenty-something goofball disk jockey on a Hard Rock station talking about the attacks. He said to his co-host, “I can’t believe I was ever a Democrat.” Now today, the Republican Party has been so out-maneuvered on the PR front that Mitt Romney can’t beat Barack Obama in the middle of an economic depression, among voters just like that disk jockey. Voters like that disk jockey have tended to return to the Democratic fold. Why?

Lots of people are blaming this reversal in attitudes on demographics, or the weather, or the media. Some point to the technology the Libs used, or ground games, or Obama’s bribing of various constituencies. But the truth is it is the fault of the Republican Party.

Our problem today is that the Republican Party’s public relations strategy is being run by Communications Majors. We need Cognitive Neuroscientists to craft our strategy, not Communications Majors, because the battle we are really fighting, is a battle for the minds (in other words, the brains) of Americans. Most Communications people today might as well be witch doctors mixing good luck potions and chanting good luck spells – unless they have cross trained in neurobiology, they know nothing beyond gross simplifications about the structure of the human brain, or how to control it’s perceptions and behaviors. The thunder is the Gods beating drums in anger, and preparing to throw water on the earth, and Ginseng looks like a phallus so a tea made from it will provide sexual energy. Their crude concepts may be predictive, but how much more powerful their art would be if they actually understood the real mechanism behind the forces they were attempting to wield.

The past ten years have shown that these PR wonks have no knowledge of what it takes to mold public perception, or actually burn meaningful neural pathways into the brains of the populace. Their rank failure to sell K-selected behavioral drives to a K-selected species is all the evidence anyone should need.

After all of Dana Perino’s hard work, George Bush still can’t show up at a public political rally without wearing a Hippie wig, a tie-dyed shirt, a fake beard, and a false nose and glasses. That is not public relations success. That is rank failure, and if Republicans ever again want to hold power, they need to recognize that, and remove these people from their operations. They aren’t helping the movement.

So where did we go wrong? How could a voter like that Disk Jockey find his way back into the Democrat fold, after seeing the errors of his ways on September 11th, and why did he ever leave in the first place?

To understand this, you have to understand that we have two models of political behavior. One succeeded wildly, and fostered a Conservative revolution. The other failed miserably, and not only squandered September 11th’s rally to Conservatism, it practically destroyed the entire movement. Obviously, I am referencing the Reagan Presidency, and the Bush Presidency.

If scientists ran the Republican party, they would set about studying these two Presidencies, and looking to replicate the successful behaviors of Reagan, while minimizing the failures of Bush.

The critical flaw in George Bush’s Presidency was George Bush. George Bush is a simple minded country bumpkin. I hate to say that because I like him, but he just doesn’t understand how other people are different, and this promotes a conflict averse, r-psychology, desirous of getting along. Most of the Republican Party is the same. To George Bush, everyone is just like him, everyone thinks like him, and all he has to do is talk to them and they will listen, think, and come to a logical conclusion.

Of course we all know that there is a huge swath of idiots in this country called independent voters. They are like programmable robots. They don’t think, they don’t reason, they base their decisions on a minimum amount of information, and they respond to everything emotionally.

When 9/11 happened, we all know how it came about. During his term, Clinton was a Liberal pansy, and he didn’t want to hurt anyone. So whenever he had the option of killing one of our enemies, he asked, “Can we kill him tomorrow?” When the answer came back yes, he let our enemy live, because he thought killing was wrong. Unfortunately, the result of this policy was that Osama bin Ladin was planning to kill over 3,000 Americans by flying planes into buildings, and we didn’t kill him.

We all knew 9/11 was Clinton’s fault, and that it was a direct out-growth of the Liberal’s weak, appeasing psychology. This was where that mushy pile of idiots called independents were all set up to become lifelong Republicans. Link Liberal cowardice, disloyalty, and inability to defend America to 9/11, by just saying out loud what we all knew inside, and you would burn a pathway in everyone’s amygdala connecting Liberalism with horrific failure. This simple, ready-made out-grouping would have burned an amygdala pathway into every American’s brain. It would have linked associating with Liberalism with the panic of being cast out of the tribe.

This pathway would have caused all of the independents to reflexively dismiss Liberals on every issue for decades to come, so as to avoid an association with Liberals, and a resultant aversive stimulus due to out-grouping. Some Liberals would have gone underground, lest others discover their Liberalism, and out-group them. Other Liberals would have embraced Conservatism, to avoid the psychic agony of being a known failure and a disloyal, traitorous Liberal. Periodically restrengthen the pathway, by harkening back to this epic failure of the Liberal Pansies, and Republicans would have enjoyed a Reagan-esque dominance for decades.

But Bush and his people were too stupid to do it. Bush wanted to curry favor with a Liberal media and Liberal historians, who would never repay the kindness. So instead of burning those pathways into the nation’s amygdala, Bush refused to ascribe blame, and tried to erase any amygdala pathways which might have formed despite him, by heralding Liberals as equals, and Liberalism as respectable.

All along, whenever the opportunity arose to speak to the public, and associate negative aversive stimulus with Liberalism, and thereby develop the public’s amygdalae, Bush always played the magnanimous card. Teddy Kennedy never killed a girl, he wasn’t a moral-less scumbag. Indeed, Bush was so “noble” that he would reach out to the man, and tell the nation what a great guy he was. I truly suspect if Hitler had been a Democrat Congressman, Bush would have invited him to the White House to write policy on how to govern Jewish businesses, thinking it would show what a nice guy Bush was. From Katrina to Iraq, to the economic mess, Bush never stood up and spoke the simple truths which would have associated aversive stimuli with Liberalism, and developed the nation’s amygdala.

This was rank stupidity, plain and simple. We all know it, and it is why those with functional amygdalae today will bet so much on even the most questionable Tea Party Candidate. We know the “play nice” bullshit that is so loved by the establishment isn’t associating aversive stimuli with our enemies, and it is destroying our movement. Of course people will vote for free stuff, and not see consequences. Nobody has ever mentioned consequences, because Republicans refuse to point out consequences to the populace, and associate them with Liberalism. They are too busy trying to be nice political pansies. As a result, we are a nation without an amygdala, where nothing bad can happen, and there is no reason to not vote for a Democrat.

To those of us who actually understand how the brains of the populace work, the aggressive Tea Party candidate is the last chance to enact a winning strategy to mold the populace’s amygdalae by associating Liberalism with aversive stimuli. But every time an aggressive candidate emerges, the Republican machine shows up, and denounces the candidate’s extremism, telling the populace that the candidate doesn’t know what they’re talking about. That assuages Liberal amygdalae, allowing them to continue to see their defective ideology as consequence-less. It prevents the formation of amygdala pathways in moderates, associating Liberalism with the destruction it produces. And it fosters the current fantasyland perception that there will be no economic consequence to anything, every. If I didn’t know better, I’d think the whole Republican Party is populated by Liberals, actively seeking to advance Liberalism – they are that stupid.

Oh, come on, AC. You’re telling me that just saying bad things about people can affect how the populace behaves? It can affect what they think? Really?

Look at Mike Wallace in the Ethics in America Debate. Colonel Connell’s flawless out-grouping of him left him slack-jawed with aversive stimulus. Mike Wallace’s amygdala was in over drive. Colonel Connell actually burned a new pathway in Mike Wallace’s amygdala, linking the betrayal of American troops with the pure psychic agony of aversive stimulus. Do you think, in a thousand years, Wallace would ever again step up and advocate for betraying American Servicemen? His amygdala would not allow it. That can be done to Liberals on every facet of their Liberal ideology.

Let’s look at it from the other side. We all know even though he wasn’t too heavy in the brains department, George Bush was a good guy at heart. Yeah he’s an empty-headed country bumpkin inside, a political rube waiting to be fleeced, but he would give you the shirt off his back. He never did anything for personal gain in the White House, and he always tried to do what he thought was right, regardless of what it might cost him personally. He was a moral paragon, and all his faults were borne of a kind heart.

How is he remembered? As a great guy at heart who did his best? The guy who defended us from Al Qaida? A moral paragon?

Nope. George Bush is remembered much differently by the public. Bush is a liar. Bush was a war-monger. Bush hated black people, and killed them in Katrina purposefully, by holding FEMA back. Bush caused the economic crisis himself, to help rich white folk. Today, he can’t even show up at a Republican Political Convention.

We know Bush is honest, but just by saying “liar” enough, Liberals burned a pathway in the Mushy Independents’ amygdalae out-grouping Bush, and associating his name with untrustworthiness.

We know what would have happened if Bush didn’t go into Iraq and Saddam handed off a vial of a weaponized Camel-Pox virus to Al Qaida and it killed 10 million Americans. But Liberals linked everything bad associated with that war to Bush, in the amygdalae of the Mushy Independents. In their heads, we never even had any concerns, when the war was launched without pretext. International support? What international support? It was all Bush, and it was all about Halliburton. It’s so simple it’s stupid, but it worked.

We know that Governor Kathleen Blanco screwed up Katrina in Louisiana. Governor Haley Barbour was hit by the even worse eastern side of the same storm, over in Mississippi and handled it just fine. Same in Alabama. But Liberals created an amygdala pathway in the brains of the Mushy Independents linking Bush with the aversive stimuli produced by both Katrina and the human suffering. Years later, it still stuck.

Think about that. Bush was linked to both the aversive stimulus of a weather event, and a local politician’s incompetence, when he was personally responsible for neither. The bad feelings which should have been attached to other things got stuck to Bush, despite it being untrue, simply because Liberals said it often enough. That is the power of associating the aversive stimulus of one thing with another thing through rhetorical linkage, and repeating it, especially among the idiots who have so little information that they call themselves “independent.” You don’t even have to be right, or logical (if your opposition doesn’t oppose you). These neurological connections just happen, all at the subconscious level.

Finally, we know it was Liberals who made banks give loans to people who couldn’t pay them back, in a mad effort to redistribute wealth from those who had made it to those who didn’t. We know that caused the crash. And yet, Liberals, simply by repeating the lie that Bush did it, created amygdala pathways in the brains of the Mushy Independents, linking Bush with the aversive stimuli of an economic crisis they created.

Today, this psychological tool has been used so often by the Liberals that Conservatives laugh, and say “Bush ‘s fault,” after every catastrophe. But the technique does work. There is a huge cohort of idiots out there, and to get all their votes, all you have to do is attack the other guy, and attach aversive stimulus to him.

Here, their votes were secured with wholly false attacks, unrelated to reality. Imagine what would happen if we let loose with a barrage of true, easily supportable, reality-based attacks, linking Liberalism with economic failure, national decline, weak national security, low moral standards, and a whole suite of values which run wholly contrary to our species’ normative K-selected natures. We don’t have to lie, we don’t have to mislead, we just have to speak unpleasant truths aggressively, and point out that Liberals are fundamentally mentally defective, bad people, who are too stupid to see the destruction of our society that they are bringing about.

What kind of Republican idiots would leave those easily manipulated, vulnerable voters on the table, to be taken by Liberals through the frequent application of unopposed lies?

And don’t get me wrong about Bush. Bush was way too big-government for my tastes. Some of the aversive stimulus attached to him, particularly by Republicans, was justified. He was part of the problem, because he dealt with Liberals, rather than seeking to destroy them and their movement. There is no question he was an unmitigated disaster for the party, the movement, and fiscal Conservatism in our government. In our brains, he has aversive stimulus because he didn’t fight.

But my point is that Liberals, by repeating blatant lies, were able to attach Bush’s name to aversive stimuli in the amygdalae of that easily programmed, emotionally driven, Mushy Independent cohort of the populace. This created an emotional perception of reality which still guides the behavior of these little robots decades hence. Today, we don’t even see Bush at a Republican Convention. Liberals completely inverted reality, simply by repeating lies about Bush in public, and molding the public’s amygdala in such a way that these voters can’t hear of the Republican Party, without feeling negative feelings and aversive stimulus. Mention Republicans to any of those robots, and they reflexively become hyper-critical, and averse to embracing anything which follows.

By contrast, the great Ronald Reagan disparaged Leftism everywhere, and single-handedly made the word Liberal a pejorative. Were President Reagan still with us today, Mitt Romney would have given anything to see Reagan step up to the mike at the Republican Convention, and give a speech on behalf of the party and our candidate. Reagan didn’t hesitate to fight with Liberals, and he is still loved wildly, while Bush sought to appease them, and is now an outcast, even within his own party. There is a little bit of a lesson there, in how human brains work.

Now imagine what would have happened if Bush had gotten up after September 11th, and simply stated the truth. Liberal stupidity, cowardice, and incompetence just got 3,000 Americans killed, and Liberals aren’t fit to be dog-catchers in this nation. Here’s a list of all the times Clinton could have caught, killed, or just taken custody of Bin Ladin, and he dropped the ball each time.

Every Liberal would have experienced an immediate amygdala hijack as they went apoplectic, while the rest of the populace would have seen an immense pathway burned into their amygdala linking Liberalism with stupidity and the destruction of our nation at the hands of its enemies. People naturally recognize Liberals are pansies who wouldn’t last two seconds in a state of nature. As a result, this pathway would have been easy to burn in, as people already kind of lean in that direction. The effects of hearing a leader actually say it, and masses of the Conservative movement cheer? Priceless.

Suppose Bush got up after the economic crash, held a press conference, and pointed out how the Community Reinvestment Act had created the financial crisis. It was all the fault of Liberals. Step by step, Dodd, Frank, un-repayable loans, banks have bad debt, securitization of bad debt, financial redistribution from the average, hardworking citizen whose pension fund bought the bad debt to the welfare louts, all in plain English. Suppose he laid it all on Liberalism, where it belonged.

Conservatives all over the nation would cheer in support, and curse Liberals to their friends. Again, a Liberal amygdala hijack, followed by a Mushy Independent take-away that Liberals are idiots who can’t be trusted, and nobody likes a Liberal.

What about when Liberals scream and screech in response? That screech is a sign you have scored a direct amygdala hit, the Liberal is in psychic agony, and they are launching one last Hail Mary strike, before retreating. Laugh, and hit them again, and get even more amygdala pathways to burn in them, and in the populace.

Those amygdala pathways are how elections are won decades hence. Reagan doing that every day is the only reason Bush senior ever won any election. Bush senior was the limp wristed pansies’ Limp wristed pansy. He banned assault weapons, raised taxes, and thought Conservatives were dangerous extremists. Without Reagan setting the stage, his election would have been exactly like Bob Dole’s.

By doing all of this, you make it so that supporting you provides dopamine and oxytocin, and supporting your enemy provides aversive stimulus, courtesy of an amygdala trained ot reject Liberal foolishness. At the very least, people will begin to critically evaluate everything coming out of the mouths of Liberals, because the instant they hear “Liberal,” their amygdala will put them on alert for lies and incompetence. How is that bad?

Today, Liberals just laugh at Bush’s stupidity in trying to be nice, while demonizing him to the masses. Sadly, the Conservative movement and the nation suffers the consequences.

The bottom line is that Liberals are idiots who cause bad things through stupidity. That’s reality, and it is easily justified logically. Because of this, these neurological pathways will eventually find their way burned into the heads of the citizenry. It can be done by a genial Republican on TV long before the consequences of ignorance occur.

Or it can happen the moment you hear the crack of a gunshot, and realize a savage flashmob has just set up a checkpoint at the intersection up ahead. They are going car to car, beating and robbing men, while passing the women off to the crowd, which is setting up trains on them. Your car is stuck in the frozen line of traffic, so the only exfil for you and your pretty wife is by foot, through a crowd that has just got the tweet and is converging on the scene all around you. Got a gun? Oh, yeah, your amygdala is undeveloped, so you are unarmed to boot.

Our real problem in the Conservative movement is not the demographics, it’s not the media, it’s not turnout, or even the 47%. It’s that the people in the party who are guiding the movement are ignorant idiots, pretending to know what they are doing. They should be hiring scientists who actually know what they are doing. If a PhD in Poly Sci has no idea what an amygdala is, despite the fact that its development is the foundation of one’s political ideology, should anyone listen to anything he says? Should anyone take his guidance seriously? Is he any better than a witch doctor with decades of experience observing the effects of cockroach tea, and prescribing it for an ailment involving “Blood Stasis?”

Liberals are now on their way to having almost a decade and a half of associating Republicans with everything wrong in the nation, in the amygdalae of the populace, while our idiot leaders have been busy extending olive branches, trying to be nice, and saying we should just do what the Liberals want, to get along, and hopefully acquire their votes.

This will change – it is how nature works. The only question is if it will change nicely, through aggressive rhetorical arguments by Republican leaders presenting a united front, and exposing our people to a simulated reality of Liberal misery, or if it will change in a not-so-nice fashion, through a populace enduring actual hardships produced by the implementation of Liberal stupidity, and seeing their amygdalae developed through a harsh encounter with reality.

Even you are way too kind to the socialists. You need to explain very simply how your side is better and works for the public good as opposed to redistributive malaise and capital constriction. Until then, until we have a plain speaking common sense person who can truly explain why capitalist policies are for the greater good, the socialsits will continue to keep racism, perversion, sick voter alliances and bigger and bigger governemnt as their power base to maintain control and power. The Repub/Independents need to work on controlling the Senate and House first in two years. In the end that is what it is about for them: power and control, not the greatest good for the greatest number. Think about it a lot harder, metaphysicize it more, then return with simple absolute truths about the system you promote at its most basic levels. Not meeting whack for whack, but explain why their system is flawed and yours is not. All the way down to ground zero economically. No one who has not made up their mind about left versus right will have one clue about what you wrote above. Make it simple and true. And explain WHY it works.

...because the battle we are really fighting, is a battle for the minds (in other words, the brains) of Americans.

I stopped reading right there.
I suppose most contemporary "intellectuals" are clueless.

Busloads of the senile, dim-witted and illiterates are routinely shuttled from place to place with 'minders' who tell them how to vote.
Pure democracy (mobocracy), which the Founders feared as much as Monarchies, has insidiously crept into our body politic, even our Constitution over the last 100 years until, I fear, the Supreme Court as presently constituted will announce it "legal." The obvious observation of so long ago, that

"We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other."
- John Adams, Oct. 11, 1798 Address

is no longer even remembered.

Close to half of the voting population does not have the brains and minds to qualify as completely human, and "appealing" to reason is a fool's errand.

No, I don't know of a possible way to fix it in the current cultural climate, but I refuse to read the remainder of this Polyanna sermon.

...until we have a plain speaking common sense person who can truly explain why capitalist policies are for the greater good, the socialsits will continue to keep racism, perversion, sick voter alliances and bigger and bigger governemnt as their power base to maintain control and power.

Ding ding ding! No more calls, folks! We have a winner!

LES, you have just explained in one sentence, why the Republicans lost the last two presidential elections, and why GWB was just barely twice elected.

We haven't had a candidate who truly lives, breathes, and owns our country's Founding Principles, since Ronald Reagan. We will not win the White House until someone who does, steps forth and decimates the policies of the left with facts, logic, reason, and real courage.

Listen to conservative icon, Bill Whittle explain this very concept:

Bill Whittle: Most Republican politicians do not believe our own conservative philosophy | Flopping Aces

This analysis is far too simplistic and naive to pin it mainly on salesmanship. Reagan would have lost CA and the presidency with today’s demographic. Demographics is destiny. This could be good or bad depending on the cultural make-up of this new bloc of voters in the post Cold War era. Gay marriage would have been unheard of during Reagan’s time. Nor did we have the massive influx of immigration, legal and illegal, Asian and Hispanic, who don’t relate to America’s cultural and religious values. Much of Detroit is now “Little Kabul.”

In California, Orange County was the bastion of conservatism, but no more. Just look at what was once staunchly conservative Republican congressional districts (Palm Springs) going liberal. San Diego now has an openly gay Supervisor as is the Speaker of the California Assembly. No, this was a quiet revolution of culture that took place with the express if not tacit support of our RINOs and those chickens are coming home to roost with a squawking vengeance. Think Bushes’ “compassionate conservatism” and Simpson-Mazzoli amnesty among ideas to be blamed for this rot.

“You need to explain very simply how your side is better and works for the public good as opposed to redistributive malaise and capital constriction.”

Yes and no. The case I am making is a technical case that the brain is most easily programmed to be averse to things. It is a consequence of evolution, where you really needed to learn what was bad for you, in your environment. As a result, you actually have a brain structure, which spends its time spotting things which are bad, and linking them to perceived causes, so you can avoid the bad in the future. Interestingly the more developed the structure, the more likely you are to be Conservative, and understand the bad things which need to be avoided.

My point is, this is an easily exploitable hack for the brain, because all you need to do is emotionally attach Liberalsim to negative feelings, through denigration, ridicule, humiliation, and adverse consequences in real life.

This is not so much a feeling/opinion piece as a mechanistic, “here is a simple mechanism you can exploit” piece.

“Not meeting whack for whack, but explain why their system is flawed and yours is not.”

This piece is a simplified introduction to how neuroscience should mold strategy. Based on it, we should be going two whacks for every one from a liberal. Whacks are what make ideologues, particularly among the mushy center, who wouldn’t even take the time to listen to a reasoned argument, or inform themselves.

“No one who has not made up their mind about left versus right will have one clue about what you wrote above.”

Exactly. Because they have the attention span of chickpeas. That’s why the piece doesn’t advocate for making detailed arguments to them. This is being written for strategists. Again, a cat can be trained to panic at the sound of a whistle, if their amygdala links the sound of the whistle to aversive stimulus.

Look at my piece as explaining the following mechanism. I have a really delicious apple pie. I want you to eat a piece. If I offer it to you, you will eat it. If I hold a shotgun loaded with 3” 00 buck to your knee, and tell you I’m pulling the trigger in 30 seconds unless the piece of pie is finished, you will eat it, very fast.

The first method uses a dopamine release, which motivates nicely. The second method uses the amygdala which motivates with certainty. In a political game of rock/paper/scissors, amygdala trumps dopamine.

Machiavelli said the same thing when he said “It is good to be loved, but it is surer to be feared.”

If you focus on technical manipulations, emotionally linking Liberalism to aversive stimulus, you will motivate people to turn right far better than the feel good pablum the GOPe uses now, and even the logical arguments which would motivate you.

It is a geek piece for a narrow audience, though.

Pollyana?

“Close to half of the voting population does not have the brains and minds to qualify as completely human, and “appealing” to reason is a fool’s errand.”

If you read my work, you’d see I agree. I’m advocating an emotional/neurological manipulation to gain control over a percentage of the half which are too stupid for logic. It would likely be enough to win, and was the method Reagan used to drive Liberalism into the gutter.

But by all means, read the first three sentences, and then render your verdict.

Back in 2001, right after September 11th, I heard a twenty-something goofball disk jockey on a Hard Rock station talking about the attacks. He said to his co-host, “I can’t believe I was ever a Democrat.” Now today, the Republican Party has been so out-maneuvered on the PR front that Mitt Romney can’t beat Barack Obama in the middle of an economic depression, among voters just like that disk jockey. Voters like that disk jockey have tended to return to the Democratic fold. Why?

Why?

Look no further than the candidate that the GOP-E, moderates/liberal Republicans, Mormons, and others foisted on us this election season.

When you nominate a candidate who supports Abortion, supports the Gay Agenda, and can't articulate a clear and consistent fiscal conservative message to save his life as the standard-bearer for a Political Party, the GOP, whose base is both overwhelmingly socially conservative and fiscally conservative, you don't have a chance in Hell of winning the election, much less of getting anyone excited to vote for your guy.

This election was the GOP's to lose. They had the best opportunity ever to win given the Marxist in the White House and his lousy record.

Mitt Romney, and his lousy Progressive Record as Governor, and his lousy positions on social issues and his total inability to articulate a fiscally conservative and limited government vision is the main cause of our loss this election.

Thank you for the kind words.

Your suggestion is an excellent way to attach aversive stimulus to the leaders of the Democratic party, in the minds of moderate Democratic voters. Guys like you (Reagan comes to mind) see this ability to mold minds innately, and do it instinctively. I am writing mostly for people who don’t see this, and assume everyone thinks like them. They inariably want to present a logical, reasoned argument for why Conservatism is good. But that doesn’t create aversive stimulus, and attach it to liberals the way arguing why Liberalism is bad will.

It’s a subtle distinction, but a vital one to grasp, if you are formulating strategy.

Aggressive denigration and humiliation, in a social context, will drive Liberals at least underground, with a percentage taking Conservative positions for socially beneficial reasons.

Thank you for the comment.

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