It would be nice if everything in politics was decided by people using their entire brains. Thought takes a back seat to instinct when people engage in politics or choose leaders. Virtually everything a person says or does is based on notions or prejudices. The large part of the brain is hardly ever active.
Close to elections, before and after, dialog is of the “it is……..it is not variety. People are only repeating what the inner lizard or political brain accepts as fact or good reasoning. Efforts to change others minds amount to repeating short quips and soundbites that are supposed to suddenly change another person’s mind. Of course, the inner lizard knows nothing about the veracity of what comes out of a person’s mouth. What is accepted as fact by the inner lizard has nothing to do with right or wrong. It is can be something like “Islam is a religion of peace.” or “All Mexicans are coming are here to commit crimes.” or “Presidents create jobs.” or “We need more Federal Reserve stimulus.” These are like recordings made with a tape recorder. The inner lizard organizes them and treats them as facts.
It works this way with highly intelligent individuals just as it does with the intellectually challenged.
The world’s happiest people hardly ever engage with their larger brain. As long as a person is happy and comfortable autopilot works fine.
Is it always this way? No, when an emergency occurs, the big brain comes into play automatically. Remember how dialogs changed following 911? People started thinking. The same thing happened when Pearl Harbor was bombed.
Work is a second choice and thinking with the big brain is work. With no reason to worry, the inner lizard handles all of life’s issues. Nothing needs to be studied, it is all there registered as fact whether it is or not.
Economic stimulus only robs from the many to pay the few. It guarantees a grossly inefficient allocation of resources and an eventual economic collapse. Economic stimulus by government has been going on nonstop ever since Ronald Reagan embraced the Full Employment Act of 1978. More stimulus is planned by Donald Trump. This has been going on for almost forty years. Accounting laws are not being enforced. Corporations report just about whatever earnings they want to. Executive make their profits by sitting while central banks run up the prices of their stocks. Being paid according to productivity is a lost concept.
When the economy and the stock market crash due to the damage form what amounts to outright theft, politics will change completely overnight. People’s big brains will become active for a little while at least. There will be a huge descrepency between what the large brain sees an what the inner lizard has recorded as fact. Things will be very unsettled and even violent during the time the inner lizards discard old facts and record new ones.
One of the reasons politicians like a happy population that is free from stress is, that kind of a population is extremely easy to manipulate. Happy comfortable people will believe just about anything.