The issue isn't selective memory, it is falsification of facts to maintain support for a political party. And it happens all the time. Are you an establishment Republican? Then almost any mistake that George W Bush made wasn't a mistake at all; a rationalization can be found to change reality into the opposite of the actual facts. I vividly recall a conversation with a naturalized US citizen originally from South Africa who was such an adamant Bush supporter that any criticism of GWB was met with vehement denunciations of those criticisms and countered with claims that turned a variety of undeniable facts on their heads. I also recall similar conversations with Democrats about Obama. One of the first tax increases that the Democratic Congress made -with BHO leadership- was to raise cigarette taxes by 60 cents per pack. Lo and behold, a few years later that Democratic / Obama tax was the fault of Republicans! A Democrat who smokes blamed the Republicans for the tax even though the truth was the exact opposite. Then there is immigration; some Democrats have as little use for the flood of mostly Mexicans who entered the country in the 1990s and early 2000s as the most conservative voter you can think of. Clearly this policy, allowing massive (often illegal) immigration, was primarily the work of Democrats, starting with Ted Kennedy years ago. But by the mid 2000s this was no longer true; the fault was entirely the bad policies of Republicans -exactly the people who most opposed illegal immigration. Which, of course, Hispanics understood very well when 3 out of 4 voted Democratic in 2008 and nearly as lop-sidedly in 2012. But so what? If you detest the Republicans then they, not the Democrats, are the culprits. Which is one of the main points of Radical Centrism: Intense political partisanship makes it next to impossible for a voter to be objective about much of anything. Good article that helps explain how this kind of political psychology operates. BR ------------------ NPR Partisan Psychology: Why Do People Choose Political Loyalties Over Facts?
by _Shankar Vedantam_ (http://www.npr.org/people/137765146/shankar-vedantam) May 09, 2012 When pollsters ask Republicans and Democrats whether the president can do anything about high gas prices, the answers reflect the usual partisan divisions in the country. About two-thirds of Republicans say the president can do something about high gas prices, and about two-thirds of Democrats say he can't. But six years ago, with a Republican president in the White House, the numbers were _reversed_ (http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2012/03/21/gIQAk0IeSS_graphic.html) : Three-fourths of Democrats said President Bush could do something about high gas prices, while the majority of Republicans said gas prices were clearly outside the president's control. The flipped perceptions on gas prices isn't an aberration, said Dartmouth College political scientist _Brendan Nyhan_ (http://www.brendan-nyhan.com/) . On a range of issues, partisans seem partial to their political loyalties over the facts. When those loyalties demand changing their views of the facts, he said, partisans seem willing to throw even consistency overboard. Nyhan cited the work of political commentator Jonathan Chait, who has drawn a contrast between the upcoming 2012 election between President Obama and the likely Republican nominee, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, and the 2004 election between President Bush and John Kerry, the Democratic senator from Massachusetts. "Last time it was Republicans who were against a flip-flopping, out-of-touch elitist from Massachusetts, and now it's Democrats," Nyhan said. Nyhan also contrasted the outrage in 2004 among Democrats who felt that Bush was politicizing the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks for political gain, and the outrage today among Republicans who feel the Obama re-election campaign is exploiting the killing of Osama bin Laden. "The whole political landscape has flipped," Nyhan said. Along with _Jason Reifler_ (http://www.jasonreifler.com/main/pages/about-me) at Georgia State University, Nyhan said, he's exploring the possibility that partisans reject facts because they produce cognitive dissonance — the psychological experience of having to hold inconsistent ideas in one's head. When Democrats hear the argument that the president can do something about high gas prices, that produces dissonance because it clashes with the loyalties these voters feel toward Obama. The same thing happens when Republicans hear that Obama cannot be held responsible for high gas prices — the information challenges their dislike of the president. Nyhan and Reifler hypothesized that partisans reject such information not because they're against the facts, but because it's painful. That notion suggested a possible solution: If partisans were made to feel better about themselves — if they received a little image and ego boost — could this help them more easily absorb the "blow" of information that threatens their pre-existing views? Nyhan said that ongoing — and as yet, unpublished — research was showing the technique could be effective. The researchers had voters think of times in their lives when they had done something very positive and found that, fortified by this positive memory, voters were more willing to take in information that challenged their pre-existing views. "One person talked about taking care of his elderly grandmother — something you wouldn't expect to have any influence on people's factual beliefs about politics," Nyhan said. "But that brings to mind these positive feelings about themselves, which we think will protect them or inoculate them from the threat that unwelcome ideas or unwelcome information might pose to their self-concept." -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
