‘Political Brain’ author: Obama sounds like Dukakis
Emory University psychology professor Drew Westen, author of “The Political Brain,” is among those liberal supporters who are disappointed in President Obama’s performance in the health care debate. In an interview this week, Westen criticized the president for failing to use voters’ populist anger to promote support for health care reform and other planks of his domestic platform.
Westen cited Obama’s aversion to partisan combat as one of the reasons that his policies have lost popular appeal.
“In the context of the anxiety and anger people have had about the economy and losing their jobs and losing their homes, or worrying about those things, they were looking for some place to turn that anxiety and anger. And because the president has been so steadfast in his refusal to point fingers at anyone, the Republicans have jumped into the breach and said, ‘if you are not going to mobilize that anger, we are.’
“It’s remarkable that a new president gets elected with super-majorities, that the president wouldn’t use people’s legitimate anger as a tool for change, when he ran on change,” Westen said.
One of Westen’s specialties is political communications; the subtitle of “Political Brain” is “The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation.” In the introduction, Westen wrote:
The political brain is an emotional brain. It is not a dispassionate calculating machine, objectively searching for the right facts, figures and policies to make a reasoned decision. The partisans in our study were, on average, bright, educated and politically aware. And yet they thought with their guts.
Westen figures a politician as bright and canny as Obama should know that and shouldn’t shy away from using emotions to connect with voters.
“When people are anxious and angry, they look to their leaders for a way to channel that anger that is productive. That is part of what leadership is. (But) this president and his leadership team believe that leadership is channeling hope, and even touching anybody’s anger and anxiety is off limits. It’s the politics of Dukakis,” Westen said.
“What I think the White House hasn’t gotten is that if the public is angry and anxious and you don’t talk about that anger, and it doesn’t look like you feel it, you start to look like George H.W. Bush in the recession (of the early 1990s). Out of touch,” Westen said.
Bush 41 notwithstanding, Westen noted that Republicans are usually much better at playing to emotions than Democrats are. They know how to tell a story.
“What story have conservatives told about health care? It’s a government takeover, it’s socialized medicine. There’s a story that has existed with conservatives for 30 years (government is bad). So once you have this pre-existing story, its not hard to hook crazy stuff onto it,” such as lies about death panels and unplugging Grandma.
Obama, Westen says, needs to tell a compelling story, too, one that has antagonists. “Reagan galvanized people not just for something, against something, tax-and-spend Democrats,” Westen noted.
Obama’s story, he says, will have to name bad guys, something the president has largely avoided.
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29 comments Add your comment
Davo
September 2nd, 2009
12:14 pm
So, to summerize….
SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN
LAWYERS FOR POOR AMERICANS
September 2nd, 2009
12:27 pm
~ PRESIDENT OBAMA DID NOT CREATE THI$ $ATANIC CONGRE$$IONAL MENTALITY~
THIS OLD WORLD ORDER OF ABUSE AND NEGLECT OF OUR POORER AMERICANS NEEDS ENLIGHTENED POLITICAL MINDS AND HEARTS TO VIEW GOD DIFFERENTLY THEN $$$… REGARDLESS OF ONES OWN POLITICAL PARTY AFFILIATION…
WHEN WILL OUR WEALTHY ELITE AMERICANS ABATE THEIR ASSAULT ON POORER AMERICANS WITH THEIR MONETARY CONTROL OF OUR IVORY TOWER U.S. CONGRESSIONAL LEADERS OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER ???
THERE ARE NOT MANY MORE DISTRACTIONS LEFT WHICH ARE AVAILABLE FOR OUR WEALTHY ELITE AMERICANS TO HIDE BEHIND IN NOT TAKING PROPER CARE OF ALL OUR AMERICANS IN A HUMANE FASHION !!!
AMERICAN IVORY TOWER U.S.CONGRESSIONAL LEADERS OF THE FREE WORLD HAVE PASSED FEDERAL LEGISLATION IN WASHINGTON DC TO SPEND 50 BILLION AMERICAN TAX $$$ ON THE INTERNATIONAL FIGHT AGAINST AIDS OVER THE NEXT FIVE YEARS WHILE THEIR OWN AMERICAN CITIZENS ARE BEING TOLD BY THIS SAME U.S.CONGRESS THAT NATIONAL HEALTH CARE AND PROPER LEGAL REPRESENTATION FOR MIDDLE CLASS AND WORKING POOR CITIZENS IS UNAFFORDABLE.
*** WEALTHY ELITE AMERICANS (WHO ARE ONLY 1% OF OUR USA POPULATION) SADLY ALSO CONTROL HOW OUR U.S.CONGRESS SPENDS THEIR BUDGET TRILLION$ AND HAVE OBVIOUSLY FOUND MORE WORTHY INTERNATIONAL CITIZENS THEN OUR OWN DESPERATE AND NEEDY POOR TO ASSIST !!!
~Poorer Americans Nationwide only get 400 million $$$ per year for legal representation allocated them by CONGRESS~
Middle Class and Working Poor Americans are unable to afford proper legal representation in their Civil, Criminal and Family Courts of law all across America causing tremendous hardships nationwide,but these great minds and callous hearts in our American Congress have found others Worldwide more needy then their own citizens who are being falsely incarcerated,wrongfuly executed,losing their homes or apartments,losing child custody or visitation with their children etc…
Not being afforded proper legal representation by our U.S. Congress has created a total breakdown of the American judicial system for our poorer Americans because the our U.S. Courts punish all of us little people if we are not assisted with proprer legal counsel.It is a known fact that our average Middle Class and Working Poor Americans without proper legal representation in all of our American Courts of law lose their legal cases to the better financed who are able to afford lawyers.
Lawyers For Poor Americans is now actively in the hunt for International Countries and Leaders Worldwide to help raise 5 Billion Dollar$ for our slighted poorer Americans who have had their own American Congress turn their backs on their desperate needs in not affording them proper legal representation.
Troy Davis and Mumia Abu – Jamal are 2 perfect examples of American citizens who never had proper legal representation or defense investigations afforded them by our U.S. Congressional Leaders Of The Free World in their initial criminal trials in (Georgia and Pennsylvania) who might very well have to pay the ultimate price of possibly being completely innocent and falsely executed in the near future.
This is the first of many www International pleas by Lawyers For Poor Americans for other leaders and countries to help raise the needed monie$ to correct these blatant injustices that have been inflicted on poorer Americans for the last few decades.
Lawyers For Poor Americans has many other written articles that can be viewed with any www search engine by our name or our telephone number.
Lawyers For Poor Americans is a www lobby group of volunteers that sing out about the decades old neglect,abuse and injustices being inflicted on our poorer Americans that have become Crimes Against Humanity issues for the International World Court to investigate.
lawyersforpooreramericans@yahoo.com
(424-247-2013)
RealityKing
September 2nd, 2009
12:51 pm
“There’s a story that has existed with conservatives for 30 years (government is bad).”
That story has existed with Americans for 233 years…, to be exact.
Citizen of the World
September 2nd, 2009
12:51 pm
I have admired President Obama’s determination to stay above the fray since he conducted his very positive presidential campaign, which stayed focused on the issues. I hope he will continue to stay focused on the issue when it comes to health care.
So, we don’t want to get down in the gutter with anyone with disingenuous, emotional, hyperbolic arguments, and there’s no need characterize anyone with a stake in this as a “bad guy.”
However, it is very important that President Obama and other supporters tell the story of health care reform in no uncertain terms — who’s trying to block health care reform (even on the Democratic side), what’s at stake for them (campaign donations?), what’s at stake for everyday Americans, what it will cost to do nothing (in productivity, lives and dollars), which arguments are legitimate, which are based on misinformation, etc. From this,the American people should be able to infer who the bad guys are. Someone’s got to take the high road here.
booger
September 2nd, 2009
12:54 pm
Here is a thought. Maybe Obama is learning a thing or two about being president. Maybe the 2 trillion dollar increase in the deficit forcast has made him realize that some of the objections to health care reform, namely the cost, are an argument worth listening to.
In his short time in office he has already been stung by his bulldozing the stimulus program through. It’s hard to find any credible source who declares it a success and it cost 787 billion dollars. currently most of Europe is recovering well ahead of us, and they spent virtualy nothing on stimulus, even after Obama’s urging to do so.
Maybe Obama is realizing that he may not be right on every issue. Maybe Americans are realizing the same thing. It’s difficult to effectively use a bully pulpit whe you have doubts.
stands for decibels
September 2nd, 2009
1:01 pm
Yeah, 7½ months in, even though he’s signed plenty of new, important legislation and staked himself to a massive overhaul of the healthcare insurance racket, the guy’s done. Might as well pack up and leave it to the goopers.
(Sheesh. It’s SSDD over at Jay’s as well…doesn’t anyone at the AJC know the “silly season” when they live through it every damn year?)
Van Jones
September 2nd, 2009
1:11 pm
“Well, the answer to that is Republicans, they’re @ssholes,”
“and some of us who are not Barack Hussein Obama are going to have to start getting a little bit uppity,”
Hey! I wasn’t moderated at Berkeley!! Why here!!??
Van Jones
September 2nd, 2009
1:13 pm
“The white polluters and the white environmentalists are essentially steering poison into the people of color communities.”
“This movement is deeper than a solar panel! Deeper than a solar panel! Don’t stop there! Don’t stop there! We’re gonna change the whole system! We’re gonna change the whole thing. We want a new system. We want a new system!”
Citizen of the World
September 2nd, 2009
1:14 pm
RealityKing @12:51, that’s your story. The story for many of us is that government *can* be bad. It’s up to us to make it responsive and keep it accountable — truly of, by and for the people. Then it can be a powerful force and a necessary ally in ensuring that the common good of the people is protected over the vested interests of the rich and powerful, who have their money and status to protect them.
The Republican party has convinced their base that government is bad, yet, they want you to elect them to govern. That doesn’t make sense to me.
And if we didn’t have government, we’d invent it, because we need it. How can something we need be all bad?
Presidential Medal of Freedom winner
September 2nd, 2009
1:17 pm
“And in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get back; when brown can stick around; when yellow will be mellow; when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right.”
Booger Bandit
September 2nd, 2009
1:23 pm
Perhaps Obobo needs to learn a couple of verses to “eatin goober peas”.
jconservative
September 2nd, 2009
1:25 pm
“The political brain is an emotional brain.”
Stock market works the same way. After I was taught that the market was a lot easier. Thinking is difficult. Emotions are easy.
reality
September 2nd, 2009
1:30 pm
Cynthia: post pics of you in summer attire. Politically you are lost. Please give us a reason to like you.
Thomas Jefferson
September 2nd, 2009
1:33 pm
“The true theory of our Constitution is surely the wisest and best, that the States are independent as to everything within themselves, and united as to everything respecting foreign affairs. Let the General Government be reduced to foreign concerns only, reduced to a very simple organization, and a very inexpensive one; a few plain duties to be performed by a few servants.”
Thomas Jefferson
September 2nd, 2009
1:39 pm
“The natural progress of things is for liberty to yeild, and government to gain ground.”
ie.., “A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.”
Thomas Jefferson
September 2nd, 2009
2:05 pm
Now don’t you slaves start gettin’ uppity and thinkin’ y’all get to be free!
2D
September 2nd, 2009
2:18 pm
COTW…
You’re correct… Government isn’t “bad” and neither Conservatives nor Republicans think so (regardless of what Ms. Tucker writes). We (myself being a Conservative) simply believe that the government has a useful, but limited, role in our lives.
Personally, I don’t want the government doing much of anything other than protecting me and my family, providing basic infrastructure items(electricity, water, trash removal, etc.) and providing basic regulations for the use of our natural resources.
Welfare, nope. Retirement, nope. Health care, nope. Housing, nope. When we allow the government to directly provide those types of items, we become beholden to the government and that is the EXACT OPPOSITE of how it should be. The government should be beholden to us. I wanted to use the quote that “Thomas Jefferson” posted earlier, about the “big government” (although there is some discrepency as to whom this should be originally attributed), so I will give a different one from TJ…
“Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated.”
And another from our friend Benjamin Frankin…
“The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.”
Ivan
September 2nd, 2009
2:37 pm
Looks to me like another piece by Ms. Tucker attempting to justify a government mandate forced on the majority of its people. This makes the second in a row. I think I’m starting to hear goose-steps.
Citizen of the World
September 2nd, 2009
2:50 pm
2D @ 2:18, Ms. Tucker did not write that conservatives think government is bad; a psychology expert wrote that, and it’s pretty hard to argue the point when conservative politicians and pundits tell us over and over that the government doesn’t have a role to play in helping us solve our major problems, that government can’t do anything as well as business, and that government can’t do anything in a competent, efficient manner.
And yes, small government would be great, if we had small business and small weapons and small farms and a small population. But once the industrial age came along and gave birth to big businesses, government had to grow in response to that and step in to save us from the problems and abuses they wrought. If they hadn’t, we would have no middle class to speak of — there would just be rich and poor with perhaps a small merchant class, like in most of history.
Jay "Numbnuts" Bookwoman
September 2nd, 2009
2:53 pm
Does Sinthia ever come up with her own ideas? Looks like she’s been taking the easy way out and riding the coattails of others… for quite a while now.
Jay "Numbnuts" Bookwoman
September 2nd, 2009
2:54 pm
reality – I think she needs to brown bag it.
Carter is a Fool
September 2nd, 2009
3:24 pm
Soon they will be comparing PresBO to Jimmy. Hopefully not, because that would indicate that he is a monumental and complete failure. However it is a bad omen to see him being compared to the little tank riding imp from Mass.
2D
September 2nd, 2009
4:27 pm
COTW…
First… The article used a quote with parenthesis inserted. The parenthetical indicates that Cynthia inserted her own interpreation of the exact “story” the Westen referred to. Westen didn’t say conservatives believed that “government is bad”, Cynthia did.
Second… Noone ever said that government doesn’t need to expand if/when society expands. As I mentioned before, the government has a useful role. I, like most Conservatives, simply believe that the government has expanded far beyond it’s intended and useful bounds.
a. mcewen
September 2nd, 2009
9:49 pm
This is driving me nuts. I would expect conservatives and Republicans to throw monkey wrenches at President Obama, but now some of his own supporters. Good grief, people. Let the man do his job. He hasn’t been president a year yet and already his ENTIRE presidency is being scrutinized. I have never seen anything like this in my life.
P
September 3rd, 2009
9:47 am
So, the problem is politics haven’t been dirty enough recently? That’s absurd. Pres. Obama’s administration has been hitting Republicans just as hard as they’ve been hitting him. “The party is led by Rush Limbaugh,” they’re “The party of no” “All the problems were left for me” etc.
You can agree or disagree with those statement however you like, but it’s very hard to argue that Obama is “staying above it all”. If it seems that way wrt health care…as in Obama is not passing legislation w/out a bi-partisan agreement…it’s because he can’t convince much of his own party to support it, not because it’s being held up by the handful of Republicans actually left in Congress.
The Republicans are IRRELEVANT. People have to stop blaming them and realize it doesn’t matter what they say anymore. There is one party in charge of everything right now, period. And if the leader of that party cannot get support for his initiatives, then there may be a reason for that beyond “the Republicans”.
Eye on Williamson » Obama must show emotion
September 3rd, 2009
1:27 pm
[...] also speculates, in another article, that if Obama doesn’t get fired up he’s likely to appear “out of touch”. Westen figures a politician as bright and canny as Obama should know that and shouldn’t shy away [...]
ATLPRINCE
September 6th, 2009
7:29 pm
Thank him
No one has talked about the stock market for months, why? Cause it’s UP.
Thank him
American car company’s just posted a huge profit because of “cash 4
clunkers”.
Thank him
The American government just made more than 4 Billion Dollars from the
loans that it made to banks and stands to make a ton more to help pay
down the deficit that was created when the last Administration
sqaundered our surplus and redirected it to their buddies in the war
contracting business.
Thank Him
Americans can now go to more places safely globally now that we as
Americans are looked at differently compared to the last administration.
Thank Him
He is trying to make sure every citizen has access to basic health
care, but you don’t care unless your “social” Medicare is cut.
Thank Him
AND YOU HAVE ENOUGH NERVE TO QUESTION A FORMER HARVARD COLLEGE PROFESSOR ABOUT
TALKING TO YOUR KIDS ABOUT THE VALUE OF STAYING IN SCHOOL! HOW DARE YOU, YOU UNGRATEFUL UNCONCIOUS
BIGOTS!!!!!
**YOU SHOULD THANK PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA FOR CARING ABOUT EVEN YOUR
MEAN, SELFISH, NARCACISTIC, UNDERCOVER RACIST, CAUCASION BUTT!!!!**
who cares
September 10th, 2009
12:10 pm
Here’s how it all works-the Gov’t is going to tax you if you have pvt health insurance thru work. The Gov’t is going to tax businesses if they don’t offer health insurance-or make them pay a penalty. It would cost LESS for the Business to pay the penalty/tax than to offer health insurance and supplement it. Next-the claim that you can keep your health insurance claim is true-somewhat. What the Democrats don’t tell you is, if you want to keep your current Health insurance, YOU will have to pay for it YOURSELF. FULL COST! Since that would be expensive, people would have no alternative but to go with the Gov’t plan. Therefore-the Gov’t gets money from Taxes/Penalties rec’v from businesses AND money rec’d by the people who are willing to pay a cheaper rate forthe Gov’t option. This may mean HIGHER individual Taxes. Bottom line-the insurance companies are going to go under. Why? Under the Gov’t plan-you cannot file suit for malpractice. A perfect Storm. BTW ATL PRINCE-
who cares
September 10th, 2009
12:13 pm
btw atl prince-why won’t The King of Kenya-Hussein Obama release his birth certificate to shut everyone up about his legit claim to the throne? knwo why-It’s may all be a lie for the dems to socialize this country like Kenya! And why is ATL in such bad shape? Don’t we have a BLACK Mayor? I thought THAT was supposed to solve everything? WRONG! Once the Reepubs take control in 2010-Obama, Pelosi and Reed will be put on trial for treason and LYING under oath. I hope they inact SHARIA law for THAT! I think it is 40 lashes! IMPEACH OBAMA!