EMOTIONS ARE THE NEW FACTS

Cambridge Analytica Uncovered: Secret filming reveals election tricks

UK Chanel 4 News documentary 19/03/2018

“The two fundamental human drivers when it comes to taking information on board effectively are hopes and fears and many of those are unspoken and even unconscious. You didn’t know that was a fear until you saw something that just evoked that reaction from you. And our job is to get, is to drop the bucket further down the well than anybody else, to understand what are those really deep-seated underlying fears, concerns. It’s no good fighting an election campaign on the facts because actually it’s all about emotion. The big mistake political parties make is that they attempt to win the argument rather than locating the emotional center of the issue, the concern, and speaking directly to that.”

Mark Turnbull, Managing Director CA Political Global

Politics is not a rational process, it is, as Mark Turnbull says, not about the facts, “it’s all about emotion.” The liberal left has failed to recognize this with the result that alt-right leaders, focusing on people’s fears, conscious and unconscious, are encouraging voters to seek safety in an all-powerful leader who promises to protect them and to restore power to the people. This is how populism responds to our fear of loss in the face of unemployment, migration, and the demise of communities. Rather than making false promises, why can’t the liberal left address our fear of loss by trying to change the future rather than revert to the past, and by replacing illusion with imagination?