Politics is in the blood!

Why do we vote the way we do?  Simple says American writer and journalist Rick Shenkman – we’re stupid!

Well, fair enough, Shenkman – author of “Just How Stupid are we – the truth about the American voter” – was writing about the American voters.

Shenkman’s latest tome is a variation on the same theme. “Political Animals – How our Stone Age brain gets in the way of smart politics” predictably touches on the support which Donald Trump is now garnering in the United States.  But there is more to it than that.

Shenkman says that events such as your favourite sports team winning close to election day can seriously influence how you vote.

If you are buoyed up and happy because Manchester United headed in four goals to win 4-0 then you will not take any heed of the “whingers” in Castlebar; you will be far more likely to use your head and vote for the party in power.

Who would want to change the way the world is when your favourite team is winning?  Nobody would be that stupid.

Off course it might be a good thing for us that Rick Shenkman is operating on the far side of the Atlantic.   If Rick got wind of the way some families got ingrained in Fianna Fáil and others in Fine Gael because of a local dispute 95 years ago, he would blow a fuse.

What kind of words would Rick use at all if he heard the whole story about our politics?  He’d say we were not using our heads; indeed he might even say we are stupid.

But, off course, like a lot of smart people Rick Shenkman is wrong –and there is science available to show that too.

Professor Kevin Smith is in charge of the Political Science Department in the University of Nebraska in the United States.

Smith and his team have gone to the core of the subject of why we vote the way we do.

“Our basic voting instincts are dictated by inner leanings and not by a minute study of the various issues at election time”, says the Professor.

“Results from studies we have carried out show that our political instincts are woven in the brain on a biological basis”.

So how do they know that in Nebraska?

Highly scientific studies in regard to this issue have been – and are being – carried out in laboratories in the University of Nebraska.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.