Many analysts are obsessed with a specific slice of the 2016 electorate: Democrats who voted for Donald Trump. This small demographic had outside influence on the final results, and, because of that, political strategists ponder how they might be persuaded to return to their traditional electoral home.

New research suggests detailed PowerPoint presentations are doomed to fail. Ditto richly researched analytical essays.

A study that examined voters' styles of thinking finds that, as expected, Democrats are somewhat more analytically oriented than Republicans. This supports the idea that conservatism is something of a default setting, and rejecting it requires intellectual reasoning.

However, the biggest difference in cognitive approaches was between two subsets of the electorate: Democrats who voted for Trump, and Republicans who refused to do so. The first group scored the lowest of any on reflective thinking; the latter group scored the highest.

"Trump, and the campaign that he ran, may have been particularly attractive for relatively intuitive individuals, and repellent for relatively analytical individuals," write psychologists Gordon Pennycook of the University of Regina and David Rand of Yale University. Their study is published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

Cognitive Reflection Test, in which they attempt to solve seven problems. Each has an obvious but wrong intuitive answer; correct responses therefore indicate a person utilizes analytical thinking.

One example: "If you're running a race and you pass the person who is in second place, what place are you in?" The intuitive answer is "first"; the correct answer is "second."

The researchers then compared thinking styles with self-described political leanings and voting patterns. They found "an overall negative correlation between the propensity to think analytically and conservative political ideology."

Scores on the cognitive reflection test were higher among Hillary Clinton voters than Trump voters, and higher among Democrats than Republicans. They were particularly low among strong social conservatives (but not their economic-conservative counterparts).

However, a subgroup of conservatives proved to be highly analytical.

"Libertarians and individuals who voted for third-party candidates tended to score higher on the cognitive reflection test than other groups," the researchers report. This makes sense, in that "given being a Democrat or Republican is more often a default position, and eschewing those presumably relies on analytic thinking."

In addition, Pennycook and Rand found people who did not vote scored lower than people who did. This suggests analytic thinking "facilitates interest and engagement in political issues."

That said, the results suggest Trump connected with many non-analytical Americans, and motivated them to vote—in many cases, for the first time in a while. "Perhaps our most striking finding," the researchers write, is "the particularly low scores (on the analytic-thinking test) among Democrats who voted for Trump. This may be because one of the most salient features of Trump himself was his reliance on intuition and impulse, along with an informal communication style."

They also point out that many of Trump's policy proposals had an "intuitively or emotionally compelling appeal, as opposed to being built around detail and careful analysis." A brick wall across the entire United States-Mexican border may be an absurd idea, they note, but it evokes "compelling mental imagery."

So Democrats who voted for Trump are not going to be won back by intellectual arguments. A more fruitful strategy might be for the party to nominate a candidate who reflects the cognitive style of its members—and a slogan that cements this shared bond.

Democrats might consider a new slogan for 2020: Make America Ruminate Again.

https://psmag.com/news/the-least-analytical-2016-voters-democrats-who-supported-trump

 

I think you just summed up 24K comments in the trump thread.


Saying Stuff and Thangs!!

 

Yes, the size of her posts are equal to the sum total of 24k of our normal posts

 

So the article suggests Democrats select a candidate that morons like?

 

Yes, if you want to win back the small group of morons that flipped over to Trump. lol

Actually, I think it means be resigned that that group isn't likely to come back, so don't waste any time strategizing to get them back. But, since they weren't Republicans to begin with, they don't have as much invested in him being a "success." So perhaps they are the group of Trump voters most able to figure out that they made a mistake. Well, apart from the actual Republicans that were fleeing the party last year.

 

My niece, who voted for him because she watched Celebrity Apprentice, claims that she is still voting for him, even though she lost a lot of money in taxes this year. And is constantly being harassed by white people, because she is half Mexican. Her reasoning- he manipulates the system to better himself. WTF


The truth is out there

 

That's wild. A vote for sociopathy. lol

 

She’s one who knows about rigging the system, as she did it while on welfare and working.

I just laughed when she bitched about having to pay into taxes this year, as she usually got a nice chunk of money back. And how some of the people in her church called ICE on her. Lol
In all honesty, she looks more Native American then Hispanic. She now has to carry her birth certificate with her, in case it happens again. As does her sister. Fun thing is, her Dad was born in Wisconsin, and his father, in Texas.


The truth is out there

 

Mind blown. I can't imagine how awful it would be to have to carry papers. And then support the man who brings us to that point.... People are endlessly fascinating.

 

Here is that poll people were discussing earlier, the one that said Bernie supporters would vote for Trump over Warren.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michae...n-the-new-bernie-buttigieg-poll/#1fa5316d7ddd

Other weird things in there too.

 

Thank you, tink!

(Saving for myself: Michael Durkheimer, Contributor, writes about numbers, polls and interesting data)

 

Bernie's sleazy surrogates are attacking Buttigieg now too for saying there are similarities between some Trump and Sanders supporters. So much for unity.

 

Warren's proposal for free college and debt relief for people with student loans is a disaster. Not only is it unfeasible but it's handing the Republicans the sort of ammo they need to help keep their Dead Leader in the White House for another 4 years. Democrats need to listen to Obama and Pelosi. They have a good pulse on politics and what it takes to win. Obama has been issuing warning to Dems for the past couple of years. But not enough people are paying attention. It's so damn frustrating.

 

I am so rolling my eyes at Sanders "everyone should make the same amount of money" policy. That makes no sense to me. Am I reading this wrong?

 

Bwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!

Obama and Pelosi played a very large role in bringing Democrats to the edge of the proverbial cliff of insanity. They all went along with them willingly and with giant grins on their faces. Now Obama and Pelosi are trying to be the "voices of reason" and no one is listening to them anymore. Well golly gee whiz... I wonder why?

This is what happens when you are willing to say anything in order to pander for votes. That's exactly what Obama and Pelosi did, and that's apparently what Warren is willing to do. She knows it's a bad idea. She's got to. Anyone with half a brain ought to know it's bad. But she also sees the writing on the wall... a party that has moved radically to the left and supporters/voters who show interest in these wacky ideas.

 

He's for a universal wage for every citizen, or some sort of nonsense. I didn't hear anything about everyone making the same, I think it's just that the bottom tier all makes the same "living wage." I don't know, but it's not feasible, like everything else he says.

Yesterday I was mainly focused on the idiocy of him wanting inmates to have the right to vote from prison. This guy is horrendous.

 

It sounds like he thinks even the 1% should equal those who choose to not educate themselves or even employ themselves. I am confused.

And the murderers being able to vote? Harris even kinda agrees with this. Wtf.

 

We need a good republican candidate to challenge Trump. Or Boot-a-judge needs to come out with his damn policies.

 

So, turns out Bernie Sanders bought over 22,000 of his own books using his campaign contribution funds:

https://twitter.com/filmystic/status/1120229393358569474

Ryan Adams ️ ️‍‏ @filmystic
This isn't very pretty Bernie Sanders: "Write a best-selling book like I did and you can be wealthy like I am." NYTimes bestsellers sell at least 9,000 copies the first week Bernie spent $445,000 of campaign donations to buy his own books? ($445,000 @ $20/book = 22,250 books)


12:34 AM - 22 Apr 2019



So maybe not as big a 'best seller' as he claims if he has to boost his own numbers.