Gad Saad, a Canadian professor who seems a lot saner and more courageous than the general run of academics, has published an article in Newsweek: Kamala Harris is Hoping You Turn Your Brain Off and Vote on Emotion. He cites actor Ben Stiller on the reasons for his support for Harris: “All the energy and excitement that is around this movement right now.”
Emotional appeals are of course nothing new in politics: Plenty of people surely voted for John F Kennedy because he seemed more ‘youthful’ and ‘vigorous’ than did Nixon. And, as Professor Saad noted, emotional appears are also common in commercial marketing–“Sell the sizzle, not the steak” is an old saying in sales and marketing. And constructed iconic figures such as Betty Crocker have long been common. Still, it is also true that the marketing had better not depart too far from the truth about the product: if the steak is no good, the restaurant isn’t going to be getting a lot of return visits. If the cake mix results in an inedible cake, the customer is probably not going to buy that brand again.
Although emotional appeals are nothing new in politics, it seems clear that the Harris/Walz campaign is taking such appeals to new heights/depths. The characters projected for Harris and Walz has been constructed by some very smart people based on their assessment of what will sell. Does ‘opportunity’ poll well? Then have her talk about the ‘opportunity society.’ Is ‘freedom’ valued by most Americans? Then have her use that word a lot, regardless of how disconnected it may be from her actual policies. Indeed, the strategy appears to be to have her delay talking about policy as long as possible, similar to the way an overpriced restaurant may want to avoid having you see the actual menu until you’ve already made a reservation, parked (with valet parking) and have your entire party sitting down at the table.
There’s a pulp novel from 1954, Year of Consent, which projects a future United States which is nominally still a democracy–but the real power lies with the social engineers, sophisticated advertising & PR men who use psychological methods to persuade people that they really want what they are supposed to want. When I reviewed this book in 2021, I saw some disturbing parallels with our present society. Today, and especially in the context of the Harris/Walz campaign, the parallels are even more disturbing. Review is here.
In the world posited by this novel: While the US still has a President, he is a figurehead and the administration of the country is actually done by the General Manager of the United States, who himself serves at the pleasure of the social engineers. Don’t we see a great deal of this today, with the increasing power of the administrative departments–and, especially, the figurehead nature of the current President, all highly dependent on the goodwill of the Communicating Classes? And isn’t the rage against X/Twitter and Elon Musk driven by the perception that this platform dares to defect from the unity of those Communicating Classes?
Are there enough people in the US today who are willing to seriously think about issues and policies, rather than just supporting and voting for what gives them a positive instantaneous feeling of some kind? By analogy, will they evaluate the car for reliability, performance, mileage, and crashworthiness, or will they just go with the model that shows the car with happy and attractive people?
And how can rational candidates do a better job of coupling solid policy stories with emotional appeals that are truly relevant as well as hard-hitting?