Bernie Sanders, counter-revolutionary

2020-02-18T18:07:51Z

I just read a 2012 book by Chris Mooney called The Republican Brain. It’s a follow-up of sorts to his 2005 book, The Republican War on Science. In this latter book, Mooney explores why so many people in the Republican base seem more disposed to distrust scientific evidence than Democrats. To look for answers, he turns—this will shock you, I’m sure—to scientists.

He brings forth research from a variety of psychological studies indicating that on a widely-used scale of personality traits, liberals (not just Democrats in America, but people who favor liberal parties all over the world) tend to score high for a personality trait known as “Openness to Experience,” whereas conservatives tend to score high for a personality trait known as “Conscientiousness.” Think of a stereotypical liberal with no compunctions about trying out new foods, new drugs, and new pronouns, contrasted with a stereotypical conservative who wants their bed neatly made, their flags flying according to code, and their genders strictly binary.

Mooney acknowledges that when one of our two parties caters to people with the most extremely conservative personality traits, our body politic suffers. (Oh, Chris-of-2012, wringing your hands over polarized America, you don’t know how good we had it back then.) But he also acknowledges that we need all kinds of personalities for a healthy political system, and he admits that liberal personality traits, taken to extremes, can also be bad. He closes his book with a plea for Democrats to be a little more conservative, personality-wise. Don’t feel compelled to both-sides everything to death! When a Democrat has the White House, make yourself feel some loyalty, dammit!

Eight years later, Mooney may get his wish. Because, in the current presidential primaries, we have a true conservative Democrat running: one who knows how to make not-Open-To-Experience hearts beat faster, one who promises to Conscientiously set the country aright just so.

I refer, of course, to Bernie Sanders.

( No, really. )

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Bernie Sanders, counter-revolutionary