Politics and Emotions

The popular media stirs group feelings and mob emotions. The crowds at the arena...the thousands at the coliseum and those in the stalls at the theatre — they need heroes and villains, not complex ideas and ambiguity.

Of course, ideas can be made accessible by the masses. But only by stripping out the complexity and nuance, making them so barren and so remote from the whole story that they are rarely more than collective fantasies, shared as feelings...

The masses don’t want to think. They just feel. Every flack...and hack politician knows that feelings sell. Not ideas.

That’s why Ron Paul...an idea guy...is trailing Mitt Romney at such a distance.

The masses form their opinions...choose their candidates...and spend their money on the basis of feelings. Real thoughts are banished.

The presidential race is really little more than a contest to which line of guff most voters will take...that is, how they will feel about the candidates and their themes.

Bill Bonner on Economic Recovery Education.