Well, just to clarify things a little (or muddy them, perhaps), seeing as how I was the person who wrote the post referred to in this quote:
–I don’t think it’s specifically “personality” (on the part of the candidate) that drives voting as much as it is a question of personal identity (on the part of the voter). Personality may play a role. Charisma, mentioned by a later poster, might play a role as well. But it’s more a subconscious “Oh, Joe and Heather and Fred are all supporting candidate X, and I want to be a part of any group that includes Joe and Heather and Fred” than it is “Wow, candidate X is really charismatic and really cool!” It’s being a part of a we: “We’re *Bernie *supporters: *we *go to rallies and we hate the establishment!” Not so much “feeling the Bern” as “feeling the sense of belonging.”
(As a non-political example, think about sports fans. Sure, they like the players on their favorite team, they like the team’s style of play, they like the uniforms; but let that favorite player leave for free agency, let homers rather than stolen bases become the team’s main offensive weapon, let the team change its colors, and they’ll do a 180. More important is the connection with other fans, the tribalism of a shared tradition, the knowledge that you can say “Miksis to Smalley to Addison Street” and the guy beside you at the ballpark will know *exactly *what you mean.)
–I didn’t say that ideology and positions don’t matter, and I wouldn’t: they do. Speaking personally, I’m not enamored of either Sanders or Trump. I see them as similar personalities in a lot of ways–ways that I don’t much like. I think both of them are needlessly abrasive, I think both of them are extremely thin-skinned, I think both of them are terrible listeners, I think both offer simplistic solutions to complex problems. Yet I’d have no trouble choosing between these two candidates if I had to vote for one or the other; off-putting though I find Sanders, I’d vote for him over Trump in a heartbeat, and I’d work for him too. Yes, I do see him as a “better person” than Trump, but mostly I approve of his positions on nearly all the issues, and I approve of Trump’s on…just about none of them. It’s too easy to say that it’s all about factors beyond policy.
–I think it’s always interesting trying to figure out what makes us choose Candidate A over Candidate B. There was some thread where a couple of pro-Sanders posters said that their candidate reminded them of older male relatives—grandfathers and uncles who were loud and opinionated and cranky but fundamentally kind and loving. So…were these posters drawn to Sanders’s position on banks, and then used good ol’ Uncle Charlie to buttress their already positive, policy-based opinion of the senator; or were they drawn to Sanders because he seemed so much like Gramps, and then adopted his ideas on policy after choosing to back him for a very different reason? I don’t have any older relatives who remind me much of Sanders, but I did have a couple of college professors years ago, irascible older men who talked over us, always seemed to be haranguing the class, and weren’t very approachable—and Sanders, I realize, reminds me of them. To what extent does my unfavorable impression of Sanders stem from what I say it does—notably, his tendency to reduce complex problems to sound bites—and to what extent am I making him pay for the sins of professors I had thirty-plus years ago?
–I don’t think this focus on identity is something that is specifically true of “today’s electorate.” I suspect that people have pretty much always voted for candidates based on factors of personality, belonging, and the like.
There. As I said, just to make things a little clearer.