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People who are worried and uncertain cope in several ways. One of the first things we do is try to give ourselves a sense of control. Control helps ease the feeling of threat and danger. We certainly saw a lot of that in the recent elections. As in "We're taking back our government", a rallying cry that might just as well be "Voting out the people in power is a way of feeling like we're taking some control over how things are going, because in unsettling times taking control feels reassuring." Except that's not quite as good a slogan.
The punditry is pointing out how angry people seem, and how much they want change, blaming bad economic times for these passions. They are right, of course, but they miss a far more important and fundamental factor. We're worried. Worried about our safety. Worry about our financial security. Worried about the future. Worrying - feeling threatened - triggers powerful ancient self-protective instincts. In political terms those instincts are currently fueling not only the relatively few (albeit loud) voices in the Tea Party, but much more broadly throughout the electorate, led to the largest rejection of a sitting political party in more than 70 years. But these are symptoms. The cause is far deeper. This vote was a demonstration of how we behave when we're worried and trying to protect ourselves.
In the elections two years ago that brought Barack Obama to the Presidency, the desire for change was more about ideology. The dark days of economic disaster had not yet fully blossomed. There was plenty of the standard frustration about government and politicians putting personal power above country and policy in that vote, but there wasn't nearly as much deep-in-the-gut worry. Starting around Obama's election (and before he was even sworn in), the economic skies darkened significantly, and two years later there is no bright horizon in view. That's deeply unsettling. Since the "Yes We Can" election of 2008, all those Obama voters have not suddenly become politically conservative. They've become more worried. Sorry, Speaker Boehner and Senator Minority Leader McConnell, but this vote was not specifically a rejection of the health care reform law or the stimulus package. It wasn't even rejection of Democrats. It was a vote by people who, rightfully worried and uncertain, sought a reassuring sense of control by voting against the politicians that happen in charge at the moment.
It's vital to understand what's driving this deep worry. The economy is a big part of it, but only a part. Yes, unemployment is high, but 90% of the people who want jobs have one. Sluggish growth generally, and no improvement in sight? Important, yes, but that's not it alone. How about terrorist threats, climate change, unstable regimes with nuclear weapons (and the missiles to project their fear far beyond their borders), new germs that can resist our most powerful drugs, an ever-more overpopulated world running out of basic things like fish in the ocean and clean water and arable land? It's all of these threats, and many more, magnified by a 24/7 "The Sky is Falling" information media that hypes danger and conflict, all feeding our gnawing sense of uncertainty, and worry, and hunger for a sense of control, and safety.
The evidence that we are worried and trying to establish a sense of control is everywhere. We buy guns, though they provide far more sense of security (control) than actual protection. We buy "plastic and duct tape" to seal off a room in case of biological or chemical attack. Laughable, you say? 90 million Americans bought some. "I know it looks stupid," one purchaser told a TV reporter, "but at least it gives me the feeling I can do something." (Control.) In the wake of the airplane attacks on 9/11/01 thousands chose to drive rather than fly, because driving affords the sense of control/safety, and more than 1,000 more people died on America's roads in the ensuing three months than would have been expected.
The desire for control, and safety, harms us in other ways. It divides us. We circle our tribal wagons and vilify as the enemy anyone who simply happens to disagree with us, or we lash out at others who "want to take away OUR rights" or "take away OUR jobs" or "...impose THEIR values/religion/sexual preferences on US". Sound familiar? Those are the voices of people who feel threatened, rallying under the banners of various tribes to fight back and take control, by opposing Islamic cultural centers, or immigration, or anybody in government who has failed in two short years to completely turn around the worst economic disaster our economy has known since the Great Depression. We do this as a survival mechanism because as social animals we have evolved to depend on our tribe for protection. En masse we can fight back, influence how things are going, and take control, more than we can as individuals.
This is what people do when we are uncertain and worried. We try to make ourselves at least feel safer by manifesting some control. This election was not a vote about ideology, or party, or even the economy. "It's about the WORRY, stupid", is more the heart of the matter. President Obama takes responsibility for having failed to lead by paying too much attention to policy and not enough to people's concerns. He would do well to recognize that at the core of those concerns, among other things, is worry, and worry is corrosive. It is contributes to the anger and polarity and divisiveness and extremism that makes progress so much harder to achieve. (The next couple years in Congress are going to be a mess! Tal about ribalism. Republicans say theire one aim in the next two years is to oust President Obama. Good for their tribe maybe but is that kind of obstructionism good for America?)
We do have to fear fear itself, a quote the President had stitched into the new carpet in the oval office, because it leads to a desire for control that drives us apart. And that division makes it so much harder to do the things we need to do to actually make things better.
