The Republican Party Has Emotionally Collapsed

For decades the strength of the Republican Party was its ability to forge an emotional connection with its voters, but that too has now collapsed.

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Most people are familiar with the old American politics cliche that Democrats are the intellectuals who appeal to voters based on the issues, and Republicans motivate their voters with emotional appeals.

As with any cliche, there was some truth to it at one time. In the 1950s, Democrats ran Adlai Stevenson against Dwight Eisenhower, and this seems to be where the idea that Democrats were a bunch of intellectuals who didn’t get their hands dirty came from in modern American politics.

Republicans grew to depend on emotional appeals to motivate their voters, and many times it worked. Today, Fox News should be viewed as a giant media company that is built on emotionally manipulating its audience. Much of the GOP’s emotional manipulation is based on anger and fear, and Republica…