Dann Todd's 'Dain Bramage'^**

How The Republican Mind Works

From William Safire and the NYTimes comes this bit of internal debate presented for public consumption:

What holds the five Republican factions together? To find out, I depth-polled my own brain.

He goes on to describe five centers of thought that he feels most Republicans share. What is interesting is how he describes the resolution between the competing factions.

If these different strains of thought were held by discrete groups of single-minded people, we would have a Republican Party of five warring bands. Social conservatives would fight libertarians over sex, who in turn would savage neocons over pre-emption, who in turn would hoot at the objections of economic conservatives (traditional division) to huge deficits.

But think of these internecine battles not as tugs of war among single-minded groups; instead, think of them as often-conflicting ideas held within the brain of an individual Republican. What goes on is ''cognitive dissonance,'' the jangling of competing inclinations, with the owner of the brain having to work out trade-offs, suppressions and compromises until he or she achieves a kind of puzzled tranquillity within.

What helps me work out that continual internal skirmishing is a mind-set. That brings us to those ''values'' that every candidate talks about. My values include self-reliance over community dependence, intervention over isolation, self-discipline over society's regulation, finding pleasure in work rather than working to find pleasure. Principles like those help me gel a mind-set that reduces the loudest dissonances among my fistful of clanging conservatisms.

Which culminates in having to pick a candidate come election time.

Finally, the dissonance inside my head will be forced into harmony by the need to choose one leader who reflects the preponderance of my views and my judgment of his character.

I will take my teeming noggin to both conventions, watch all the debates and cast my vote -- careful, in the tradition of Times columnists, not to endorse anyone. But now you know how one Republican mind will be made up. I presume the liberal brain works the same way.

As does the libertarian brain. Regardless of the bramage.....

by Dann 

|