J. Eric Oliver

America has a lot to thank Donald Trump for say sociologists J. Eric Oliver and Thomas J. Wood. But his tweets are not among them.

“Enchanted America: How Intuition and Reason Divide Our Politics” tells us that Trump’s America is not and never has been as rational as some experts would like us to believe.

Rather, a majority of Americans actually believe the myths and fairy tales their religious congregations teach them and fail to see the reality before their own eyes.

The bullying racist talk shows, the negative-ad politics, even the exclusionary political actions of the Republicans count more as symptoms of the problem instead of the problem itself.

America is in the hands today of people who prefer an enchanted view of the world, who when faced with ambiguity and uncertainty panic in favour of pat answers and their own intuition of what must be right and what must be wrong.

The response of the intuitionist right is little more than a natural response to this environment especially one cultured by today’s media and social media landscape where “breaking news” and “crisis” entertainment consumes our waking hours.

So now I can lay awake at night not only worrying that Donald Trump might push the nuclear button instead of the Twitter Send button by mistake. There are millions of Donald Trumps along my southern border (I being Canadian) who when given the chance might do exactly the same.… (mer)