Thursday Reads: No Ambiguity Please! We’re conservatives!!!

Good Morning!

For those of us that wonder wtf is wrong with people that call themselves “conservative”, there are more studies that show that the people that self-identify as such are more “threat oriented”.   Conservatives tend to have a bias towards negativity and respond to things they perceive as threats.  They also appear to hate ambiguity and gray areas.  So, something in their brains causes them to be intimidated by all kinds of things.

The occasion of this revelation is a paper by John Hibbing of the University of Nebraska and his colleagues, arguing that political conservatives have a “negativity bias,” meaning that they are physiologically more attuned to negative (threatening, disgusting) stimuli in their environments. (The paper can be read for free here.) In the process, Hibbing et al. marshal a large body of evidence, including their own experiments using eye trackers and other devices to measure the involuntary responses of political partisans to different types of images. One finding? That conservatives respond much more rapidly to threatening and aversive stimuli (for instance, images of “a very large spider on the face of a frightened person, a dazed individual with a bloody face, and an open wound with maggots in it,” as one of their papers put it).

In other words, the conservative ideology, and especially one of its major facets—centered on a strong military, tough law enforcement, resistance to immigration, widespread availability of guns—would seem well tailored for an underlying, threat-oriented biology.

Hibbing’s Research supports earlier research.  (Yes BB!  Here’s the link! ) Jost and earlier researchers have found similar patterns in the brains and actions of self-identified conservatives. Researcher’s have found that “conservatives are characterized by traits such as a need for certainty and an intolerance of ambiguity” . Jost’s work in 2003 brought heaps of criticism by the usual suspects.  That would be icky George Will, the revolting Ann Coulter, and writers from the National Review. It almost seemed like they were trying to prove the researchers correct.  Jost examines the current Hibbing et al study.

There is by now evidence from a variety of laboratories around the world using a variety of methodological techniques leading to the virtually inescapable conclusion that the cognitive-motivational styles of leftists and rightists are quite different. This research consistently finds that conservatism is positively associated with heightened epistemic concerns for order, structure, closure, certainty, consistency, simplicity, and familiarity, as well as existential concerns such as perceptions of danger, sensitivity to threat, and death anxiety. [Italics added]

Senate Democrats have been trying to fight back some of the most outrageous findings of SCOTUS that force the white male, Opus Dei Catholic’s idea of religion on women.  As expected, the Senate Republicans blocked the move.

Senate Republicans on Wednesday blocked legislation that would require companies to provide birth control coverage in their employee healthcare plans.

The bill failed to advance in a 56-43 vote, with Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Susan Collins (Maine) and Mark Kirk (Ill.) voting with Democrats.

“Today, Senate Republicans blocked legislation that would have made it illegal for any company to deny their employees and dependents specific health benefits required by federal law, like birth control,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said after the vote. “Senate Republicans continue to demonstrate that they are out of touch with women across America.”

Reid switched his vote to “no” on the bill before the vote was closed, giving him the option of bringing it up again.

Democrats put forward the bill to reverse the effects of last month’s Supreme Court ruling, which found that the government could not mandate that certain employers provide birth-control coverage if it conflicts with their religious beliefs.

Republicans have cheered the ruling as a victory for the First Amendment, and say the protections that the high court afforded the Hobby Lobby chain under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act should remain in place.

On the left, the backlash to the ruling has been intense. Democrats want to harness that anger as they try to turn out their voters in the midterm elections.

“Women across the country are watching,” said Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.). “Who should be in charge of a woman’s healthcare decisions? Should it be a woman — making those decisions with her partner, her doctor and her faith? Or should it be her boss — making those decisions for her based on his own religious beliefs?”

Patty is right.  The anger of women and the ever-widening gender gap may help Senate Democrats maintain majority control.  News outlets following fall races are noting how the gender gap plays out in many races.  Here is an NBC report showing recent polls.

When it comes to the Republican Party’s path to a Senate majority, so much of the focus has been on the red states. But the difference between the GOP pursuing a lasting majority and one that is temporary — or even elusive — is how it performs in purple and blue states like Colorado and Michigan. And our brand-new NBC/Marist polls of Colorado and Michigan show Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO) leading Cory Gardner (R) by seven points among registered voters, 48%-41%, in Colorado’s key Senate race. They find Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) ahead of GOP challenger Bob Beauprez by six points, 49%-43%. They have Rep. Gary Peters (D-MI) up over Republican Terri Lynn Land by six, 43%-37%, in Michigan’s Senate contest. And they show Gov. Rick Snyder (R) leading Democratic challenger Mark Schauer by two points, 46%-44%. So why are Udall, Peters, and Snyder all ahead in their contests? Here’s an explanation: mind the gaps — the gender gap, the Latino gap, and the independent gap. In Colorado, Udall is up by 12 points among female voters (50%-38%), as Democratic groups like Senate Majority PAC are up with TV ads (like this one) on abortion and contraception. Indeed, 70% of Colorado voters in the NBC/Marist poll said they were less likely to vote for a candidate who supports restrictions on the use of contraception. And in Michigan, Peters is ahead by 13 points with women (46%-33%).

Important races will most likely be determined by the level of anger in the black community over voter suppression legislation, hispanic anger over the refugee crisis on the border, and the anger of women who have had it with all the attacks on their reproductive rights and statements to the effect that there is no such thing as work place discrimination.  Senate Minority Leader McConnell just announced that workplace sexism is over and things like equal pay laws just are giving women preferential treatment.

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)—challenging the notion that Republicans are waging a war on women—recently told a group of Kentuckians that gender discrimination in the workplace is a thing of the past. “I could be wrong, but most of the barriers have been lowered,” McConnell said while visiting a small business in Buckner, Kentucky. “Women voters will look at the same issues as men are.” His remarks wererecorded and reported by a local newspaper, the Oldham Era.

Speaking last Thursday at Fastline Publications, which produces farm equipment catalogs, McConnell, who’s in a tough reelection fight against Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes, cited the prevalence of female CEOs as evidence that women are thriving within corporate America. “We’ve come a long way in pay equity, and there are a ton of women CEOs now running major companies,” McConnell said.

“I don’t grant the assumption that we need to sort of give preferential treatment to the majority of our population, which is, in my view, leading and performing,” McConnell said, referring to women in the workplace. He added, “Maybe I’m missing something here.” Noting that Grimes was claiming that McConnell has promoted “policies that are harmful to women,” he criticized her for pursuing an agenda of “exploitation for political purposes.” He asserted that Grimes was trying “to convince people that women should vote for her because she’s a woman.” He noted that the last time he ran for reelection, he won 50 percent of women.

McConnell’s facts are off. Women have had greater success in recent years in reaching the top-tier of corporate America, with a record number of women leading Fortune 500 companies this year. But that number is still small. Of the top 500 corporate CEOs, just 24—4.8 percent—are women. That’s hardly representative of the American public given that, as McConnell noted, women make up more than half of the population. Moreover, in 2013, women held just 16.9 percent of board slots at Fortune 500 companies, according to a study by Catalyst, a nonprofit that tracks gender trends in employment. That same study found that 10 percent of Fortune 500 companies didn’t have any female board members.

As for pay equity, Catalyst’s research shows that women represent only 8.1 percent of the top earner slots at major companies. The specific numbers are often debated, but the data shows that men tend to make more than women throughout the economy. Democrats contend that women earn 77 cents for every dollar pocketed by men, a figure calculated by comparing all full-time female workers to their male counterparts without taking into account differences in occupation. But when men and women in the same career field are compared, the men still come out on top …

The entire Republican party–this includes old cranky white men and the women that cling to them like victims of Stockholm Syndrome–run on platforms of running scared from science, modernity and racial and religious minorities, women and GLBT  humans that won’t stay in their assigned, oppressed roles. This so fits with the research noted above.

In their eagerness to label busloads of children dangerous, a group of Arizona xenophobes chased down a bus of local school children headed for YMCA summer camp.

Protesters waved “Return to Sender” signs, shoved a group of mariachi musicians and waited for a bus of immigrant children that the local sheriff told them would arrive. At one point, they briefly halted a bus before realizing it was carrying children from a YMCA.

According to USA Today, Arizona Rep. Adam Kwasman was among those who thought that the bus of YMCA campers was full of migrant children, tweeting: “Bus coming in. This is not compassion. This is the abrogation of the rule of law.”

He later deleted the tweet and apologized for the mistake.

A GOP congressman decries the refugee children as diseased and unvaccinated. Ironically, this congressman has opposed mandatory vaccinations.   He also feared they would bring Ebola to the US.  Ebola is a disease that has been found in Africa and Asia.

Last week, Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.) wrote a letter to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention with a dire warning: Some of the child refugeesstreaming across the southern border into the United States might carry deadly diseases. “Reports of illegal immigrants carrying deadly diseases such as swine flu, dengue fever, Ebola virus and tuberculosis are particularly concerning,” Gingrey wrote. “Many of the children who are coming across the border also lack basic vaccinations such as those to prevent chicken pox or measles.”

Gingrey’s analysis carried an aura of credibility among conservatives, because, as Judicial Watch noted, the congressman is “also [a] medical doctor.” But his two-page letter is filled with false charges—there’s no evidence that migrants carry Ebola or that they’re less likely to be vaccinated—from an inconvenient messenger: The congressman has himself pushed legislation to discourage some kinds of mandatory vaccinations in the United States.

According to the World Health Organization, Ebola virus has only ever affected humans in sub-Saharan Africa. (It has been found in China and the Philippines, but has never caused an illness, let alone a fatality.) Central America is far away from sub-Saharan Africa:

Another GOP congressman has announced that all these children are the gang members who will export a “culture of rape”.

A Florida Republican congressman called undocumented immigrant children at the border not children at all but gang-affiliated persons from a culture of thievery, murder, and violence.

“A lot of these children … quote-unquote … ya know, the first caller mentioned it, ya know, they’re gang members. They’re gang affiliated,” Florida Republican Rep. Rich Nugent said on WOCA radio Monday.

Nugent added that the culture the children were coming from was one of violence and there would be a complications in bringing the children into American culture.

“Listen, if you’re 14, 15, 16, 17 years old, and you’re coming from a country that’s gang-infested — particularly with MS-13 types, that is the most aggressive of all the street gangs — when you have those types coming across the border, they’re not children at that point. These kids have been brought up in a culture of thievery. A culture of murder, of rape. And now we are going to infuse them into the American culture. It’s just ludicrous.”

Thousands of children, many under the age of 8, have crossed the border in recent months from Central America.

So, again, small children are made into some kind of perceived threat.  They obviously aren’t here for jobs.  So, they must fall into some other kind of threat.  These examples show how low some minds can go.

Anyway, that’s my contribution for today.  Next time you read something one of these nutters says, you can assure yourself it’s all in their minds.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?