company:republicans

Opinion | Democrats Appealing to the Heart? Yes, Please - The New York Times
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/26/opinion/democratic-party-advertisements.html

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/06/27/nyregion/27wed2/27wed2-facebookJumbo.jpg

It is a longstanding stereotype that, when it comes to political combat, Democrats aim for the electorate’s head while Republicans aim for its gut. The emotional route tends to be discussed in largely negative terms, with Republicans accused of fearmongering on issues ranging from gay marriage to crime to immigration. There is maybe no more glaring case study of this than the 2016 matchup between Hillary Clinton, with her reputation as an overachieving wonk incapable of connecting with voters, and Donald Trump, with his know-nothing, visceral demagogy. Candidate Trump had few policy ideas and may have known less about how government works than any nominee in the history of the Republic. But he was, and is, a master at connecting — albeit on a dark, primordial level.

But this trend goes beyond any specific contest. Reams have been written about how Democrats more often operate with an eye toward wooing voters with more rational, data-driven appeals. As Drew Westen, a professor of psychology at Emory University and the author of the 2005 book “The Political Brain,” has noted, “Democrats typically bombard voters with laundry lists of issues, facts, figures and policy positions, while Republicans offer them emotionally compelling appeals, whether to their values, principles or prejudices.” In that sense, there’s truth to the Republican attack line that Democrats are a bunch of know-it-all elitists who think they are so much smarter than “regular” Americans: Democratic politicians all too often convey the impression that, if only they could make the electorate understand the superiority of their policies, victory would follow.

Except that most voters don’t vote on policy specifics. Despite fancying themselves rational creatures, people are often more influenced by tribal identification or the personal appeal of a candidate.

Of course, this political stereotype, like all stereotypes, is an oversimplification — and one with notable exceptions. (Two words: Bill Clinton.) But it does suggest that Democrats could work a bit harder on their emotional savvy.

#Politique_USA #Communication #Publicité_politique

Republicans see Obama as bigger threat than Putin and Assad, says poll | US news | The Guardian
▻http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/mar/30/republicans-see-obama-as-bigger-threat-than-putin-and-assad-says-poll

A Reuters/Ipsos online poll this month asked 2,809 Americans to rate how much of a threat a list of countries, organisations and individuals posed to the United States on a scale of 1 to 5, with one being no threat and 5 being an imminent threat.

The poll showed 34% of Republicans ranked Obama as an imminent threat, ahead of Putin (25%), who has been accused of aggression in the Ukraine, and Assad (23%). Western governments have alleged that Assad used chlorine gas and barrel bombs on his own citizens.

Given the level of polarisation in American politics the results are not that surprising, said Barry Glassner, a sociologist and author of “The Culture of Fear: Why Americans are afraid of the wrong things.“

“There tends to be a lot of demonising of the person who is in the office,” Glassner said, adding that “fear mongering” by the Republican and Democratic parties would be a mainstay of the US 2016 presidential campaign.

“The TV media here, and American politics, very much trade on fears,” he said.

The Ipsos survey, done between March 16 and March 24, included 1,083 Democrats and 1,059 Republicans.

Twenty-seven percent of Republicans saw the Democratic Party as an imminent threat to the United States, and 22% of Democrats deemed Republicans to be an imminent threat.

People who were polled were most concerned about threats related to potential terror attacks. Islamic State militants were rated an imminent threat by 58% of respondents, and al Qaeda by 43%. North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un was viewed as a threat by 34%, and Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei by 27%.

Cyber attacks were viewed as an imminent threat by 39%, and drug trafficking was seen as an imminent threat by a third of the respondents.

Democrats were more concerned about climate change than Republicans, with 33% of Democrats rating global warming an imminent threat. Among Republicans, 27 percent said climate change was not a threat at all.

The data was weighted to reflect the U.S. population and has a credibility interval, a measure of accuracy, of plus or minus 2.1 percentage points for all adults (3.4 points for Democrats and 3.4 points for Republicans.)