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Why we vote the way we do

Because of the nature of the United States governing structure, the two-party political system has evolved as the dominate approach, guiding the focus of the nation. Although third-party folks such as Ross Perot and Ralph Nader have proven they can influence election outcome, there remains no alternative to the two-party system.

The establishment of the United States was pretty much an experiment. Taking from failed societies throughout history, the framers of the constitution included the good stuff and built in warnings and walls that would eliminate the bad stuff. The powerful of this newly formed nation then turned things over to the people… “The people” then jockeyed for position. They formed numerous political parties, all vying for power and control. Predictably, the U.S. political system evolved into what it is today, a two-party system. I say “predictably” because it is the way of things. Ancient Chinese knew it, and the “framers” knew it!

In his book; Polarity Management; Identifying and Managing Unsolvable Problems, author and Ph.D., Barry Johnson, makes the case for determining whether a problem is one you can actually solve (meaning that you will never have to worry about it becoming a problem again) or, a problem that must be forever managed (meaning that it would be a huge mistake to assume to have “fixed” something when it will eventually return to bite you on the butt, so to speak). Although his book seems to have been written primarily to support resolving dilemmas in business, Johnson clarifies how the resolution to an ongoing problem always evolves into an interdependent opposite, which he refers to as a “polarity”.

Simply put; when we are problem-solving, it comes down to an either/or choice—If it is truly a problem to be solved you will correctly choose one or the other. If it is actually a problem to be managed, a polarity, you should understand that whatever resolution is applied will have to be revisited.

An example of an interdependent opposite, or polarity, is Head thinking and Heart thinking. Head thinkers lean more toward reason and logic when resolving issues; the danger is that their decisions may be looked at as uncaring and thoughtless. Heart thinkers think of themselves as caring folks. They tend to apply a measure of right and wrong to their decision-making process and may be perceived as being not in touch with reality. Herein lies the unmistakable philosophy of the two-party political system and also points to its value- The extreme of either is bad, somewhere in the middle is good! Hence, we have two dominate political parties. They are called Republican and Democrat… It can be said they represent the Head and Heart Polarity exactly.

Our decision to whom gets our vote may well already be obvious to us. It will be based on one of two ways relative to how we react to “things”. They are, in predominant order; 

(1) Personality trait

(2) Cause and effect

At least in national and state elections, we will probably vote our mindset. If our personality tends to make us more of a Head thinker we will probably vote conservative (Republican). If our personality tends to make us more of a Heart thinker we will probably vote Liberal (Democratic).

However, there is cause and effect to worry about- Cause and effect can override personality because it involves emotion. Since emotion has no IQ, we tend to disregard our tendency to react according to our personality and let our emotion make our decisions.