America isn’t divided by politics. According to Brent Buchanan, it’s actually divided by biology.
Buchanan makes the case that voters no longer make decisions logically but emotionally, driven by something hardwired into human behavior.
“I began looking at academic research on what actually drives human behavior, specifically when it relates to voting. And the question goes back to, ‘What drives human behavior, period?’” he tells BlazeTV host Steve Deace on the “Steve Deace Show.”
And Buchanan’s answer to that question, while complicated, is actually quite simple. At the end of the day, it is survival that informs our decision-making.
“It doesn’t matter if somebody’s voting, buying a car, getting married. It is all this biological fact that our brains were built to conserve energy. And the least caloric way that we can take in, process information, and make decisions is emotionally through our subconscious, through the inside part of our brain, not through the prefrontal cortex,” he explains.
“It makes a lot of sense … biologically, we were built for survival. And everything we do is based around survival. And even though we’re not being chased by wild animals or going without food for days or weeks on end as the whole population used to do a long time ago, those innate senses and that biology is still with us,” he continues.
“I mean God created us for a reason, with a purpose, and it was to survive, and it was to procreate and to spread His gospel,” he says, adding, “And all of those are biologically built into us.”
Deace agrees with Buchanan, pointing out that during the election cycle last year, “the most effective message” was the Trump ad that read, “Kamala Harris is for they/them. Trump is for you.”
“The most extreme candidate tends to lose. And why does the most extreme candidate tend to lose? Because they’re viewed as most threatening to somebody’s safety, security, or belief system. So that was a wonderful way to cast Kamala Harris as way more extreme of the two candidates running for president,” Buchanan responds.
“Secondarily, it plays into in-group, out-group factors. That also goes back to our survival instincts, where if somebody is on the out-group, they are your enemy,” he continues.
“So with a lot of young men, a lot of non-white voters, they saw that message, and they didn’t say, ‘I’m making my decision on this election based on the transgender issue.’ But that issue became a proxy for extremity,” he says, adding, “That is what won Donald Trump the election.”
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