In this edition, we’ll summarize and apply two of our favoritest psychological theories and ideas: (1) Social Identity Theory or why red states treat blue states like they’re dirty, disease-ridden foreigners and (2) the sportsification of politics (it is a thing, you’ll see) through the release of terrifying amounts of dopamine in the wanting system and the activation of the addicting liking system. We’ll leave the contributions of the deadly combination of gaslighting and cognitive dissonance with a dash of social support thrown in to make it extra spicy, and the usual cognitive Tom fuckery that you’d expect like confirmation bias, motivated reasoning, and something else for later posts.

Please note that we’ll be cribbing heavily from previous entries on Ye Olde Blogge, so to learn more just follow the links to the posts.

Social Identity Theory

In The Roots of White Supremacy Run Deep in White Culture written way back on 2 September 2017, tells us that Social Identity Theory posits that people socially categorize anyone and everyone they meet, especially strangers, using what ever clues are at their disposal. Stereotypes come from the tendency to generalize to an entire group based on what we glean from interacting with a few examples. These clues allow us to use stereotypes to interpret those people and situations around us. It is a human tendency, but one that can go badly wrong. The post goes on to explain that we the groups we identify ourselves with are called in-groups and the groups we don’t belong to become out-groups. When our self-esteem is especially butt-hurt, we begin trash-talking the out-groups to make ourselves feel better.

To apply Social Identity Theory to our current situation, we would say that Americans form one big in-group and everyone other nation in the world, out-groups, but we’d be wrong because increasingly, conservatives see liberals as being unAmerican and not a member of a shared in-group. It is true. Red states treat blue states as if they were foreigners.

MAGAs have been manipulated into adopting this extreme stance because Repube politicians and media personalities have made a cottage industry of sharpening the perceived differences between us. One of the simple tricks is the label socialism. It elicits a knee-jerk reaction from any conservative, but, especially, apparently, from a South Floridan of Cuban decent of absolute hatred and fear. Conservatives have peddled the lie that liberals are out to destroy America. Taken to its logical conclusion, as it is being taken right fucking now, means that we cannot live together as one country. It means that any Democratic legislative or policy initiative cannot possibly be supported; thus, McConnell sitting on 300+ bills passed out of the Democratic House and vowing that no one he thinks too liberal will be approved by a Repube Senate to serve in Biden’s cabinet.

That shit right there that socially categorizing people into conservative and liberal camps and demonizing the resulting out-group, that shit, is destroying America and has led to the sportisification of our politics.

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The Sportisfication of Politics

This one is new to Ye Olde Blogge, but it is a topic we’ve been wanting to write about for a long long time. Dan Hopkins, a political scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, has been studying the sportisifcation of American politics or how the way the average person talks and thinks about politics as if it were a sports team. We focus on the big picture, the national struggle between the parties when if we were really concerned about politics, we would be focused more locally. Local politics is where the average person can have the biggest impact on decisions and on their lives. Yet, we stubbornly focus on national issues and endlessly trash talk the other side. He explains it all in his book, How and Why American Politics Nationalized.

This nationalization reduces the differences between the parties to their national ideologies and not any local issue. We tend to vote for a politician based on how they relate to that national party and not the actual day-to-day decisions they make while holding office. Every political argument and disagreement gets boiled down to it’s a Republican idea or sentiment so Republicans support it or vice versa.

When we root for a sports team, it is a zero-sum game in which only one player can win. Gains by one player means the other players lose something. There is no such thing as cooperation or compromise, which is the heart of democracy. If being a MAGA means that you cannot under any circumstances support a Biden position on any issue, then we cannot have a democracy because a Biden victory means that MAGAs cannot have nice things. If Trump wants to cut the taxes for the 1% and transfer all of the wealth from the middle class he can, then it is a great idea! If Biden wants to raise taxes on the 1% so MAGAs can have nice thing then Q-Anon was right and he should burn at the stake. It is complete fucking lunacy.

You can see this in McConnell’s obstruction of Obama trying to make him a one-term president, refusal to consider Merrick Garland’s nomination to SCOTUS, refusal to fill any judiciary opening during Obama’s last two years in office, refusal to consider any Democratic House bill during the past year. For McConnell, Trump, Republican politicians, and the rank and vile voter, a Democratic win means an intolerable Republican loss and equals the end of the world for them. It is antithetical to democracy.

When you focus only on winning and losing, you are constantly under the influence of dopamine. Dopamine fuels the feeling of just one more. You want the Ol’ Pussy Grabber to tweet one more zinger, you want to own the libs just one more time on social media, you want to read just one more political meme.

When you’re at a rally or protest, you are feeling the heady rush of adrenaline, dopamine, and opioids all at once. When you’re watching your favorite media personality trashing the other side with facts, lies, and hyperbolic rhetoric, you are enthused and cheering just as if the Dodgers had scored a touchdown from three-point range at the buzzer to win win the World Cup and take home the Stanly Cup.

Dopamine and sportisification of politics go hand-in-hand. Unless we can break that dopamine cycle of more more more our democracy is going down down down the shitter. Science fact.