A recent NPR article gave several documented examples of Americans changing position on issues relative to how it reflected on their preferred candidate, sometimes even completely flipping the percentages of Republicans and Democrats who believed a certain way. The article goes on to consider one possible explanation for this, that negative information about the party or person someone is loyal to is inconsistent with their loyalties to that person and this inconsistency is unsettling to them and so to resolve the inconsistency they reject the negative information.
One example is whether or not the president has influence on the price of gas (i.e. whether he should be blamed when the price rises); when Bush was in office 2/3 of Republicans said no and 2/3 of Democrats said yes, currently with Obama in office the numbers are exactly reversed.
I have a different, if parallel explanation; 2/3 of American voters do not think. They are not interested in finding truth, what genuine thinking is about, but rather, in confirming their own biases. Thinking for them, is a security blanket, it is Mother whispering that they have been right all along. The truth has no use if it does not reaffirm what they already believe.
Originally from JWKraft.com
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