The United States Presidential Election of 2016 was very distinct from prior elections. During the Primaries, two candidates on each side emerged as the ‘outsider’ candidate for each party. Bernie Sanders for the Democrat Party and Donald Trump for the Republican Party. Surprisingly, both gained much support and traction with the electorate. As time passed, Donald Trump, became even more successful than almost anyone imagined he would. As such, I became fascinated with why this was occurring. Through further pondering, my question of ‘how does fear influence the way people act or think, or in this case, vote?’ Furthermore, how does fear influence change over time? As the data and the analysis of our class’s exit poll came out, I parsed through
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The relation of the first something to the second something and their respective relevances determine the particular kind and intensity of our fear. The one and the other something have a definite nature. We know what they are like. We may not know which of several knowable possibilities will occur. The particular relation of our knowledge to our ignorance gives a particular color to our fear” (Reizler, P. …show more content…
Emotions can be very complex, and fear is no exception to the rule. It explains the different components that make up fear: one, fear of something; and then two, fear for something. Then, it explains why fear is so powerful: the intensity and the unknown can further perpetuate fear. In his article, Reizler states a study that occurred after the first World War in Germany. Both psychologists and neurologists studied soldiers who had injuries to their brain, whether those are as we now know to be Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) or Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). What these scientists found was that everything had to be in its usual place for these soldiers. According to the study, “any change, disturbance, or new task threatens the whole of this order and leads to a "catastrophic reaction," in which their neurosis recurs”. Furthermore, “any change finds them helpless and throws them into a kind of fear that may be just as detrimental as the fear of death itself”. I think this example of fear can be tied to people and politics today. On both sides of the aisle, fear can be strong. The fear of change and the unknown is definitely something everybody experiences. However, we tend to see this more with conservatives than liberals. For example, in question number fourteen used in our exit poll, “compared with life today, the future of the next generation of Americans will be: much better, slightly better, about the same,
The relation of the first something to the second something and their respective relevances determine the particular kind and intensity of our fear. The one and the other something have a definite nature. We know what they are like. We may not know which of several knowable possibilities will occur. The particular relation of our knowledge to our ignorance gives a particular color to our fear” (Reizler, P. …show more content…
Emotions can be very complex, and fear is no exception to the rule. It explains the different components that make up fear: one, fear of something; and then two, fear for something. Then, it explains why fear is so powerful: the intensity and the unknown can further perpetuate fear. In his article, Reizler states a study that occurred after the first World War in Germany. Both psychologists and neurologists studied soldiers who had injuries to their brain, whether those are as we now know to be Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) or Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). What these scientists found was that everything had to be in its usual place for these soldiers. According to the study, “any change, disturbance, or new task threatens the whole of this order and leads to a "catastrophic reaction," in which their neurosis recurs”. Furthermore, “any change finds them helpless and throws them into a kind of fear that may be just as detrimental as the fear of death itself”. I think this example of fear can be tied to people and politics today. On both sides of the aisle, fear can be strong. The fear of change and the unknown is definitely something everybody experiences. However, we tend to see this more with conservatives than liberals. For example, in question number fourteen used in our exit poll, “compared with life today, the future of the next generation of Americans will be: much better, slightly better, about the same,