Have you ever won or lost a political argument? Have you or an opponent ever said: “Your facts and logic are overpowering, I have to concede that you’re right.” It’s never happened, has it? It doesn’t happen because politics has little to do with facts and logic. It’s anchored in emotions that take root in infancy and are so deeply ingrained they are undoubtedly part of humanity’s evolutionary code. No bond is more enduring than that between parent and child, and none is more laden with psychological baggage. While political argument will always be a frustratingly fruitless endeavor, you can at least understand why this is so, and perhaps avoid wasting your time.
The first lesson infants learn, evolutionarily hardwired, is that mom provides. She supplies the physical basics, and psychological sustenance as well. She smiles and coos, delighted by almost everything her baby does. “Mom,” as in mom and the apple pies she cooks, has a sacred, unrivaled place in the human conscious and subconscious. Insulting someone’s mother is an invitation to a fight. Whether you realize or admit it or not, the person that bore, gave birth, and nurtured you through childhood has a outsize presence in your psyche.
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