The Moral Foundational Differences Between Democrats & Republicans-Bonus Episode-

This is Joe from The Re-Engineered You, sitting in my new home in sunny Texas. We did a recording a couple of weeks ago all about the foundational moral differences between parties. Why we don't always see eye-to-eye and why we may never actually see eye-to-eye. That was cut from the original episode, but in light of the January 6th hearing that's currently underway, we're going to go ahead and air that for you. So, it is sort of a bonus episode where Todd and I talk a little bit about morals and the moral differences between the parties.

Joe: To give people context, we've lost Republican moderates. In 2006, our state was 36% Republican, which was enough to get people in local offices, especially if you are in the east part of Oregon.

Todd: Our population in the suburbs of Portland has a big land mass state. So, we're very blue in the city and red when you go five miles anywhere else. It's very extreme; they're both extreme both ways.

Joe: Well, it used to be that we were better represented on both sides. In 2006, 36% of the state was Republican. Now it's like 24% - losing a huge chunk of Republicans who were more moderate like me. Because I vote based on the issue, I got basically kicked out of the party from my Debate Club, and so did about 10% of everyone else. Here's a fun one: Did you hear about the Republicans starting a movement to break off part of Oregon and become greater Idaho?

Todd: umm…no.

Joe: Fun tangent, the greater Idaho movement was started by East Oregon Republicans who were like nuts to being connected to Portland. They want to split Oregon in half and basically take half of them with them to Idaho and become part of that – a greater Republican state. I've seen maps where they want to take part of California too. That said, we're going to pretend to fix the parties. We're going to fix this great divide between our nation right now. But we want to start first by talking about morals. Using Bill Maher and Tucker Carlson, they are the outrage figureheads for each side. Bill Maher is a very Liberal and extremely smarmy. I think he would admit that. He stirs the outrage of Liberals toward what the Republicans have done morally and same thing with Tucker Carlson. Their grounding arguments are often ‘don't these other people have morals? What's wrong with them?’ It's a very ‘shame on you’ kind of rhetoric.

We did an episode about grudges, and we found out in that episode that the addictive part of a grudge is imagining that the other side will have the ‘come to Jesus’ moment. That at some point, somebody will look at their own morals and be like, oh my god, what have I been doing? I'm so sorry; You're right. That's the fantasy. So, when Tucker Carlson says, ‘what's wrong with you Liberals; you're tearing apart the Constitution, ' and then Bill Maher, on the other hand, says you're putting people in cages, you're doing something morally outrageous, what's wrong with you?

The ‘what's wrong with you’ argument is flawed, and this comes down to something called moral foundations. I'm going to talk about a couple of moral foundations. There are five of them, according to the study and this was brought up by a group of psychologists back in 2004; I found it to be the best explanation for why we don't see eye-to-eye on a fundamental moral level. And let’s rate them to see how we stack up, rating each moral from 1 (don’t care) to 5 (very important). First question, how important is the question ‘Is it harmful to others?’

Todd: A 5.

Joe: Next, is it fair to others?

Todd: 4.

Joe: Does the authority support it?

Todd: That's a 2.

Joe: Is the loyalty of the group at stake?

Todd: 2.

Joe: Is physical purity involved?

Todd: 4.

Joe: So, to tell you how your score rounds out, those are the five moral foundation rubrics. According to the study, Liberals land really heavily on two of those moral foundations: is it harmful to others, and is it fair? And when I read this, I thought about all of Bill Maher's arguments - almost all of his arguments land on one of those two foundations. Based on your numbers, you have some Liberal thoughts. Those are Liberal moral foundations. That said, Conservative morality lands heavier on ‘is it supported by an authority’ ‘is your party leader supporting it,' and 'is the loyalty of the group at stake.’ As for higher physical purity, you put it at 4, and I know you put it as a 4 because you have a lot of faith people who follow a faith or religion usually score physical purity a little bit higher. That'd be a conservative one. Now, if you are wondering why Todd and I are not political, it's because we are about half and half with these. We are concerned if something is harmful or fair, we are concerned if something involves faith or purity. But I don't give a damn if the leader of a party agrees with me or not.

Todd: It's funny, we are doing local elections right now, and every day there is a huge traffic jam. And one of the governor candidates is standing on this bridge every day, waving his name. And you think...that will make you want to vote for the guy? Because he's in the same traffic jam with me every day? It doesn't make any sense to me.

Joe: Maybe it's just exposure.

Todd: But I struggle with that because my far-left friends are very negative towards that, yet my church-going/gun-toting people are great. So, it's hard for me because I love them both. I think that they demonize the other, and it's kind of sad.

Joe: Todd and I both take the Socrates approach to life, which is to talk to everybody until they tell you to shut up. And that includes both sides of the political spectrum. Okay, so I'm going to get into this. Abortion became a huge issue last week because the Supreme justices draft got leaked. When we talk about moral foundations, Liberals look at abortion in fairness and whether or not it's doing harm: Is it fair to the mothers? Does it reduce harm to the mothers? Those are the two moral foundations they stand on. Conservatives can be concerned with fairness and harm and Liberals can be concerned with purity and authority, but it's just that one party picks that over the other. Conservatives argue that the mother isn't a lone actor in the decision. There are arguments about physical purity where abortion is concerned and those aren't necessarily shared in the moral foundation. So, when the two sides argue with each other, they start from a faulty assumption that the other person shares their morals. They don't. We have crossover and we have parts where we can blend the colors of these morals, but if your foundation is different, if you're a Liberal and you're concerned with harm and fairness and if your Conservative and you care what the authority thinks, what your group thinks and purity, you're not going to see eye to eye. You're going to have to take it to the polls and vote. And I hate to be a jerk about this, but that's where all of this violence should have stayed. Don't pull a gun on somebody like a cow and don't go through a group of people springing paintballs and bear spray. Just vote.

Todd: I know what you're saying. When I was up in Seattle and when Obama got elected President, the day after the election there were still parties, and they're still balloons up in the air at the White House. There was a man protesting it; he put up all these card tables at my grocery store and said, impeach Obama. And I'm like, are you kidding me? You had all this time to vote, and now this is your cause?

Joe: It doesn't matter what side you're on; if you are out the day after the election, you've already lost. Put your sign away. It's over. Rarely in the history of America can you come in a month or two late and change anything in politics. You have to be there before the change happens.

Todd: And you have to have a lot of money too.

Joe: We’re going to get into that. Pennsylvania State did a study that was published in the American Journal of Political Science, and they found out that people's ideologies predicted the answers to their moral Foundation questionnaire. So, the questions I asked earlier, they found out that people could quote morals. They could say that they value one thing or another, but then in 2016, they voted against it. Somebody who has reportedly had extramarital affairs and has been recorded saying things that are counter to those. This study pointed out to me that when we shake our fingers at people morally in politics, we still bend our morals to the party we belong to. Politicians fight to convince voters that their vision for America's correct. And usually, they do it with morals. I think people are just picking their team and then slotting their morals and bending them into place.

Todd: They just want to be on a winning team. The suite is more important than the character.

Joe: You may be listening to our voices and being like, who cares. Who cares if to get my politician voted in, I bend a couple of my morals? Well, our system doesn't just encourage a la carte radical thinking…it optimizes for it. Where do we get to the point where we bend a moral to elect somebody, to the point where I'm in the Portland streets pulling a gun on two unarmed people from behind a parking garage? That's where we get into fishing for negative emotions. So, you’ve taken this moral test. We know where you morally stand, and we have a politician for you. They match most of what you said, but one of your morals isn't going to fit. You're going to have to bend it, and now that you've picked your team, we are going to need you to support them with everything you have in your being. You're going to need to be so on board with this person that doesn't quite match your morals that you're willing to kill for them.

Todd: Convert your friends, convert everyone at work, break your family, and send us money.

Joe: I already shared my tinfoil hat theory that Trump sending federal troops into a city that's known for protesting was fishing for a response. My tinfoil hat theory is that everybody wants to feel like they are holding up a sword and charging into battle because they seek this negative stimulus; they want to feel morally outraged. We learned in our grudge episode that it can be an addictive emotion; Bill Maher and Tucker Carlson hit that moral our age button. It gives us the feeling that we are accomplishing something and that we are fighting for something in an otherwise fairly boring life.

Todd: I can just work myself up in that state right now, thinking about getting mad at Joe about something he strongly believes in. I can be like, how can he believe this? It's so wrong. He's such a good guy. He needs to stop this. He needs to see the light. I need to show it to him

Joe: And there's a reason why we're talking about this so much and why it's so important because if we don't understand or share moral foundations with the other party, then why would we ever reach across the aisle? Why would we ever vote for the same thing again? When you look at the Senate and Congress, and it's always deadlocked, why would it never not be? People are surprised that we don't pass any bills or get anything done, but how can we get anything done if we don't see morally eye-to-eye? What is the incentive to ever not vote for your own team? Have you ever thought that if you vent your anger, you will feel better later?

Todd: Yeah, it’s always said that you'll be less likely to explode later. Don't keep it within, and don't push it down. If you get it out, it won't build up, and then you won't have a blow-up. Everyone says that.

Joe: I believed that until this year. I used to vent my anger in what I thought were healthy ways. I couldn't even find things to support venting anger anymore. Almost all the studies I could find were like, it trains you to be angry.

It trains you to do that more often; your brain thinks you're being rewarded. But it explains why Dr. Crockett says that reading headlines that outraged you or looking for outrageous stuff on political channels to consume moral outrage is like potato chips.