At election time the different political claims are designed to appeal to different aspects of the personality. This is unfortunate because although one of the leading political parties in the US benefits almost nobody, masses of people still vote for it because it appeals strongly to one particular 'basic instinct'.
I wasn't in the US before the elections but the statistics showed that few people on either side knew what the party they supported planned to do if elected. Despite knowing so little the electorate was none the less very clear on who they would vote for and the polarisation was pretty bad, the voting was clearly emotional and not fact based.
I will confess I had no idea who to vote for on the basis of the main candidate. I eventually decided I would at the next election choose on the basis of who supported the candidates because they get a big say in what happens in the future. I really do see both sides of the issues.
While I feel the polarisation was itself a bad thing, choosing on the basis of emotion isn't so bad, but people need to fully understand which emotion they are following, and knowing that would have deprived one of the parties of pretty well all of it's votes...
