The Reason Why the GOP Is Ignoring Norms, Tradition, and Law

For those of us outside the hermetically-sealed echo chamber of right-wing media, it’s hard to look at what the GOP has been doing since the rise of Trump without shaking our heads and wondering, “how can they not see their own hypocrisy concerning family values and economic thrift?” It boils down to the fact that the GOP is largely controlled by white males, and that they themselves are affected to two factors: the greater effect that fear has on conservatives in general, and what today’s white conservatives are fearing.

The National Institutes of Health found that there is a statistically-significant correlation between the size of one’s amygdala (the part of the brain that - among other things - processes one’s emotions concerning perceived threats) and one’s political bent. Conservatives generally have larger amygdalae. This seems to be the reason why conservatives react more strongly to perceived threats: the more threatened one feels, the more conservative one tends to be. This carries with it the caveat that even liberals become conservative (at least temporarily) when feeling threatened.

One great example of this is in conservative political advertising: it tends to be fear-based. Look at Trump’s infamous quote when he announced his campaign:

“When Mexico sends people, they’re not…