Nasrallah: Passion, not reason, is what drives voters.

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What motivates people when they go to the polls: reason or passion? As the fateful elections approach in Canada in 2025 and in the United States in November of this year, this question is worth considering.

Our Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, became a political figure based on two emotional factors: the connection of his surname to one of Canada’s most admired political giants, Pierre Elliot Trudeau, and his good looks, charisma, youth and calm manners. .

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Donald Trump, of all people, rose to America’s highest office thanks to his charisma, emotional appeal, command of the stage, and ability to appeal to people’s fears, desires, and hidden values.

“Recognizing the primacy of passion in everything we do has profound implications for policy,” wrote psychology professor Drew Westen.

“The reason is middle management making decisions, not the CEO. Policies are nothing more than the first line of values,” Westen wrote in his article. “You listen to the ‘speech’ of information, but you go straight to the top when it comes time to choose. In other words, you draw on your emotions, particularly your moral emotions, when you pull a lever in the voting booth.”

Facts, statistics, charts, numbers and graphs are useless if they are not connected to a compelling story or narrative that speaks to the emotional realm of human beings, to the heart of emotional intelligence and storytelling. Religious, cultural and business icons share one thing in common. They tell captivating stories that capture the human imagination.

Trump is a supreme storyteller. Simple, memorable and values-oriented. Fictional or not, many don’t care as long as it is an exciting story with emotional appeal. Building a wall, the immigration file, crime lines, business success stories are all emotionally charged and with little connection to reality or evidence.

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Ronald Reagan was another example.

“When you hear a pollster or strategist say, ‘We’ve beaten them on these issues,’ you know you’re in the dispassionate river and you know you’re sinking. In my opinion, voters disagreed with Roland Reagan on about 75 percent of the issues. But they liked him,” Westen wrote.

“They believed it would restore America to greatness. “They voted with their values.”

For many decades, kingmakers and political gurus emphasized the supremacy of economics over any other variable. Recently, that went out the window.

During the Obama administration and the Biden administration, economic numbers were excellent, with full employment, excellent growth, a stock market boom, and business expansion. However, the political dividends were limited, if any, as the culture wars replaced the economic paradigm.

For years, focus groups and data collection pointed to four main factors that determined how most people vote.

How do I feel about the candidates’ parties and their principles?

How does this candidate make me feel?

How do I feel about this candidate’s personal characteristics, such as integrity, leadership, and empathy?

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How do I feel about this candidate’s stances on issues I care about?

In many ways, Trump’s new political era eliminated most of these elements. Many voters are changing their perceptions of the candidate’s personal integrity, values, party principles, and empathy, and replacing them with cultural, racial, and class variables that are difficult to decipher.

Trump’s legal problems and criminal trials are not yet affecting his political standing among his base. Previously, that would have meant certain political death for any candidate.

Historians will work hard for decades to understand this shift in the political landscape as the November US election will determine the existential state of the United States, North America, and the world order.

Elie Mikhael Nasrallah is the author of the most recent book Gates and Walls: Stories of Migration in Modern Times and lives in Ottawa, Canada.

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