Conservatives’ Compulsive Cognitive Culture of ‘No’

An amygdala hijack is an emotional response that is immediate, overwhelming, and out of measure with the actual stimulus because it has triggered a much more significant emotional threat. The term was coined by Daniel Goleman in his 1996 book Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ.

“Today’s Republican Party is the most nihilistic and dangerous political force I’ve ever seen.” (Michael Vincent Hayden, retired United States Air Force four-star general and former Director of the National Security Agency, Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence, and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.)

Extremely strong words, by an expert, to meet the moment: ‘Experts are warning of the danger poised by the Republican Party as Trump supporters escalate their rhetoric as his legal woes mount as he faces investigations in Florida, Georgia, New York, and Washington, D.C. Edward Luce, an editor at the Financial Times, tweeted, “I’ve covered extremism and violent ideologies around the world over my career…Have never come across a political force more nihilistic, dangerous, and contemptible than today’s Republicans,” Luce wrote. “Nothing close.”‘ 1

The reason why conservatives nearly always make the exact wrong decisions as to the public and national welfare while in government is because conservative thinking is contractive, not expansive–withholding, not extending. Conservative thinking is fear-based and reactionary. It is therefore not rational, nor objective, but more the result of the ‘fight, flee or freeze’ impulses of the fear/control centre of the brain, the amygdala, taking over for critical thinking…