Paul Krugman's column today is great in its own right (stimulate, baby, stimulate!). It also provides a nice segue into what I suspect will become one of the most common tropes of this blog: politics is way less rational than we all like to believe.
Obama will always be a "spender," and Reagan will always be a "cutter," no matter their underlying policy records. Alternatively, we could frame Obama as the "investor" and Reagan as the "penny pincher." But we shouldn't read this tendency as a reflection of poorly informed American voters, as political commentators (the heralds of over-rationality) are likely to.
The takeaway here is that our political beliefs don't actually have a lot to do with our policy preferences. We've defined these two men based on rhetoric, on words, on the feelings they give us and the stories they tell. Politics finds its roots in emotion, not rationality.
More on emotional politics
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