Feelings Don't Matter More Than Facts

The electoral college is giving too much weight to the feelings of the few, and it's killing our politics

Mike Solana put out the perfect tweet right after I published Vibe Governing.

Those who read Vibe Governing will know this is the exact kind of intuition-based rhetoric that leads to poor economic outcomes, but in our current system, he’s not wrong. Although the country is markedly better off now than in the mythical “glory days”, there are small amounts of people who got left behind. This is the stereotypical MAGA blue-collar guy.

These guys do vote. And, because the Electoral College makes it so a few thousand votes in a few states can swing the election, their votes are very important. This is why Trump and Kamala spent so much time in the swing states.

So, Solana’s right. The concerns of the supposed downtrodden guy do matter right now. Feelings are, if not more important than facts, at least as important.

My argument in Vibe Governing was that they shouldn’t be. National economic plans should not be geared to appease a few thousand rust-belt white guys.

The world gets very funky when you prioritize feelings over facts. Take affirmative action. I’m sure Solana and other right-wing populists would agree that admitting black students at the expense of asian students was wrong, but by their logic, it should be almost encouraged. Black students and their liberal college benefactors feel like the system is rigged against them, so it’s acceptable to admit them over more deserving asian students, even if the facts say otherwise.

Or taxes on the wealthy. Solana and other ring-wing populists would likely find the idea that we live in an oligarchy that needs to be dismantled absurd. But, the feelings of certain less well-endowed people would disagree. Should we start taxing the wealthy at 90% and breaking up big companies because of their feelings, even if the facts say it’s a bad idea?

Or nuclear energy. Should we no longer build the cleanest, most efficient energy known to man because a small subset of people are afraid?

You can see how things devolve quickly into “my feelings good, your feelings bad”. That is just what happens when you prioritize feelings over facts because, by definition, the world is no longer based in reality. It’s now a world without truth. A world of chaos. We need facts to determine a shared view of the world. That’s a world that’s actually governable, and that’s why the smug intellectual posting charts on Twitter is actually doing a great public service.

So, Solana is right, the feelings of the random steel worker does matter right now. But they shouldn’t, and if we ever want to get back to a common set of truths, we need to get rid of the Electoral College and any other system that breeds destructive populism.