LIBERAL VS. CONSERVATIVE BRAINS

Back in 1917, I wrote an article "Democratic Economic Initiatives And The Trump Base" exploring how the Democrats could win back the disaffected Republican workers voting for Republicans.*  "In this article, I've tried to think of ways that the Democratic Party might lure back the white male worker.  After considerable thought, I conclude there probably isn't a way."

Later in the article, I write: But along came a candidate for President who talked in their terms.  Send illegal Hispanics back to Mexico, build a wall, outlaw Muslim immigration to the U.S., and "keep THEM under control."  The "Them" is, of course, women, minorities, and Gays.  They thought Trump would lead them "out of the wilderness" in a reform of the Republican Party, but they were conned.  I've heard from some of Trump's base say that the wall is the big thing (even over better pay), so it is the emotional things they love.

In 2018, an article in Current Biology by Kanai et al. has appeared showing that liberals and conservatives brains may be hard-wired by different sizes of parts of the brain.**
In a large sample of young adults, we related self-reported political attitudes to gray matter volume using structural MRI. We found that greater liberalism was associated with increased gray matter volume in the anterior cingulate cortex, whereas greater conservatism was associated with increased volume of the right amygdala. These results were replicated in an independent sample of additional participants. Our findings extend previous observations that political attitudes reflect differences in self-regulatory conflict monitoring [4] and recognition of emotional faces [5] by showing that such attitudes are reflected in human brain structure. 

A current book by Hetherington and Weiler (2018)  called "Prius Or Pickup" analyzes four pairs of qualities we would like in our children.
Voting is not driven by a rational cost/benefit analysis of the issues, and a decision about where one’s self-interests and beliefs best align with a party or a candidate. Rather, we vote on the basis of our worldviews.***
Note the similarity in my conclusion (Trump's base love the emotion over higher pay) and the statement in this book that voting is not driven by rational cost/benefit analysis.

* http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2017/07/democratic-economic-initiatives.html
** https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3092984/
https://www.quora.com/If-the-prefrontal-Cortex-is-responsible-for-logic-and-reasoning-is-there-a-difference-in-its-size-for-liberals-vs-conservatives?__pmsg__=+aFBBdUduOFNtdjl5N1YzUnMxZnc6YS5hcHAudmlldy5wbXNnLlN1Y2Nlc3M6W1siRGVjbGluZWQgcmVxdWVzdC4iXSwge31d
*** https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=112427639902898514#editor/target=post;postID=1198143733255208589;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=5;src=link