Summer of the GOP's Discontent

The NYT columnist Paul Krugman writes today about GOP bewilderment that common people aren't getting excited about positive economic numbers.

"The administration and some political commentators seem genuinely puzzled by polls showing that Americans are unhappy about the economy. After all, they point out, numbers like the growth rate of G.D.P. look pretty good. So why aren't people cheering?"

Krugman goes on to explain that it's a hollow recovery, that job growth is not as strong as the numbers would initially suggest, etc. He is probably correct.

But I wonder if there's not another explanation. The GOP seems to be making the same mistake Dems have made for too long, which is to let the facts get in the way of a good story.

If you haven't read Thomas Frank's What's the Matter With Kansas? or George Lakoff's Don't Think of an Elephant, I recommend both as stimulating reads. Both authors touch on the notion of people behaving in ways that are apparently contradictory to their self-interests or at the very least are contradictory to the facts presented them.

In short, people tend to ignore facts that don't fit into their storyline. So, Frank argues, GOPers who help big corporations at the expense of the working class keep getting blue collar support because they fashion a values-based storyline of fighting cultural "elites."

Democrats, meanwhile, stand up and drone with droves of data, but without a larger message to contextualize it, it gets sorted out by the existing mental filter.

So perhaps the tables have a turned a bit: Republicans can keep spouting out data that seems to help their case (though again, I tend to think Krugman's onto something in regards to that ground truth aspect of things) but it doesn't fit the perception people have, so it bounces harmlessly away.