Emotions vs Reason - The Trump vs Harris Decision on The Jesse Watters Show (The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad_708)
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
159.5017
Summary
Jesse Jackson delivers a blistering attack on the media and Democratic presidential candidate, Kamala Harris, and how she s running on a platform of joy and change, while the rest of the country is focused on the issues that matter most to them.
Transcript
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Kamala Harris losing all the issues, so she's campaigning on joy and change while the media
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tells you Trump isn't a capitalist or a conservative, and if you vote for him, you're in a cult.
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He doesn't talk like a conservative. He's abandoned conservatives on the issues that
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matter to them the most. So at this point, are you for a personality cult? Do you want
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to be in a personality cult, or do you want the republic to endure? That's what it comes
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down to as far as the republic as we have known it, with Madisonian democracy and checks and
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balances. I'll just say it. Are they being programmed by certain cable news networks that twist the
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truth, or by certain websites that twist the truth? Is that their reality? Being in a cult
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means you unquestionably follow the leader to your own death and never speak ill of them.
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Is that how the Republican Party treats Trump? The Republican Party sabotaged him legislatively.
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They primaried him last year. Dozens of officials resigned or switched parties because of Trump,
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and a lot of Republicans hold their nose and vote for him. This has to be the worst cult ever.
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Millions of Republicans vote for Trump not for his personality, but for his policy. We're not voting
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for Trump because we want him to be our valentine. You can't take the chance. You have no choice.
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You've got to vote for me. You've got to vote for me. Even if you don't like me, you know?
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No, but even if you don't like me, you can sit there and say, I can't stand that guy, but there's
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no way I'm going to vote for her. The Democrats marched behind Harris with the senseless passion
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of the Manson girls. We love Harris. We hate Trump, and we'll just do whatever you tell us to do.
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So this election is a battle between reason and emotion. Which one will win? Author of The
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Parasitic Mind and Visiting Professor and Global Ambassador at Northwood University, Dr. Gadzad.
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So which is going to win, emotion or reason, Professor?
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Oh, boy, you know, in my lectures on psychology of advertising, I talk about advertisers using
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either the central root of processing, which is substantive arguments. Here is why you should
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invest in my reverse mortgage versus affective processing, emotional-based processing, a gorgeous
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girl on a horse when you're trying to sell perfume. Now, you'd like to think that for the most important
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job in the world, people would be invoking their cognitive system. But of course, the Kamala campaign
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knows that she's not doing well on policy, so she's going to try to hijack your emotional system,
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vibes, fun, excitement, and so on. So this is going to be a campaign about you're at the beach,
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you got some cocktails, the music's playing, everybody's having a good time, but no one's
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thinking. You just want to be at the beach with a drink. You know, you woke up the next morning and
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you got a hangover and you have no money left. How do the American people process that? Because
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there is a fight between the emotion and the reason. Exactly. Look, what disheartens me is that
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I see my own colleagues who are supposed to be trained thinkers succumbing to that emotional
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hijacking, right? So in a sense, I'm feeling quite pessimistic because if I can't inoculate my own
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colleagues against that type of affective-based processing, then what's the rest of the folks
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to do? So I keep speaking out. Please think carefully. Please look at the issues. Don't look
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at positive vibes. But it's a tough sell, Jesse. It's a tough one. But why do you think people don't
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think? Millions of Americans just, they walk around, they look at the phone, they don't even have
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the news on the phone. They just go around and life just happens to them. They're not looking at
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the policy on the border or their taxes. They might not even vote for the person that they know
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anything about. Why would that be? So people are cognitive misers, which is a fancy way of saying
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intellectually lazy. Thinking is hard. Thinking is effortful. So if I can invoke an autonomic response,
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i.e. my emotions, to cut through the informational overload and come to a decision, then I will use
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that. So, you know, Obama is tall, lanky, and he's got a mellifluous voice. I'm sold. It's too hard to
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think about his policies. I'll just buy into his radiant smile, and I'll get to the finish line.
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Mellifluous. I mean, that is a word I can't even pronounce. When someone, though, thinks with
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reason, you see cause and effect. There's consequences. There's logic involved. You know,
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if I save my money today, I'll have more later. Or if I work out every day of the week for six weeks
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straight, I'll lose weight. Shouldn't that be the same way people approach politics? If I vote for
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this guy, my life will be better later. If you were a rational voter, then that's what you would do.
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But as I said, people don't like this. I mean, I teach, I've been teaching courses on psychology
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of decision-making for 30-plus years. And yes, the textbook says that that's how you should engage
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a decision normatively. But again, emotions are easy to deploy. They're fast and frugal.
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Okay. Well, maybe Trump can just add joy to his mix and we can have logic and joy. That's a winning
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ticket. Like Reagan. Thanks. All right. Gad Saad, thank you so much for coming back to Primetime.