Negative. It didn't go in, just impacted on the surface.

Only a precise hit will set off the chain reaction necessary to slap the stupid out of simple-minded right-wing authoritarian followers. The shaft is logic-shielded so you will have to use emotional appeals.

Now that all of us have had a day to digest the utter failure of the American political system in the face of fascism and the finger-pointing has really started, it might be fun to analyze what AlterNet's Marty Kaplan titled "The most depressing discovery about the brain, ever."

In short, facts do not matter. Partisanship and political passion wrenches information to conform with pre-existing beliefs. Basically, democracy is hopeless. Sigh.

The results of numerous experiments on how the brain works shows how people begin at an emotional belief and rationalize data to conform.

But what these studies of how our minds work suggest is that the political judgments we’ve already made are impervious to facts that contradict us. 

This is not cutting edge, simply more evidence in an existing hypothesis about brain functions and why assuming rationality or reason as default human thought is wrong. A few years ago George Lakoff made big waves by arguing that Democrats and liberals needed to frame their issues and policies better, creating positive moral points of view that overcome the right wing framework built up over so many decades. The smart people scoffed, "doing this will make us no better than republicans!" A philosophy professor told me after reading Lakoff's short book on the subject that I had loaned him. So on we go, leading with our faces into the authoritarian brickbats.

Then Drew Westen jumped in to both support Lakoff and modify the idea of framing messages. Westen and colleagues did similar experiments on partisan thinking and came to similar conclusions. Framing is not enough, it is a big part of the problem in that the "conservative movement" has used them to create a storyline about American life. Storytelling and appealing to emotional intelligence is Westen's hypothesis, people need a familiar way of processing the world around them. Heroes, villains, morals, obstacles, and destinations all the elements of a story. It was a complete coincidence that I quoted Star Wars at the top of this post, I swear.

Are we doomed? Not necessarily. But don't look to me for any reassurance that our leaders or voters can be changed.