I have noticed something since I got a subscription to the National Review, the flagship publication of mainstream conservatism. I have learned some things: for example, I never read in a liberal publication about Angela Merkel’s immigration policy, which is clearly a big reason why our president Trump has such disdain for her. I had no idea, but then again, I usually don’t look for articles that get too deep into the woods about policy matters. So there is an element of education about relevant matters. But what I am discovering is that, for the most part, the right wing is deeply invested in their gut feelings, whereas the left is more prone to intellectual arguments, usually. Not always.

The latest edition of National Review is dedicated to the matter of gun ownership in the United States. Obviously NR is on the side of the individual-owner interpretation of the Second Amendment. They have an article on the reality-show idiot and obnoxious personality who calls himself Jesse James, who now apparently is in the business of selling high-end firearms. Stuff like pistols fashioned from metal found in the Twin Towers bombing on 9/11. He moved to Texas, evidently because he was priced out of California. They say that the gun laws in Cali are particularly onerous, and from their point of view, Texas is far superior.

One story they include is an endorsement of hunting as a sport and as a boon to wildlife conservation efforts. That makes some sense anyway. The NR says that taxes on guns, ammo, and archery equipment goes to the states, with a 1% administrative tax going to the federal Fish and Wildlife Service. The idea is that the hunters pay toward the preservation of the conditions that allow them to continue their hunting, as well as providing a check on the population of game, especially deer. Which keeps the herd from overgrazing and running out of food, as well as having so many of them stray into the roadways, causing death to the deer and distress and danger for the drivers. But then they go on a sentimental journey into the family traditions of gun ownership and passing guns down the generations as heirlooms. A lot of warm and fuzzy feelings there, I guess, for some people.

And then we have the left. Back when Trayvon Martin was shot in Florida, and Obama was president at the time, the MSNBC news channel lineup was all liberal, all the time. The hosts of all of those shows took it as a given that Trayvon was murdered. The same thing happened when Michael Brown was shot in Ferguson, MO. It was assumed that Mr. Brown was murdered by an overzealous, racist cop. The evidence that George Zimmerman, Trayvon’s killer, was acting in fear for his life, was given no attention or mention, let alone any credibility, by the MSNBC hosts, nor by the liberal media in general. Similarly, in the Michael Brown shooting case, the cop who shot and killed Brown, Darren Wilson, was exonerated by Eric Holder’s Department of Justice, in a lengthy report.

What happens, I would say more frequently on the right, is that people have their own narrative, their ingrained version of events that support their core beliefs, and they will not sacrifice them for anything. Any facts, such as Trump’s habit of lying, or the Republican party’s callous indifference to the struggling middle class and poor, are dismissed as biased and inaccurate. The Republicans and their President Trump have done a tremendous job of convincing some people that they are the party of patriotism and American well-being. What I hear a lot from conservatives is that nobody should be given anything. They should have to work for whatever they get. And Republican administrations have been good at demonizing people of color and, more recently, immigrants, now even legal immigrants, are getting negative attention from Trump and his untergebener Stephen Miller. And conservatives discount all the corporate welfare that goes on in the form of tax cuts and write-offs, as well as legacy admissions into Ivy League schools. As well as decades of children of color being stuck in terrible schools with no expectation of ever going to college, let alone any exclusive college. They just buy the line that those “other” people are getting handouts that they don’t deserve. Republican politicians have successfully used that line to scam millions of Caucasian voters into voting directly against their own interests. Look at the Republican wave that happened in the mid-term elections in 2010. People, mainly white Tea Partiers, were up in arms that an uppity black president and his administration wanted to force them to buy decent health insurance. They were conned into thinking it was a ripoff. So they voted in a bunch of parasites determined to take away health insurance from millions of Americans. It’s funny though, that six years later, when they were threatened with the loss of their insurance, they did the same Town Hall screaming routine, only this time in favor of Obamacare. They had learned in the meantime that it actually was meant to help them. Even so, the Republicans came within one vote of terminating Obamacare. And even though they have tried to destroy it by a thousand cuts, it still stands. Funny thing, that reality stuff.

Emotion in the voting booth is fine. Emotion in the political arena is wonderful. But emotion without any intellectual process behind it is just a dumb, destructive beast. Intellect must dominate emotion for a democracy to work.