Steve Jobs Understood Something About Human Beings That Republicans Get and Democrats Don’t
I’ve been reading a lot of Steve Jobs commentary and this clicked. It is from actor/comedian/technophile, Stephen Fry who was a long time friend of Jobs.
Steve Jobs has always understood that, as human beings, our first relationship with anything is an emotional one. … A device isn’t just a sum of its functions; it’s something that should make you smile, you should cradle, you should love, you should have an emotional relationship with. If people think that’s pretentious, then, in a sense, the success of Apple proves how wrong they are.
People don’t give a flying fuck about policies. The utter wrongheadedness and chronic failure of Republican policies proves that. People care about emotions. Republicans connect with voters on an emotional level.
As human beings, our first relationship with a political party is an emotional one. … A party isn’t just a sum of its policies; it’s something that should make you smile, you should love, you should have an emotional relationship with. If people think that’s pretentious, then, in a sense, the success of the Republican Party in spite of failure after failure proves how wrong they are.
Democrats are a little too good to try and connect with voters on an emotional level. We sneer at the Republican Party’s practice of appealing to the emotions of voters. We are so smart and rational to keep talking about “results” and data and crap that voters find absolutely pointless and boring.
I wonder if giving the rich tax cuts and starving the people of essential services is something to smile about. The rest of the world laughs at USA. Lol USA, a falling empire because of stupid Republicans
The Democratic Party hasn’t given Democrats much to smile about (forget fall in love with) in my lifetime.
We are still running off the steam built up in the boilers by FDR and Kennedy.
The funny thing is, it’s the same emotions for both sides. Just as Republicans have instilled passion against tax cuts for the rich into working class stiffs, that same emotion could just as easily be mobilized for shared sacrifice and national solidarity.
We have let Republicans define personal responsibility as austerity rather than “pay your fair share.”
When we say things like “balanced solution” and “shared sacrifice” and “pay their fair share” and “investment” Republicans immediately begin a campaign of mockery that triggers emotions against those concepts. And we never have an answer; we never call them out for the meanness and wrongness and stupidity of their mockery. We just let it prevail and soak into the minds of our Democratic base. Because after all, if we aren’t fighting back, there must be something to the accusations, right?
Starting with Reagan Republicans have installed a knee-jerk reflex into voters to mock liberals – even when liberal policies are working (see: Clinton). It is like a feeding frenzy like high school bullies who salve their own insecurities by picking on the smart kids.
It’s about group behavior; not necessarily about being on one side or the other of a political issue.
Unfortunately Republicans have mastered the art of triggering this group response even when the facts are not on their side. The brilliant word “truthiness” comes to mind.
Changing the flow of emotions requires a master communicator. FDR confronted and called out the rich, and was able to create a widespread and healthy skepticism toward the rich that lasted for generations. Until the opposite unhealthy effect was introduced by Reagan, who successfully introduced scapegoating of the poor, and we are still operating in that shadow.
I was never a Mac fan. I always thought they were too expensive, and the elegant designs meant nothing to me.
When the first Macs came out though, I thought I wanted one. I couldn’t really afford one though. I walked into a Mac store in NYC, and after about 20 minutes of not getting a sales persons attention, I walked out and never looked back.
Macs were always behind PCs in the speed curve too. I always took more pleasure from taking a cast-off computer, or building my own from parts, loading it up with free software, and having it work faster and better than any Mac. And I knew how to fix it or upgrade it without involving a Mac technician.
Macs had a reputation for “just working” because Apple controlled the hardware as well as the software. The Mac software always worked, because it was designed for Mac hardware.
But Windows was designed to run on general-purpose PCs from hundreds of manufacturers. In the past almost every problem with Windows was due to some incompatibility with a lesser-known brand of some component in the PC. Nowadays Microsoft has become powerful enough they pretty much have covered all possible components (and there are fewer hardware brands now too).
I was also careful not to succumb to gadget fever. When the first Palm Pilots started to come out I realized if I started lusting for it, I’d be buying a new one every six months, and it would add nothing to my life.
I have plenty of audio systems and speakers, but I don’t enjoy walking around listening to music. So I wasn’t drawn to the iPod. And I recognized the iPhone and iPad was simply a hook for an expensive data contract (now with new usage limits).
Can’t argue with the business success though.
Pill.
Puck: And yet, PCs still suck, and Macs still work every time. Plus no viruses — security through obscurity.
My PC works every time, and no viruses. See my comment on why Macs work in the other thread.
Windows PCs use half their processing power on viruses, virus checkers, Windows “updates,” and multiple Adobe products phoning home for God knows what kind of crazy updates.