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.