Guardian
May 7, 2015
One of my father’s vivid memories of growing up as a Jewish child in Nazi Germany concerned the horrifying visit of his uncle Walter one evening in 1933. Pale as a ghost and shivering with fear, Walter entered the house crying: “I’ve been bewitched!” On his way home from the train station he had come across a Nazi rally. At first he feared the mob, but when he gained some confidence that his Aryan appearance would disguise his Jewish identity a strange feeling slowly took hold of him.
When the rally sang the Nazi party anthem, Walter joined in, mumbling the words to the song. Not long after that he suddenly noticed that he was actually getting swept up in the emotions. Along with everyone around him, he was shouting “Sieg Heil”. He completely forgot that the ideology he so much wanted to be part of regarded him as one of its most hated enemies.
When we talk about politics, we tend to pretend that voting is ultimately a rational choice. The works of the great rationalists Thomas Hobbes and Immanuel Kant are set texts in political science departments. On the doorstep, most campaigners still win over voters by logical argument, or at least try to, weighing up candidates’ pros and cons on different policies. James Carville’s famous phrase from Bill Clinton’s early 90s campaign, “It’s the economy, stupid!”, reflects a conventional wisdom that voting is primarily about spending money wisely.
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