“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”.
Albert Einstein
Plenty of pundits, on both sides of the aisle, referred to the recent Presidential election as “the most consequential election of our lifetime.” If Harris had won, a large percentage of pundits on the right were ready to declare a “rigged election.” When Harris lost, a great many pundits on the left were inconsolable and confused over ‘what just happened.’ Political analysis seems to be quite subjective, with an almost endless number of variables being touted as the reason people voted a given way. Nevertheless, when a nation elects a more liberal candidate like Barak Obama for two terms, and then elects a more conservative candidate like Donald Trump for two terms, it does not seem to be a great stretch in affirming “something extraordinary is happening in human behavior.”
Economists, often viewed as being nonpartisan in political matters, have recently been touting a stronger economic picture in terms of employment, GNP, earnings, and lower inflation rates. Still, exit polls indicated that a clear majority of Americans had more trust in Trump handling the economy. During the Recession of 2007 – 2009 a great many economists said that they did not “see this coming.” At that time, the net worth of American households and non-profits declined by more than 20%. Then we heard that a great many investors were betting on the recession in their purchase of credit default swaps. Clearly, many investors knew exactly what was happening, and they acted accordingly.
The benefit of developing a theory of human behavior is that as we observe important patterns in human functioning, we can offer a theory that is able to predict outcomes. Such a theory removes much of the mystery of human behavior, such that we can speak thoughtfully, and consider future actions that are likely to bring positive results. While Bowen theory emerged as an effort to understand behavior in the family, it was observed that the same principles apply to larger social units. All social units exhibit the same variables of human behavior, and follow the same patterns that went into formulating Bowen’s eight concepts.
Further, living in systems of supersystems, there is great value in seeking to understand our largest social systems; be they political, educational, religious, or otherwise. How helpful is it to understand our extended family if we do not understand what is happening with the 339 million people with whom we share this space? Can we even understand our family if we do not understand what is happening in the larger system? My intent here is to compose a very brief essay seeking to understand the 2024 Presidential Election. To do so I choose to focus on one phase of Murray Bowen’s; namely, that of emotional process. While I do not doubt that some independent reasoning was happening over the past year, I suggest that emotional process is the most helpful term in comprehending and taking action towards our collective future.
To explain emotional process ‘simply’ to a larger heterogenous population seems daunting, yet valuable. Essentially, the idea is that the behavior of both individuals and large communities are driven by different forces. We would like to think that the careful, thoughtful reasoning of individuals, families, and social units are the chief force making critical daily decisions. Scientists from a great many fields, including neuroscientists and psychiatrists, see something much more subtle happening. Not only are there all manner of bodily processes, which are completely outside our conscious awareness, making critical decisions each moment of life, there are also emotional processes, which are related to a lifetime of learning, which are designed to happen quietly and quickly, and which are far more influential than any of us might want to admit. To apply emotional process to the political process, I turn to the figure of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.
George Washington was the only President of the United States who 1) had to be forcefully compelled to come out of retirement to enter the election, 2) had to be forcefully compelled to run a second term, 3) was the only viable candidate to run for a third term, and 4) the only President, essentially to retire (not resign) from office. In his farewell address, he expressed his greatest hopes and fears for this young republic. The following quotes represent his greatest fears:
“The unity of Government, which constitutes you one people, is also now dear to you. It is justly so; for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very Liberty, which you so highly prize. … With such powerful and obvious motives to Union … there will always be reason to distrust the patriotism of those, who in any quarter may endeavor to weaken its bands.
“The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their Constitutions of Government. All obstructions to the execution of [these laws] … serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation, … by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people, and to usurp for themselves the reins of government; destroying afterwards the very engines, which have lifted them to unjust dominion.
“I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the state, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party, generally. This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. … The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension … is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction … turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty.
So, what was Washington conveying when he spoke of this divisive party spirit being “inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind.” Washington was not as passionate as some, but he saw that the Articles of Confederation, our first form of government, was impossible. It created such a weak federal government that even his soldiers, long after the cessation of war, could not be paid their modest wages for sacrificing their lives. He was practically dragged into the Constitutional Convention where he was named the Presiding Officer because he was the only member who bore some resemblance to neutrality. No other delegate could begin to lead a successful convention.
While Washington supported the Constitution, creating a far stronger federal government, his home state of Virginia was divided over this constitution. Washington saw bitter animosity arise between Federalists and Anti-Federalists with all sorts of name-calling and threats being made. John Adams, our first Vice President, saw this bitter division in the Senate, which he led. Adams saw this contention as emotional process. It made sense that our first Senators disagreed over different policies, but the manner in which they argued was childish. It became more about personality than principle. Adams, arguably, handled this behavior by fighting fire with fire, he sought to dominate those who wished to dominate others.
Thomas Jefferson, our second Vice President was aware of the contentious behavior of the Senate. Jefferson spent his four years as Vice President writing rules of order, not unlike Robert’s Rules of Order, to ensure that future Senators were not free to behave any way they should so choose. Washington, however, seemed to remain as the only ‘founding father’ who did not have a significant chip on his shoulder. Washington observed his Vice President become increasingly alienated from his Secretary of State, fellow Virginian Thomas Jefferson. Adams and Jefferson, who once served as friends in France, became utterly alienated. They did not ‘make-up’ until late in life.
More painful to Washington, however, was the growing schism between Hamilton and Jefferson. The Broadway Play Hamilton is largely accurate in depicting the bitter divide between these two statesmen. When Jefferson became the first Cabinet member to quit in anger over Washington’s decision – to remain neutral regarding the war between Revolutionary France and England – the hostility was being directed more at Hamilton than Washington. Still, how painful this must have been for Washington, for his fellow Virginian to quit. Here was Washington, sacrificing his own desires in trying to hold a nation together, while all these ‘patriots’ seemed to be doing whatever felt good in the moment.
This is emotional process. No matter how much a few people thought they were acting in accordance to their own principles, their actual behavior was spontaneous and impulsive. A level of reciprocity – tit for tat – became the norm. Adams could not even attend his successor’s inauguration. How come? It was Thomas Jefferson. They could see the childish reactivity in their political adversary, but they could not see it in themselves. At some level, they sensed the growing polarity that was taking over governing circles, but they were so certain of their own righteousness, that the ends justified the means.
Emotional process looks deeper than a host of social challenges which are genuinely important to the body politic. Beneath our great challenge with curbing gun violence, growing a healthy economy, protecting reproductive rights, revising immigration laws, making healthcare more affordable, protecting our national interests abroad, and caring for our most vulnerable citizens; there are inter-cultural and intergenerational streams of fear, anger, and dread that are always at play in the soul of the body politic. From time to time, as oceans of chronic anxiety climb in the public mind, emotional process will always become more dominant. How close were we to actually losing the Revolutionary War? How close were we to dissolving into 13 independent states in 1786? Probably damn close.
Arguably emotional process has become more dominant in the American landscape since the mid1990’s as rhetorical rancor became increasingly commonplace. And what might be the solution. With all due respect, I quote Murray Bowen who said,
“This therapeutic system defines an Achilles’ heel of the emotional system and provides one predictable answer to breaking through the emotional barrier toward differentiation. There is one major secret: an emotional system responds to emotional stimuli. If any member can control his emotional response. it interrupts the chain reaction.”
Washington may not have had the words, but this was his parting hope – to interrupt the [emotional] chain reaction by using his position to exhort his colleagues, and the American people at large, to break free from the emotional process that was now dominating the collective life or his nation. His sole voice, however, was not enough. There was a firm triangle in place that consisted of two dominant political parties, and the American people. All three points of this triangle were well embedded in the emotional process of the times. In short, the people were vulnerable to the “cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men” who were willing to “usurp for themselves the reins of government.”
Jefferson, our third president, was a strict constructionist when it came to the Constitution, and he believed in the principle of a smaller federal government. However, Jefferson openly defied the Constitution, which did not give the Federal Government the right to purchase territory, and proceeded to execute the most gigantic act in the history of the Federal Government; the Louisiana Purchase. In so doing, Jefferson was breaking innumerable treaties with Native American tribes. Why? It was just too good to pass up; an example of emotional process.
The only cure for this national emotional process would be (in the words of Dwight Eisenhower’s speech, “Humanity Hanging from a Cross of Iron”) for the people to rise-up and demand better behavior (in military spending), or for one of the two political parties to surrender their emotional need to be on top; that is, instead do the ‘right thing’ as opposed to winning popularity. While each of these are foolproof in terms of the theory of human behavior, neither seems to maintain momentum in this direction. If they win, they have a ‘mandate’ to do it their way. If they lose, they need to figure out how they can return to being on top.
