Polls show that Likud voters are socialist, gay and lesbian supporting, religious pluralists, who are far to the left of their leaders on most matters: How can this be?
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The framing of sure bets.
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“voting is an emotional act…[implicating]…belonging, pride.”
voters pivot on “safety and security.”
–from the discussants
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In now classic, foundational work Kahneman and Tversky showed that the standard model of utility theory can be made to fail empirically. Even worse, one can evoke different preferences from people by the way problems are framed, even though mathematical values are invariant to the framing. One discovery was preference for sure bets (outcomes) over gambles which have greater expected value than the sure choice. People tend to take a given rather than risk loss even though a greater gain is also possible. They also tend to avoid sure losses, preferring gambles which can either leave them better off than the sure loss or worse. These two results allow preference reversal. A sure bet choice can be reframed as a sure loss by changing the baseline. Doing that, preferences change. So hospital administrators deciding how many beds they should have for a possible epidemic can be made to flip their choice depending on framing–are sure deaths or sure cures involved, rather disturbing as money and lives could be at stake.
I think a lot of national politics involves competition to dominate the framing of sure bets and losses. On military issues conservatives everywhere tend to prefer sure bets. Liberals are more willing to gamble against an unpleasant outcome, using the savings if they win for other programs. Israel, both with respect to external foes and internal terrorism, lives in an environment prone to sure bets. The left suggests altering the occupation which is perceived as a gamble; the right responds by coloring existing policy as a sure bet. Quiet, the status quo returned, is ever their immediate goal–which is I suggest, why the government never really ventures any “peace” proposal. Settlement creep produces minor events which the government then suppresses to show its sure bet strategy is working; that is, creep actually aids the government, politically, by providing a theater (again) demonstrating how the sure bet of occupation control is working. Similarly, any talk of lessening the Gaza siege is a gamble; staying the course, a sure bet.
I suggest this simple framing accounts for the continued net dominance of the national right. While Likud voters might favor harmless (to them) left leaning domestic policies, that is predicated on family security; one does not advocate a worse condition for one’s family to aid others. It is worth noting that Lieberman’s and Bennett’s urging of full entry into Gaza during Protective Edge was turned back by Bibi for being a gamble when a sure bet of status quo quiet was possible. The only way to break this hold of the sure bet is to reframe options as a gamble and sure loss: that is, if the status quo continues, loss is inevitable, thereby shifting salience to a policy gamble with argued outcomes (I think both Rabin and Sharron made this flip argument in their latter days). The right understands this: much of its legislation is to buttress their sure bets by removing internal enemies who would advocate gambles, such advocacy colored as a gamble in itself, absent any implementation (such as BtS hurting the confidence of new IDF conscripts via its advocacy).
This logic is not unique to Israel at all, but its constant war footing emphasizes security sure bets. Absent such threats, liberal/leftists have advantage, for they tend to conserve social programs–so, in the US, Social Security is seen as a Democratic sure bet, Republican proposals, especially those employing the market to garner benefits, gambles (Bush II’s proposal to allow SS holders to invest their accounts in the market would have been disastrous in the Great Recession). I have concluded that Trump must be framed as a sure loss in the US. One way to do that is to emphasize the potential instability his moves induce. Baldly, talk of gutting the “deep State” can be reframed as a gamble or sure loss decreasing certainty for one’s household and that of its soon adult children. The State provides a stable environment for those just starting out (climate change will also have to be so framed). I think Trump’s erratic, bombastic nature has indeed flipped many suburban voters who are beginning to see him as a gambler destroying what we have. Real events are needed to pivot this change, these mostly in the words of other players. Consider Trump’s Russia stance. He effectively dismisses US intelligence, but then told that the polls will not go his way, he reverses, only to reverse in part again. A net instability results, making him not a preserver but reckless gambler.
It is hard to know what a Labor coalition would do in power; absent that, Oslo as failed gamble dominates many a voter’s mind. Somehow, Labor/left must capture the ground of sure bets in security issues. Full incursion into Gaza might have done that at terrible cost. But, as it is, every downing of a Syrian drone or plane, every bombing of a storage facility, insures the space of sure bets is right controlled. I do not understand Israeli political culture at all well enough to know if there is a way to pivot sure bets toward Labor, but I think relying on social issues as measure of a deep fissure between Likud voter and party of little value. Better, perhaps, would be to ask why the coalition government is so thin; that is, why Likud and its competitive allies do not dominate the vote more than they have. What causes so many people to not buy the security sure bet framing presented by the national right?