Logic Times

Political Mimicry

Posted by Logos, 11/08/04, 01:34pm. Comments (3)

As a Biologist and astute observer of our political system it is very interesting to see evolutionary biological parallels in our political system, particularly with the Democrats and the Democratic Party. Why is that the Democrats at every turn, vehemently deny that they are the party of wealth redistribution, the party of progressive secularism, the party of antimilitary, pro-tax, big government agenda? Why not just step up to the plate like the Liberal Socialist Europeans have done decades ago, and call themselves what they really are: The Socialist Party.

Why all the camouflage? Why the fakery? Why the phony military jingoism at the Democratic convention, the antithesis of what Kerry and the liberals in the Democratic Party have legislatively defined themselves to be? Why the phony bait and switch class warfare propaganda, trying to dupe Americans with only taxing the rich, when in reality they will tax everyone to pay for social programs to "benefit" the so called poor through massive government expansion, in order to expand their voting base?

Why do rational people yell in frustration at our television sets at the deception and word games that the Democrats seem to be engaged in every campaign cycle? Why doesn't the Democratic Party just come out of the closet and say to the American people what they really are and what they really stand for?

The answer may be found in biology. Humans are biological systems, and what happens in the plant and animal world around us are not mere curiosities, but rather signposts and clues to our own behavior, since we are linked genetically to every living thing and many behaviors. How does this help explain the bizarre behavior of our political system, namely the irrational and deceptive behavior of the Democratic Party? It may not be so bizarre if you examine a biological adaptation where an organism purposely substitutes an alternate reality to elicit a predetermined behavior. What do some animals or plants do to "trick" another animal or plant into believing an alternate reality, usually for the purpose of deception or predation?

This accomplishment is a neat biological shell game known as mimicry. All plants and animals that engage in mimicry have but one purpose, which is to deceive the recipient for the gain of the sender. In humans, mimicry has evolved into the social fabric of politics. It is very interesting to see how Anthropologists observe human mimicry in H. sapiens societies. There appears to be a commonality of behavior that crosses over from a purely biological adaptation to a social adaptation, but which in essence accomplishes the same result.

From Edward H. Hagen, Department of Anthropology University of California at Santa Barbara:

"From an evolutionary perspective, the intentional communication of information or sending of a signal by an organism should be viewed as a strategy intended to manipulate the receiver of the signal to the benefit of the sender (Dawkins and Krebs 1978). The information may or may not benefit the receiver. Organisms may communicate true information when it is in their interests to do so, and they may communicate false information when it is in their interest to do so. Correspondingly, a receiver organism may acquire information about a sender organism that benefits the receiver, whether or not it benefits the sender."

In a political reality, it would be true to say that the Democratic Party cannot really say to the American public what they really are and what they really stand for and have any realistic chance to win the legislature and the presidency. If this is true, and many political scientists think it is, then the Democrats would be forced to mimic the politics of the more successful socially conservative opposition party in order to camouflage their true intentions and gain votes. The Democratic Party strategists, realizing that the message of socialism is an unacceptable political philosophy in a thriving Western Capitalistic Society, must adapt an alternate strategy to deceive a majority of the population in order to have any chance to win. In order to "survive" they are forced to apply alternate strategies other than the truth in their quest for power. The Democratic Party utilizes the biological/social strategy of mimicry to deceive, and pretend to be what they are not, in order to increase their political chances. The penalty of deception is small, because the mainstream media, the primary societal moral watchdog of the population, is philosophically aligned with the Democratic Party's social agenda, and, instead of exposing the deception, they will actually enhance it.

Mimicry is a societal evolutionary adaptation, and as described in the literature, certain segments of society are much more prone to mimics than others. In The Human Behavior and Evolution Society Annual Meeting, Santa Barbara, CA, 1995, it was noted that:

"While paranoid and grandiose individuals seem to repel rather than attract cooperation, fear and exaggeration are potent strategies for manipulating small groups of vulnerable individuals (witness Waco, Heaven's Gate, and the occasional shaman)."

There are then highly suggestible segments of the population that are particularly vulnerable to mimics that use the tactics of fear and exaggeration. The modus of the Democratic party in this election seems to be taking this idea right out of the social evolutionary playbook. Exaggerated fears of the draft, loss of social security, loss of healthcare, environmental disasters, and other inflated falsehoods were explicitly used by strategists of the Democratic party to elicit votes from a vulnerable population. Again, instead of saying to the American public what they really are, the Democrats chose instead to deceive, to camouflage, to mimic what they are not, and to use fear to drive home the point. This was done intentionally by strategists of the Democratic Party get people to vote for the Party they ordinarily would not, if they knew what the Party really stood for.

The conclusion of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society Annual Meeting, Santa Barbara, CA, June 1995

"Social systems that rely on signals for the exchange of substantial benefits are very susceptible to exploitation by parasites that can mimic these signals. For humans, these "parasites" are most likely to be individuals excluded from social exchange since the costs of cheating are small to non-existent for these individuals, and the potential benefits are large."

Simply put, the Democratic Party cannot survive in a thriving Western Capitalistic Democracy if they tell the population the truth. Socialism has a bad connotation in a healthy democracy. People inherently distrust socialism and it's close cousin communism, because they know, through the historical record, that reduced freedoms may eventually lead to totalitarianism. The modern American socialists can only hope to gain power and push their agenda in the American political system by becoming something that they are not, and what better way than to mimic the values of the far more politically successful socially conservative Republican Party. Since truth is not an option, this current strategy of political mimicry along with promoting fear in the population, has evolved now and in the foreseeable future as the only viable modus for the Democratic Party to gain political power.

Comments

1: thomaspaul

November 9, 2004 12:07pm EST

Logos - excellent, and fun reading, too! Thinking of the evolutionary process, I wonder where the Democrat-Socialist strain came from. Since it is so similar to the European Socialists, I have an idea.

If we go back a few years in looking at Europe, we might remember that after 1500 and through the Enlightenment the privileged in undemocratic Europe solidified their hold on power and society regardless of how stupid they were. The Darwinian effect could not flush out the weak. I am reminded of Emperor Joseph in Amadeus. As a result, those who were smart enough but not connected to the elites left for America and became hard-working, God-fearing Republicans. Their success, of course, attracted less connected Socialists from Europe who then came over and started the Democratic party (Socialist mimicry).

Hope this helps your theory.

{Aslan: LOL! "There it is."}

2: quickdraw

November 6, 2004 09:28pm EST

That sounds clever, but the Republicans mimic Democrat ideas like Bush did with tariffs, healthcare nanny stuff, and other social hand-outs to buy votes. The mimicry is of the middle of the spectrum where normal people live.

{Logos: Great observation. It does occur across both political parties. However, the Democrats have camouflaged their intentions so much in recent years as they have drifted farther and farther to the left that no one knows what they stand for anymore. Just the other day Pelosi, Kennedy, Rangle and the other cartoon characters of the Democratic have suddenly found "values" and "religion" and now proclaim themselves "God's Party." These phonies are about as much for religion as the Bolsheviks. Of course they have morphed for political expediency.}

3: Jim Wagner

November 13, 2004 12:34pm EST

It is actually easy to see where all the biological and sociological formations of the Democratic party come from.

Prior to 1860, the Democrats were the party of slavery, an institution dedicated to one man ruling many men, as the owner decided on the dress, food, and sexual habits of the slave.

The Republicans took over in 1860, and for 70 years the Democrats looked on from the outside and thought what could be. But a very important book was written in the 1870's, Karl Marx's "Communist Manifesto." While this book was embraced wholeheartedly in much of Europe, our Democrats could not get a foothold in the new kind of slavery until the 1930's. Then "BOOM" - they adopted this approach, but did it in a nicer fashion than simply saying "we will enslave all"...very subtle and sophisticated was their approach...so subtle that the U.S government policy makers had the "socialist" agenda as their working model. During the 50's, McCarthy attempted to expose this inner working society but was rebuffed by the Democrats and ridiculed and scorned by others; the Democrats continued their subtle ways of socialism culminating in a point blank effort to socialize in 1964 with the beginnings of Johnson's "Great Society" programs, and since this date we as Americans have been fighting the uphill battle to reclaim the basic words of the Declaration of independence, which is government's sole responsibility is to insure that the individuals of this country decide on their own freedom, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

{Logos: Good observation. Not to mention that the every Great Society Democratic initiative has been an abysmal failure. They will not quit, however, and as dedicated Marxists, they will do anything, say anything, including camouflaging themselves in the flag they despise and phony patriotism to deceive the American people, get elected, and push their one world socialist agenda. Watch Hillary Clinton. A hard-line socialist if there ever was one. She is beginning to morph into a conservative as we speak.}