The Three Languages of Politics: Talking Across the Political Divides

In contrast, we resent dominance, in which powerful individuals attempt to rule over others using intimidation.

The three axes allow each tribe to assert moral superiority.

Communicating using the preferred axis of the tribe is good for reassuring others of one’s loyalty to the tribe, for lifting a person’s status in the tribe by pleasing those who agree with him or her, and for whipping up hostility against other tribes. What political language is not good for is persuading people outside one’s tribe or improving rel

We can reduce our level of political anger by better understanding the other languages.

Kahneman emphasizes that often we engage System 2 not to make a decision but instead to rationalize a conclusion reached by System 1.

when we communicate about issues, we tend to fall back on one of the three axes. By doing so, we engage in political tribalism. We signal to members of our tribe that we agree with them, and we enhance our status in the tribe. However, even though it appears that we are arguing against people from other tribes, those people pay no heed to what we s

More polarization exists among well-informed voters than among poorly informed voters.

each of us can reason more constructively and deliberate more effectively across political tribes if we recognize that we tend to be overly attuned to our preferred language.

The populist-nationalist movement