Why People At Far Ends of the Political Spectrum Are Smug Douchebags

At last science is honing in on why there’s just no reaching certain people, especially if those people are college freshmen who just discovered Ayn Rand or Noam Chomsky.

As one’s political convictions venture out toward the extremes of the political spectrum—whether far left or far right—the more rigidly those beliefs are held. Once people leave the mainstream, they are less apt to believe that views other than their own could possibly be correct, according to a new study from researchers at Vanderbilt University.

The researchers had over 500 participants complete several questionnaires addressing their viewpoints on nine controversial political issues: health care, illegal immigration, abortion, government aid to the needy, voter ID laws, income tax rates, torture tactics, affirmative action, and the role of religion in policymaking.

Participants then indicated how correct their opinions were relative to other people's beliefs on each issue, ranging from "no more correct than other viewpoints" to "totally correct—mine is the only correct view."

Each side had an equal number of issues they felt utterly sure about. Conservatives felt most superior about voter ID laws, tax rates, and affirmative action. Liberals were most convinced of the superiority of their views on government welfare programs, the use of torture on terrorists, and the role of religion in policymaking.

One prevailing attitude, called the “rigidity of the right” hypothesis, is that conservatives are more “dogmatic”—which is to say, inflexible in their views—than their liberal counterparts. The Vanderbilt research found that overall more conservative participants were more dogmatic, but that was small potatoes compared to how much more dogmatic people became as their views got more extreme.

So there are people with extreme views who are sure and people with moderate views who are only moderately sure. Why aren’t moderates also sure that everyone else is wrong?

"There's no logical reason why people who hold moderate, middle-of-the-road attitudes wouldn't think that their attitudes are superior,” said Kaitlin Toner, a postdoctoral fellow at Vanderbilt University and lead author of the study. “But they don't tend to believe that; it's the people with extreme attitudes who are disproportionately convinced that they are right."

It’s perhaps why Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has the confidence necessary to “filibuster” when there isn’t even a vote happening. He’s so sure that what’s doing truly represents the American people that he doesn’t need things like polls of their opinions. “If we worry about what’s impacting the American people, the politics will take care of itself. The politicians that are gazing at polls—there is a reason why the most common sentiment across this country is that politicians aren’t listening to us,” Cruz told CNN over the weekend, explaining why he was sure that driving the government to shut down really represented the American people, in spite of what the American people might actually say. He probably sees it in our eyes and body language, but not in the polls.

Maybe people who are on the edges of the political spectrum feel more ownership over their ideas, like their ideas are their own. Maybe they have to luxury of being able to more rigidly define their beliefs, to exclude people they disagree with or who make them look stupid. Or maybe extreme ideas have the luxury of being outside of political reality, and are never actually tested and given a realistic assessment—they just shimmer unchallenged and unchallengeable, like Platonic ideals. Or maybe people who hold them are driven to their convictions because they fear the inherent ambiguity and uncertainty of life.

Or maybe they're just right, the both of them. Maybe there are just two ways of looking at the world, and every question and problem falls neatly on the spectrum and has a right and a wrong answer. Moderates who lack the conviction and intellectual wherewithal to reach the nirvana of unwavering confidence are just flip-flopping, indecisive voters in Ohio and Florida who need to get it together-with-us-or-against-us-let’s-roll.

I mean, I’m just throwing that out there. I could be wrong.