I happened across something written by Gus Van Horn. And it helped me to finally conceptualize a problem I had long been struggling to grasp about politics, voting and political support.
Problem
There is limited political choice and each of the candidates has a platform of values they claim to uphold. People will select a candidate by finding the one that defends at least one value that they hold [^1] or at least do not actively work against. Upon making this selection they then join the fan club and defend[^2] or attempt to ignore all of the bad points to the candidate. I will try and make this clear with the following example.
A person believes in the 2nd amendment right to own a gun. When it comes time to vote they look myopically at their most important concrete value, the right to gun ownership. They then not only vote for the person or party that is for protecting this right, but speak out in favor of them, defend or ignore their wrong ideas, and drop any contradictions. They actively, and often rightly, attack the other parties candidate all the while ignoring the flaws in their own choice. They latch on to their candidate and argue with others with the zealous devotion an Eagles fan describing all the failings of the Cowboys or Giants to one of their faithful.
