Charles Laffiteau's Bigger Picture
Despite America’s considerable intelligence-gathering resources, the President of the United States is often required to make life-and-death decisions based on very limited and often unreliable information, which means the President also has to select one option from an array of widely differing options.
At times like these, Presidents don’t have time to wait for more reliable data; they must make quick decisions based on their gut instincts instead of logical reasoning. But based on what I know about him as a businessman and as a person, I am very worried that Mitt Romney may not be up to the job of making such important decisions.
I believe good decision-making requires the ability to use both logic and gut instinct. Logic uses our conscious mind and our experiences, while gut instinct taps into our unconscious mind and emotions. It’s been my experience that when I have made important decisions based on what my gut was telling me and not just my brain, those decisions always turned out to be the right ones. Conversely, when I’ve allowed my brain to overrule my emotions, I have usually regretted those decisions.
I’m not alone in believing that gut instinct should trump logic. Scientific experiments have been conducted where people were separated into groups using gut instinct and logic respectively, and presented with the same number of options. When there were four or fewer options to choose from, the groups using logical reasoning were 20 per cent more likely to select the best option. But when both groups were given ten or more options to choose from, the groups using their gut instinct were three times more likely to select the best option. When asked to explain why they were so much, they said they just chose the options that emotionally ‘felt right’.
When Bain Capital’s new hedge fund lost money during its first year, the data driven and risk-averse Mitt Romney suggested shutting it down. But his partners overruled him, and in later years that same hedge fund yielded billions of dollars in profits for Bain’s partners – and Romney, too. Coupled with Romney’s inhumane treatment of his family’s pet dog, and his lack of remorse for persecuting classmates he suspected were gay, a portrait emerges of a man who ignores his emotions and instead relies exclusively on his brain when he makes decisions.
Another influential factor, I believe, is his father George Romney’s unsuccessful bid for the 1968 Republican Presidential nomination. George was actually favoured to win the nomination when the primaries started, but after he claimed that ‘brainwashing’ by American diplomats and military officials was the reason for his support of the Vietnam War, Republican voters turned on him and he withdrew from the race, thus ceding the nomination to Richard Nixon.
George Romney came from a humble background and although he never finished college, he went on to become a successful automobile executive and self-made millionaire. After executing a successful turnaround of struggling American Motors by focusing on building small cars like the Rambler, George Romney then entered politics and was twice elected Governor of Michigan. Unlike his son Mitt, George was passionate about civil rights and fought to desegregate America’s white suburbs and increase the amount of government housing built for the poor.
Thanks to his father’s wealth, Mitt Romney lacked for nothing in a material sense, but also failed to develop his father’s empathy for the poor and passion for helping minorities. Those who know him say that in addition to being a devoted husband and father, Mitt Romney is passionate about two things; making money, and his religion. While I don’t find anything wrong with being passionate about one’s church or making money, what I find disturbing is the fact that Mitt Romney also assiduously avoids discussing the two things he feels most passionately about.
I can only conclude that Mitt Romney’s Presidential bid is driven by his ego and a desire to achieve what his father didn’t, rather than his father’s passionate desire to make America a better country by improving the lives of all members of American society.
Charles Laffiteau is a US Republican from Dallas, Texas who is pursuing a PhD in Public Policy and Political Economy. He previously lectured on Contemporary US Business & Society at DCU from 2009-2011.
