I’m going to draw from Jonathan Haidt here. It isn’t necessarily “feelings vs mind”.
Liberals have 2 channel morality, care/harm and perceived fairness. Fairness to them is everyone equal in every way, whereas conservatives define fairness as proportional. Hence communism is a common goal for liberals.
The “emotions” side of liberals is the “whoever is crying the loudest/the most upset” is seen as the most deserving of help and to be given whatever they want. They will intentionally ignore the possibility it is emotional blackmail by manipulators or staged for political benefit.
Conservatives have 5 channel morality. Care/harm and fairness are two channels. We also have respect for authority/tradition, purity/sanctity and in-group loyalty.
To liberals respect for authority is oppression. Purity/sanctity looks insane, and when you apply it to sex, it is oppressive of sexual freedom and unfairly exclusive to not let people cheat on a spouse. In-group loyalty is unfairly exclusive and oppressive of the out-group, whether illegal aliens or the atheist you won’t let come in and take over your Christian club on campus.
The greatest determinant of whether or not someone votes liberal is the personality trait openness, love of novelty. At the far end, it drives them to hate the bland, boring and bad culture they grew up in and idolize the most exotic. Risk of terrorism? No, the more different, the better, bring in people from all other the world because that is so superior to my people and culture. Hence liberal hatred for Western civilization and white people.
Social cohesion? That’s oppressive to the newcomers, we need more of everything, as diverse as possible.
And when you have no absolute values except love of novelty, tearing down traditional icons is seen as liberating or good just because it is novel.
They may be overly responsive to “I’m tantruming/fake-crying, give me what I want even as political policy”, but this is a whole worldview based on different psychology.
That explains it well: liberals are the equivalent of color blind, or even synesthesiatic, in three of the five channels.
Very interesting.
The idolization of novelty puzzles me. I like novelty too; however, I can satisfy the taste for novelty in ways that don’t have a real impact on other people. Things like, trying a new food, or wearing socks with cats on them. I’m sure that makes me boring to the people you are talking about!