Now we won't even have a death panel. Random bureaucrats are just going to kill you.

"[The birth control mandate] is government enforced coercion on religious belief. And it varies at caprice and whim. That's one thing under the rule of law that has been a pillar of American exceptionalism, the fact that under the rule of law there is certainty for the American people.

If you looked at the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, you knew with certainty when you woke up tomorrow morning that your religious liberties were intact. Now, apparently today, the gentlemen was in the chamber and heard that, according to at least one Supreme Court justice, in her opinion, they aren't so much certain anymore.

It is not at only the election of the court, but at the election of the unnamed bureaucrat that decides, today we will have these killer drugs that we mandate. Tomorrow, what drugs will they take off the list? Will I not get life-saving drugs that I need to get?"

"We don't know! That means that the president and his administration wins their religious liberty, and the right to force their religious views down the throats of the American people... It's unlike anything we have ever seen before in the history of the United States of America.

The American people better wake up quick because we are living in a country we no longer recognize."

Q: If you were designing a brain science-based campaign against a Republican candidate, what might some of its rhetoric or strategies be? Similarly, how might a Republican campaign against a Democratic opponent, again based on science?

Chris Mooney: One part of this is easy. The conservative fares best if he or she appeals to fear. All the research shows that at times of great stress or threat, conservatives are at an advantage politically—after 9/11, for instance.

This sensitivity to threat is probably why. At times of fear and threat, people don’t have any time or interest for the wonky, nuanced policies that liberals like to propose. They’re focused on something much, much more immediate and visceral. And they like strong and decisive leaders.

Liberals fare best at a different time—when they can excite widespread emotions of empathy in the public, such as happened after Hurricane Katrina. So that is the emotion that a liberal candidate wants to evoke.

Q: Where do greens, libertarians, independents, and other outliers from the two-party system fit into all this? Are their brains different, too, or just their politics?

Chris Mooney: Everybody’s brain is a little different. It’s important to emphasize that not every liberal is a psychological liberal, nor is every conservative a psychological conservative. The psychological traits that separate left and right describe average tendencies, but there will be many people who are above or below the average, on both sides of the aisle.

Greens have a broadly liberal psychology. As for independents, I spend a section of the book on them. They’re tricky.

There are both disengaged independents, who simply aren’t following politics closely enough to take a side, and then there are well-informed moderates or centrists. These are two very different groups. The disengaged independents may be psychologically quite liberal or conservative, but not attuned enough to see how their values and psychologies match up with the current parties. By contrast, the well-informed moderates or centrists might have a blend of typically conservative and typically liberal traits, and it feels natural to them to split the difference.

And then there are libertarians—theoretically, those who are economically conservative but socially liberal. They are a smaller group, but the research shows that at least for economic conservatives, they, too, tend to be less open to new experiences, and more conscientious.