美国大选过后如何弥合两党分歧

    结束了，谢天谢地，美国大选终于结束了。意识形态各不相同的美国人至少可以一起庆祝一下，大选过程中的那些攻击性广告、恶语相向以及各持己见终于划上了句号。

    能同意这一点，或许是我们可取的地方。美国正面临一些重大挑战，其中之一就是财政悬崖——如果美国国会不能通过一项解决联邦预算赤字的计划，明年1月1日起将实施严厉的节支计划。为了解决我们面临的这些问题，两党政治家及民众必须消除这次总统大选强化的很多观念。

    此次大选每位总统候选人花在攻击性广告的支出就达到了约4亿美元。根据《华盛顿邮报》（Washington Post）刊发、由调研公司Kantar Media/CMAG估算的数据，这些广告大部分都是负面的。我们大多数人都知道、也讨厌这些攻击性广告。他们采用了二流电影的廉价噱头：不祥的画外音、渐入式字幕、令观众不安的音乐和拍摄角度。

    尽管他们根本谈不上什么电影天才，但这些广告在将竞争对手描绘为“异己”方面干得相当漂亮。奥巴马总统“将克莱斯勒（Chrysler）卖给了意大利人，意大利人将在中国制造吉普（Jeep）”，罗姆尼竞选阵营出资的一则攻击性广告如是说。如果这则广告不是共和党精心准备的，它利用的仇外情绪几乎可以说是滑稽可笑。当然，两党都有问题。民主党在俄亥俄州发布的广告口号是“米特·罗姆尼。不是自己人。”这究竟是什么意思？这对于建立有凝聚力的联盟毫无用处。

    “有几十亿美元用在了分裂这个国家上，”致力于将神经科学应用于商业领导策略的咨询机构NeuroLeadership Group的执行董事大卫·洛克表示。“接下来将有很大比例的美国人不会听从，希望看到这位总统失败。”

    洛克称，这是因为我们的大脑自动将人们分为“自己人”或“外人”。有效的广告和尖刻的批评可以强化我们对某人或某个党派被被归为“外人”的认识。一旦某人被归为外人，我们看待这个人的方式就会截然不同，更难产生共鸣。洛克补充说：“第三个隐患是，外人失败时，我们会窃喜。我们喜欢这种感觉。”

    但为了这个国家，共和党和民主党没有时间调侃、讥笑另一方的失败。既然我们必须重新携起手来，我们到底应该怎么做？洛克说，我们必须建立新的“自己人”关系，分享经验、目标，或者威胁。

    曾经有政府这么做过。前南非总统纳尔逊·曼德拉曾独具匠心地设计了南非举国共同的体验，带领这个种族分裂的国家在1995年橄榄球世界杯（1995 World Cup）上同心协力地支持南非橄榄球队Springboks。

    上周，超级飓风桑迪袭击了美国东海岸，给了新泽西州共和党州长克里斯·克里斯蒂一个非常好的理由与美国联邦政府通力合作——新泽西州靠自己已不能应对这些损失。桑迪飓风过去之后，新泽西州长克里斯蒂告诉福克斯新闻台（Fox News)，称赞奥巴马总统说：“他一直非常关心，我要求的任何事情，他都帮我办到了。为此，我要公开感谢奥巴马总统。就我看来，他为新泽西做了相当出色的工作。”

    It's over, thank goodness, the election is over. Americans all over the ideological map can, at least, celebrate together that the attack ads, snarky debates, and divisive narratives of this presidential race have come to an end.

    The ability to agree on that, or anything, may be our saving grace. The U.S. is facing serious challenges, one of which being the fiscal cliff -- severe spending cuts that kick in January 1 should Congress fail to pass a plan to address the federal budget deficit. To tackle the problems we face, politicians and we the people have to undo much of the thinking that this campaign solidified.

    Candidates have spent around $400 million each on attack advertisements during this campaign. The vast majority of those ads were negative, according to data crunched by Kantar Media/CMAG and published in the Washington Post. Most of us know and hate these attack ads. They pull the cheap tricks of B-list movies: ominous voiceovers, fade-in text, music and camera angles designed to unsettle the viewer.

    Though they are hardly cinematographic genius, what the ads do very well is paint the opposition as "the other." President Obama "sold Chrysler to Italians who are going to build Jeeps in China," claimed an attack ad funded by the Romney campaign. Despite being false, the ad plays on a xenophobia that would be almost comical if the spot wasn't produced in earnest by the G.O.P. Both parties are guilty, of course. The Democratic party's tag line on ads run in Ohio was "Mitt Romney. Not one of us." What does that even mean? Nothing useful for building a cohesive union.

    "There's been billions of dollars spent dividing the nation," says David Rock, executive director of a consultancy firm called the NeuroLeadership Group that aims to apply neuroscience to business leadership strategies. "Now you're going to have a large percentage of the population that is really not going to listen and would like to see that the President fail."

    That is because our brains automatically file people into either an "in-group" or an "out-group," according to Rock. Effective ads and vitriol can lead us to strengthen a person or party's status in the out-group. Once someone enters the out-group, we perceive that person differently and become less able to empathize. "The third area that's quite insidious," Rock adds, "is we are literally rewarded when an out-group member fails. We like it."

    But for the sake of the country, Republicans and Democrats do not have time to bait then gloat one another's failures. So how do we rewire, now that we must? We have to build new in-groups, Rock says, which people do around shared experiences, goals, or threats.

    Government has done this before. Former South African president Nelson Mandela brilliantly manufactured a shared national experience when he brought a racially divided nation together to support its rugby team, the Springboks, in the 1995 World Cup.

    Last week, superstorm Sandy battered the East Coast, providing New Jersey's Republican Governor Chris Christie with an excellent reason to work in tandem with the federal government -- on its own, the state could not cope with the damage. After the storm, Governor Christie told Fox News, regarding President Obama, "He has been very attentive and anything that I've asked for, he's gotten to me, so I thank the President publicly for that. He has done, as far as I'm concerned, a great job for New Jersey."