On the eve of what could be the decisive day in the presidential primaries, let’s ponder why politics seems illogical, irrational and just plain insane.

If you read this blog and other political punditry and journalism, you think of yourself as a reasonable, rational, thoughtful person. So you’re oft perplexed by how irrational people can be about politics. We wonder: What are they thinking?

How can anybody vote for Donald Trump? How can evangelicals vote for Trump?

Hillary supporters don’t get why their millennial children support Bernie. Hillary-haters don’t see how you can trust her.

Here is the best explanation I’ve seen, from a column by Oliver Burkeman in the Guardian. Exploring the minds of Trump voters, Burkeman quotes Gregg Henriques, a professor of psychotherapy at James Madison University in Virginia:

“This is how politics works, Henriques and many other psychologists argue: we’re attracted to certain candidates and parties for intuitive, emotional reasons that barely register in conscious awareness. Then, we use our rational minds to construct convincing-seeming arguments for views we already hold. The tricky part is that you can’t condescendingly think about Trump supporters this way for very long before realising that it must be true for you, too.

Henriques adds: “If you look at life like a psychologist, one of your first principles is: we’re all full of shit. We see ourselves as having the facts, while others can’t see through their emotions to get to the facts. But the truth is we’re all in this boat.”

And so we row on.

BTW, Burkeman’s column is a consistently good read. I recommend it.