Several months back a statistic emerged that was revealing yet misunderstood. Presidential candidate Mitt Romney would receive 0% of the black vote in spite of the fact that many blacks agree with conservatives on some social issues. The point of this series is to examine the roots of this supposed contradiction and shed some light on the relationship between people and policies. I do not believe that the facts above are contradictions at all. One’s personal views, no matter how ‘conservative’, do not neatly align with conservative philosophy or policies until a bridge is built between the personal and the political. The planks in this metaphorical bridge are things like identity, mytho-history, information, experience, enemies and scapegoats. We can imagine others of course, but the point of these planks is to create a complete construct leading the individual from his or her ideas to a philosophy and set of policies.…