Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) on Monday announced that he would not countersign or promulgate amendments to the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法) passed by the opposition-controlled Legislative Yuan. Cho argued that the legislation would force the central government to borrow beyond legal limits, undermining long-term financial stability.
Cho and President William Lai (賴清德) also highlighted another controversial legislative action: the proposed bill to reverse pension reform. Lai warned that the bill to counter reforms would lead to premature collapse of the pension system and jeopardize other social insurance programs.
Cho’s announcement, unprecedented in Taiwan’s democratic history, reflects growing tensions between the executive and legislative branches. Commentators have expressed deep concerns about a series of bills rushed through the legislature, often without deliberation, in the past 18 months.
Meanwhile, Taiwan’s constitutional system does not grant the executive branch final authority. If the Legislative Yuan rejects the Executive Yuan’s reasoning, it may initiate a vote of no confidence against the premier. Should such a motion pass, the Cabinet must resign, and the president may dissolve the legislature and call new elections. In short, the confrontation would ultimately return power to voters.
Thus, taking the pulse of voters is crucial. Specifically, an important question concerns how to engage “low information, high emotion” voters.
Political scientists have long used the term “low-information voters” to describe people who make electoral decisions without detailed knowledge of policies or institutions, relying instead on party labels or identity cues. While analytically useful, the label “low information” risks sounding dismissive and missing mechanisms for change.
As contemporary policy debates have become too complex for many ordinary citizens to decipher, voters are, in effect, not merely low information, but often high emotion. Fear, anger, frustration and hope shape political judgement at least as much as factual understanding. Such people are not irrational, they are responding to emotional signals that resonate with their experiences. Simple slogans and narratives of recognition often carry more weight than technocratic explanations.
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has fallen short in speaking to the emotions of such voters. Its slogans, such as “loving Taiwan” and “defending democracy,” might still move core supporters, but they have struggled to connect with people who feel economically left behind or politically ignored.
What does successful emotional engagement look like?
Former US president Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns offer a useful model. Rather than broadcasting uniform messages, they identified groups of weakly attached voters through data-driven targeting, then engaged them through personal interactions, such as door-to-door conversations and community organizing that emphasized listening rather than lecturing. These efforts were further reinforced by emotionally affirming messaging on social media, such as “Yes, we can.”
Granted, these strategies did not convert large numbers of hardened partisan opponents, but political science research on the campaign trail of Obama when he was running shows that they were effective in persuading marginal voters and weak partisans. Even small shifts among these groups proved electorally consequential.
At this crucial moment, Lai would be well served to shift away from his abstract and emotionally thin gestures of inclusivity, characterized by his “ten talks of solidarity” during the mass recall movement. Instead, his staff must help him develop a more relatable and emotionally warm communication style.
Who must the Lai administration reach if it is to engage “low information, high emotion” voters? At least three groups come to mind: The first is the identity-anchored voters, whose emotional attachment to China is rooted in personal or family history and whose fear of a sovereign Taiwan is fundamentally existential. While the Lai government should show compassion toward these feelings, it is nonetheless unrealistic to expect these deep-seated identities to change overnight.
The Lai administration should also be attentive to anti-elite voters, who might lack strong policy convictions, but feel that political and economic elites have prospered while they have not.
After nearly a decade in power, the DPP has become the natural target of this frustration. Finally, economic grievance voters are similarly frustrated with the “status quo,” but their grievances are focused on stagnant wages and housing unaffordability.
It is the ruling party’s job to come up with concrete and effective policy solutions for affordability issues, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC) astonishing success does not amount to a credible excuse for the government’s shortcomings in this area. The DPP government should also connect pension reform discussions with widespread anti-elite sentiments, puzzling through how intergenerational justice might play out in these policy contexts.
Instead of relying merely on news conferences or political speeches, DPP officials must reach these voting groups through trusted local channels and Obama-style face-to-face conversations. They urgently need to adopt communication styles that recognize fear, frustration and dignity, as well as the very human need for voters to feel connected to their leaders.
The DPP itself has, in the past, demonstrated the power of emotionally resonant communication. Former president Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) widely circulated “Iron Cat Lady” image humanized political leadership and reached audiences far beyond policy-engaged voters. During the COVID-19 pandemic, public health authorities used a friendly cartoon spokesdog to convey guidance that offered instruction and humor.
It is high time that the current administration revitalized its own emotional intelligence.
Lo Ming-cheng is a professor of sociology at the University of California, Davis, whose research addresses civil society, political cultures and medical sociology.
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