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nancylebovIt's not that we should be better than demonizing the other side, it's that we should have more sense--after all, they're a lot of the people we need to recruit.
I'm assuming that it's no harder to get people to change their point of view than to get someone interested who's been ignoring politics. If anyone here has evidence one way or the other on this, I'm quite interested.
Bush does a pretty good job of alienating people, but let's not make it harder for him by pretending that anyone who supports him doesn't have a heart and a mind.
They aren't aliens, they aren't things, and both "Republican" and "Bush supporter" are choices (in the case of party affiliation, possibly a habit), not unchangable identities.
The problem is that bigotry is *fun*. It makes you feel superior, it lets you hope that you're keeping the people on your side in place, and it's easy to get a laugh by making yet another joke about not letting your kid marry a Republican.
The other problem may be that bigotry works, but I'm hoping there are better strategies.
I'm assuming that it's no harder to get people to change their point of view than to get someone interested who's been ignoring politics. If anyone here has evidence one way or the other on this, I'm quite interested.
Bush does a pretty good job of alienating people, but let's not make it harder for him by pretending that anyone who supports him doesn't have a heart and a mind.
They aren't aliens, they aren't things, and both "Republican" and "Bush supporter" are choices (in the case of party affiliation, possibly a habit), not unchangable identities.
The problem is that bigotry is *fun*. It makes you feel superior, it lets you hope that you're keeping the people on your side in place, and it's easy to get a laugh by making yet another joke about not letting your kid marry a Republican.
The other problem may be that bigotry works, but I'm hoping there are better strategies.
