politics

I saw an article that summarizes people like your wife as those living in a West Wing (TV show) fantasy. I wish we lived in such a world too, but we definitely do not.

I do not mean offense to your wife. I envy people that still have that type of faith.

It's not just one or the other.

You can't ignore it, you can't pick it apart and expect people to listen. Even if they listen, now you're spending all your time explaining.

What you is dismiss them quickly and broadly, then talk about what you would do.

They won't waste time trying to talk policy, so they're reduced to making the same insults and getting the same dismissals.

It makes them look "weak" and the more they fight back the crazier shit they have to make up. It's a feedback loop.

Biden tried to do it, he just couldn't string together enough words. Kamala can, but it's not some master strategy, just the common sense response to the situation

Meeting in the middle and taking the high ground has worked a LOT in the past. In about 12 years, though some would argue since 2002, things changed. We can return to a more reasonable time, though I am of the opinion that the modern Republican Party needs to be gutted and replaced before we can do that. They are so far right that they've done a complete circle and have ended up with various heads in far too many asses.

I'm a big picture kind of person and that large magical totally not a portal painting on the wall points to the party being beyond saving.

They go low, we kick them in the teeth.

All due respect to Michelle Obama otherwise, but I think she was flat out wrong when she said ‘When they go low, we go high’. It's the paradox of tolerance applied to the political realm. How do you ensure a tolerant society in the face of intolerant people? It's impossible if you're not allowed be intolerant of intolerant people. How do you ensure that political discourse sticks to concrete policies and objective facts when your opponent refuses to engage with either but instead stoops to conspiracy theories and personal attacks? Also impossible if you're stuck talking about difficult concepts and nuanced facts while your opponent is free to sling personal insults and cognitively sticky memes that may have absolutely nothing to do with reality.

The solution is to apply social contract theory. Tolerance doesn't have to be a rule that you're not allowed to break. It can be a social contract instead, so when someone breaks the social contract by being intolerant you are no longer bound by the contract, freeing you to not tolerate their behavior in return. Similarly, sticking to policy- and fact-based political debate doesn't have to be a rule you're not allowed to break, it can be a social contract between political opponents. If the other candidate won't debate policy or facts then you're free of the contract, which means you're free to say they're weird. Which they very much fucking are. Once you get most of the figurative children out of the room, you can go back to making actual progress amongst the contract-adhering adults who remain.

Yeah. I think they thought that. The bully doesn’t think the victim can fight back. Or maybe they just think they never will. But someday the victim does