LogFAQs > #973314941

Medussa posted...

simple question, joe:

what's your solution for when you calmly, emotionlessly, educate the republican party members, they calmly, emotionlessly listen to everything you have say, and then they ignore it all and pass all the bills they were planning to pass all along?

because that's reality right now. you really think no one has tried to talk this through? that you're going to come in and save us by having the conversation we never even considered having? really?

How a republican politician votes is downstream of a lot of things, such as political incentives, particularly their desire to not get primaried from within their own party. If you wanted to reduce political extremism you'd likely have to change to open primaries so that political officials wouldn't have to pander to the base.

When I talk about discourse I was more referring to discourse and consensus shifting among the general public, and not directly changing politicians themselves. What that would look like is that you are able to get far right voters to understand that it isn't literally groomers, and that when right wing talking heads use the word "groomer" they are being willfully ambiguous and inflammatory. You likely won't convince a person on the far right that transitioning is good for anybody, that it doesn't "physically/mentally damage people" or whatever they think. But you would shift them away from out-and-out "they are all coming for my children!!!!" transphobia.

And then you can make even more progress with people closer to you ideologically. These are the people whose votes will make a difference towards the outcomes you want, because if you are calm enough to talk with them without expressing contempt for them, they might grow more sympathetic to the cause and thus towards voting for politicians that were sympathetic to the cause.

And to your question of "you really think no one has tried to talk this through? that you're going to come in and save us by having the conversation we never even considered having? really?"

I wouldn't say "no one" has tried it. But I would say that the large majority of what I see are people having contempt for those they even mildly politically disagree with, rather than having this kind of civil discourse I support.

Is it a cure all? No. But it helps more than ambiguous inflammatory rhetoric and angry yelling.
Has no one tried it? No. Some have, but most of what I see is the ambiguous inflammatory rhetoric and angry yelling.