WichitaBoy
I think the first stage is to get some emotional relaxation: “Ok, Bush is bad, but let’s think about that.”. Move back to the rational side. Make it non-threatening. The worst thing you can do is attack head-on
Fantastic post.
A keeper.
Did Samuel literally post that Bush-is-Hitler conflicted with his own knowledge that Hitler killed members of his family?
I’ll have to find that comment.
This brings up an experience I’ve been wanting to post about.
I’ve mentioned that my husband and I have had a “breakthrough.”
So far, it’s holding. He’s had 1 or 2 “lapses,” and I don’t know how many I’ve had, though I think I’m doing well.
But that doesn’t put it quite right, because it’s not that we’re biting our tongues; it’s not that we’ve struck a truce.
What has happened, I hope, is that we’ve actually come to terms. (I don’t think you can know such a thing until you’ve lived with it awhile, but so far, that’s the way it seems. We’ve reached some some kind of core respect for each other’s positions. We’re not angry.)
Saturday night we went out with a couple my 10-year old would characterize as “extreme liberal.” (My son came up with this phrase last year, when he was 9. I love it!)
In the past, such gatherings have been miserable for me. I’ve been like a gay person circa 1960, stuffed in the closet. My husband and everyone else would freely talk politics, freely bash Bush & all conservatives, while I sat by silently, focusing my energies on mustering as mild an expression as I could.
My peak experience of closeted-Bushism came at an upper west side dinner party, media & academic, at which the wife of a distinguished guest said that she did not believe for a minute that Bush would be re-elected, because (quoting from memory): “Americans are decent people, and no decent person would vote for Bush.”
I’m still steaming over that one.
My husband didn’t hear her say that, but even if he had he wouldn’t have objected. He wouldn’t have agreed, but he wouldn’t have objected, either.
That has now changed.
In the last two evenings-out-with-extreme-liberals my husband has either taken my side, or openly acted as if my views are serious, and should be treated with respect.
What was interesting about Saturday evening was that the EL couple also treated my views as if they were serious and should be treated with respect.
sidebar: The husband, an American citizen, was born and raised in Israel. I wouldn’t have guessed it, but the words “Dick Cheney is evil” are amazingly non-enraging when spoken in a pronounced foreign accent.
Anyway, the wife, a psychoanalyst, told me she really wants to understand how a person can like Bush.
This sounds condescending, but it wasn’t.
She also said that she does know one other person, the husband of a friend, who likes Bush. He works in some kind of intelligence, and told her that Bush is a fantastic manager who chooses terrific people to work for him. Exactly what we’ve heard from other sources.
The four of us managed to have a real & serious discussion of Bush, Kerry, & the WOT.
My husband disagreed with me frequently, and I disagreed with him less frequently (sounds illogical, but it’s not), and that was fine.
In the car, on the way home, my husband said to the couple, “Do you like John Kerry?”
Meaning: do you like the guy? Do you feel affection or warmth towards him?
Neither of them spoke.
Finally the wife said, “I don’t feel I know him well enough to like him or dislike him.”
My husband said, “That’s not good.”
She said, “I agree.”
I bring all this up, because I am sensing a shift in the country.
It’s a big jump to project out from your marriage to 250 million other adults (to put it mildly) but I think I see signs of change elsewhere.
If you haven’t seen it, check out Timothy Noah’s “Blue Bush/Red Bush” review article in the NYTIMES book review this weekend.
Tim Noah is probably an ABB voter (as opposed to a non-ABB partisan Democrat, that is) and the article is fine. In fact, it’s more than fine: he closes with the pro-Bush books, and he takes them seriously. He’s not nasty, he’s not snide.
He doesn’t even allude to the known fact that Dick Cheney is evil!
He looks at the split between “Blue Bush” and “Red Bush” in a state of what WichitaBoy has just called emotional relaxation.
That was the tone of my evening Saturday. Emotional relaxation, or something like.
I don’t know why this should be happening, assuming it is happening, but I’m guessing it has to do with Kerry’s drop in the polls. I’ve thought for a long time–based on “gut” not anything else–that if Bush were to win decisively in 2002 things would calm down a lot. (That might be the case in Europe & elsewhere as well, come to think of it.)
At this point I do not know a single liberal who thinks Kerry will win.
My husband continues to say the race will be close, but he probably doesn’t believe that.
The wife, Saturday night, said that not only will Bush win, he’ll win big. She said a huge swathe of the American people feel safe with Bush.
I think it’s possible that ABB voters who are not in the grip of “Bush Derangement Syndrome,” and that would include my husband, who thinks the whole concept of saying “Bush is Hitler” or “Dick Cheney is evil” is ludicrous, are beginning to make a healthy psychological adjustment to the prospect of four more years of Bush.
I’ve never been good at that myself, but I’d like to be, and I respect any ABB voter who’s doing it now.
I think it’s possible that many if not most ABB voters, all of whom live in a democracy, and understand & respect democracy, are for the first time seeing themselves as “outnumbered” in the way people voting for the losing candidate are outnumbered.
It’s possible that more than a few ABB voters are beginning to feel: OK, a majority of the American public can’t be completely wrong (or some such).
Like the lady said: Americans are decent people.
This is all speculative and premature, but I think it’s possible “the system is working”: I think it’s possible that the experience of living in a democracy for your entire life causes many people not just to accede to majority rule, but to believe that there is something in the majority view that is worth listening to, whether you agree with it or not.
I also think Samuel is right: I think we’ll see some level of “bandwagon” effect.
There’s probably a group of “mistaken” ABB voters out there, people who only think they hate Bush, because everyone else they know hates Bush! (That sounds obnoxious, and I don’t mean it to be. We are social animals; we’re supposed to get along with our friends & family, and that means agreeing with them if we possibly can.)
Assuming Bush’s lead remains strong, some people will begin to realize it’s “OK” to vote for Bush; it’s OK, even, to like Bush.
