SassyBlonde

I wanted to come back to this post because I'm, how can I put this, "re-assessing the battlefield". I feel more discouraged about the "let's talk" thing. Maybe I'm coming across the wrong Republicans, but when I do, it's a bizarro-world of people recycling all the phrases and tricks I used to use about them.

If you go into a dialogue, and the other person assumes from the outset that you are brainwashed, then the conversation is already pre-destined to be a stalemate. Moreover, if you say "Bush is an idiot" (yes, I made this mistake) to anyone who for whatever reason actually doesn't think Bush is an idiot, they will feel entitled to attack you personally.

Finally, if you try to even discuss intelligence, there's this reactionary, inverted belief out there that truly intelligent people are poor speakers, and that people who can speak well are actually dumb. How do you argue against this? You don't, because the better your rationale is, the more proof it is (based on their logic) that you're an idiot.

There may be some more moderate Republicans out there who can have a meaningful conversation like the one you're proposing, but from the landscape I've seen so far, I think we need to think of a segment of the population as "wounded" (or "a wound" if you want to be a little nastier about it), and the wound probably shouldn't be picked at right now.

But maybe, in a way, that's me thinking like a Republican? (i.e. "don't even try to talk to 'the enemy'")

I know the majority of Americans are really happy about the election and looking forward with lots of hope towards things to come, and that includes me... but I can't help being frustrated and sad about the sector of Americans who are vigilantly opposed to Obama and missing out on something good. I want everyone to be happy about it. Hell, the whole freakin' rest of the WORLD outside of the U.S. is happy about it, so on a global scale, this is a really tiny minority we're talking about. I just feel bad about the little jails they've locked their minds in, and I have a hard time just letting it go.

P.S. I just had a conversation with my parents about this (who voted for Obama), and they assured me that what I'm talking about here are fringe Republicans and not typical Republicans. I hope that's true.