Fuck it. I give up on trying to write something about the election, not least of all because it was two days ago, because I'm phenomenally busy, or because I don't really want to tell the Republicans that they're small minded idiots and I hate them.

Actually, I do, but that's more than mildly hypocritical.

Instead, following a point that Zoethe made, I think that the task now for Dems (as everyone on my flist before me seems to have realised) is to convince people that Dems don't eat babies. To convince the SUV voters referenced in the post on femme_fatalist that I can't think of the name of the author of right now that we do represent them as well as other people.

Because you know what? Preachy small minded shit, while fun and entertaining, and definitely my stock-in-trade, doesn't convince anyone that you are right, that there is a community out there larger than simply the person you're speaking to and perhaps their family, and that that community is worth working for and striving for and that the rewards from the community are great. Instead it comes off as "OMG YOU EAT MEAT HOW CAN YOU NOT SEE THE LIGHT THAT IS VEGAN PETA SUPPORT?"

Liberal seems to be a bad word precisely because it is an embodiment of the things that people hate - confrontation and castigation. If I run into SUPER-LIBERAL, canvassing for donations for Greenpeace, and I can see that he's a vegan (the shoes, always look at the shoes) who believes in fair labour laws and the environment and, apparently, not in soap, that's not going to convince ME to donate, and I consider myself an environmentalist of sorts - as most of middle-class America is, as far as I can tell.

But when you deal with that person, you're being told, either subtly or not so subtly that you and your way of life are wrong and bad - and especially if you have a brain in your head, you already know that driving your SUV twenty five miles one way for your commute isn't the best thing to do. You don't need to be told that you are bad, because all it does is put you on the defensive. You become less willing to listen by the very appearance and presentation of a lot of liberals.

Additionally, ALL liberals get stereotyped as this sort of person, whether it's true or not. And it's an all-for-one deal - if you support gay marriage, the environment, and a woman's right to choose, you are also not tough on crime, support large government and term limits and don't believe in charter schools. There's nothing in that that is mutually implied by each thing, but it's the package that liberals have gotten stuck with.

Most Americans are moderates. There are very few hardcore rightwingers - or hardcore leftwingers - in our society. We as liberals have allowed ourselves to get smeared by the hardcore - much as we believe that all people who voted for Bush are hardcore rightwingers who believe that women only exist to make babies, gays are evil, and praise the Lord and pass the ammunition. We have been portrayed as the hardcore, and resent it, but we also believe that the only people on the right are the harcore, and this is simply not true.

But rather than reaching out to the moderates and asking them to accept Kerry's platform (which, by the way was ridiculously conservative) and taking the time to explain why things like gay marriage weren't necessarily either bad or things that would affect them personally, we simply assumed that we were right, as liberals, and that anyone with any sense could see the value to what we believed.

We never stopped to explain it, or even to ask why people didn't agree with us. It became an argument over logic - logically, gay marriage (to take one topic) doesn't harm me, as I'm never getting married and I do believe that people should have the right to do basically whatever they like as long as it doesn't cause harm to others. But whatever the people who voted against gay marriage think on the matter, why they see it as such a threat, I have no idea. I can't imagine that all of them believe that there's a Biblical prohibition against male homosexuality (and I believe that the Bible says nothing specifically against lesbians) or that there's a Biblical statement that marriage is between a man and a woman, or that any sort of attempt to say there is has any weight. I can't even believe that most of them accept the Bible as the guide to their lives.

Instead of finding out and attempting to change peoples' minds, we simply said "OMG YEA VERILY THOU ART FOOLS AND THOU SHALL BE SENT TO THE SAN FRANCISCO WHERE THE PEOPLE SHALL BE KISSING AND MARRYING REGARDLESS OF GENDER." It was more "You're so wrong and stupid and we're so right and smart...jeez, get out of my political race, will you?"

So I guess my mission for the next four years is to work to make moderate America more aware of the things that I believe, and to try to convince them that I'm right. That granting gays the right to marry hurts no one, that putting pressure on Detroit to make planet friendly cars, and putting pressure on cities to create effective mass transit and putting pressure on the government to provide universal health care doesn't harm them, and in some ways will help them.

I don't think that's the sort of thing I can do in a homeless shelter or a soup kitchen, however. While that's a nice idea - and one that I need to engage in, because I want to - I don't think that too many moderate Americans are to be found there. So I guess that first I have to go hunt down a bunch of moderates and talk to them and listen to them.

I think we all should, where ever we sit. If the country is that divided on the things it considers important to make the election fairly close (although not as close as previous elections) then we really do need to start reaching out to each other. And I don't care what Bush said. I don't give a damn if he wants to "reach out" to the Dems. I believe that that will happen shortly after hell freezes over.

It's our government, representative of us. We need to make it more representative of us, and the only way that I see to do that is to quit presenting things as logical conclusions, but rather assume that everyone has a reason for what they believe and work to change that belief where ever possible. This is a country founded on liberal principles that is becoming increasingly conservative, and everyone is simply too busy shouting at each other to stop and listen to what's being said.

And yet, we live with these people. This is not a fashion show, this is not a Hollywood movie, this is not reality tv, this is not a bestseller. We are living in the same country with people who disagree with us and it's no longer amusing to me to believe that I can get what I want without work - and I don't mean working on telemarketing for political campaigns, or mailing out flyers, or any of the other things that have been decreed by all of us to be so annoying in this election.

Instead it's time to talk. If our government won't talk to half of us (and you may draw that half on any line you like, I believe it to be true) at least, then it's time to talk to each other.

Asking the hard questions,

Channon