Matt Miller asks whether political persuasion is dead. I'd say it's very dead and I'd find it hard to argue that it was anywhere near not dead. One of the root causes is something I like to harp on -- the remarkably consistent insistence of our would-be persuaders, politicos and bloggers and the like, to act like we're absolutely right about absolutely everything. And the flip side -- that those on the other side are so bloody wrong on each issue every single time.
That goes for big things (like Social Security, but we're right on that one) and little things (like what to make of some ambiguous data point in a news story.) The way things are now, we take stands on just about everything with the confidence of an infallibility heretofore possessed only by the Pope. That doesn't ring true with those of us who have neighbors and bosses and especially parents with whom we agree sometimes and disagree other times and still think that they are decent people with whom we can get along with all right. Which I have to think is most of us.
And this hurts Democrats more than it does Republicans because credibility is a lot of what we run on.
That goes for big things (like Social Security, but we're right on that one) and little things (like what to make of some ambiguous data point in a news story.) The way things are now, we take stands on just about everything with the confidence of an infallibility heretofore possessed only by the Pope. That doesn't ring true with those of us who have neighbors and bosses and especially parents with whom we agree sometimes and disagree other times and still think that they are decent people with whom we can get along with all right. Which I have to think is most of us.
And this hurts Democrats more than it does Republicans because credibility is a lot of what we run on.
