Electoral Lessons

I was over at John McGuinness' weblog, and found a link to "Things I’ve Learned This Election," on Vox Nova, a Catholic weblog. John makes a good point, in that it smacks of more non-productive complaining about how terrible Republicans are - kind of like the people who launch partisan flames in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer's Sound Off pages by referring to the parties as Repugnicans and Democraps.

"Things I’ve Learned" is an interesting post, but, honestly, overdone. It's all much simpler, and sadly, bi-partisan.

For a vocal segment (which may or may not be a majority) of the population:

1. Their political stances stem from emotional attachments to positions that make them feel better about themselves and the world around them. They tend to see policies and initiatives they support as being an unmitigated Good for everyone.
2. They actively, if unconsciously and unintentionally, edit their perception of the world around them, so that they perceive said political stances as objective, fact based and self-evident rather than emotionally comforting.
3. They are convinced enough of their own sophistication that they believe themselves to be immune to being played for cynical political purposes.
4. Understanding their politics to be obvious, they refuse to see those who disagree as intelligently, thoughtfully and rationally having come to a different conclusion as to the way forward; instead they see them as stupid, and therefore easily mislead by some cynical and evil mastermind, or as intentionally evil, themselves.
5. They are apt to understand publicized flaws in people that they support as being overblown, while seeing flaws in the opposition as being the tip of the iceberg, and indicative of much greater problems.