I grew up in a conservative Christian environment, so I implicitly understood that it was "right" to vote Republican. But I was always skeptical of political parties in general, and when I was old enough to vote, I believed that I needed to research every candidate for myself, and make an informed decision on each one, rather than just voting Republican or just voting Democrat. I figured that in general, doing this research would result in me voting for Republican candidates, because my views fit with the Republican party- but I should do the research anyway and not follow a political party.
At one point, I was listening to what different candidates said about climate change. And it seemed that the evidence very clearly supported one side. Scientists were all saying that climate change is real and is caused by big industries putting carbon into the atmosphere, and we need to take action to limit this, or else the earth will become warmer, sea levels will rise, and it will be a disaster. The Democratic party agrees with the scientists on this. The Republican party, on the other hand... seemed to think everything was fine? All the scientists were pointing to the evidence, and Republican politicians just kind of ... said it wasn't true, but didn't go into any detail beyond that. They didn't seem to be making much of an effort to actually respond to what the scientists were saying.
I felt like... I wanted to be on the Republican side of this issue, but I saw the evidence and I didn't have an answer for it. But, I thought, Republican leaders think climate change isn't real, and they're responsible adults who surely must be well-informed about this, because their actual job is to know about the issues and make good decisions about them. Right? So even though *I* don't have an answer to argue against all the scientists who are warning us about climate change, I can be reassured by the fact that Republican politicians think it's not real, and surely they have good reasons for that.
So my Republican role models let me go along with what I wanted to believe, without me doing the work of thinking through what the reality was and what kind of policies would be best to address it. It was just... I don't want to believe this, and the existence of supposedly "responsible adults" who don't believe it means that it's reasonable for me to do so too.
(I think my mistake was believing that it was their job to be well-informed and make decisions that benefit society as a whole.)
Similar thing with minimum wage laws. What I had heard from Republican role models was, Democrats are saying "oh we feel so bad for these people who work minimum wage jobs and are trying to raise a family on that, oh it's so saddddd, we want to help them, we should raise the minimum wage" and they want to be nice and help people, but it's so short-sighted and will be bad in the long run. If you raise the minimum wage, it's going to mess up the whole economy. Republicans were the ones being realistic and making sure the economy would continue to work correctly. Democrats were just making decisions based on feeling sad for those people who made bad decisions. You can't run a country that way! Besides, you're not supposed to be able to earn a living wage at a minimum-wage job. Minimum wage jobs are just for students working part-time before they start their real career.
That's what I had always heard. Then, one day when I was in college, I happened upon an article about a city which had increased its minimum wage and their economy was basically fine. All those doom-and-gloom predictions about how it would mess up the whole economy didn't happen at all. And I thought, wow, this is great news! This is awesome! So we totally should raise the minimum wage, because it helps people and it doesn't ruin the economy!
Surely when my Republican role models hear about that, they'll want to raise the minimum wage too. Right?
Eventually I started to realize... these sophisticated-sounding talking points about how climate change isn't real, and raising the minimum wage would be horrible for the economy, and so on- are these just flimsy justifications for doing what we selfishly want to do? Voters and politicians who personally benefit from certain policies, even though those policies are not fair to everyone, and don't help society. Is it really just "business owners want to make more money, and don't want to pay their employees a living wage, and so they're going to go ahead and do that because they have enough power to make policies that say they can"? Is that what's really going on, this preschool-level morality of just doing things that benefit yourself, and not caring about how it's unfair to other people?
I really thought that responsible adults don't do that. Or, sure, some adults do, but it's very obvious to everyone that that's "corruption" and it's wrong.
And I don't necessarily think that believing "we can't raise the minimum wage because it would ruin the whole economy" makes someone a bad person. Maybe they heard that Republican talking point, and didn't think much about it, didn't think to challenge it because emotionally they just didn't like the idea of raising the minimum wage. They're scared of change, and so they feel relieved when they hear some analyst saying "well this is just the way the math works, it would mess up the whole economy." I can relate to that.
You should still be held accountable for your lack of awareness of how your fear is driving you to support a policy that harms people- but you're not a bad person.
Or maybe they really wish that society could raise the minimum wage, maybe they hear about families who are struggling because their income is low, and they really have compassion for them and wish something could be done- but they believe that a government policy to raise the minimum wage wouldn't actually help, because Republicans said so. Yeah, I mean, I understand that- I understand being in an environment where all you hear is one viewpoint, and you have no idea that other arguments even exist.
The real test is this: If someone thinks "we can't raise the minimum wage because it would mess up the whole economy" and then you show them an article about a city which raised the minimum wage and nothing disastrous happened (like this one for example), how do they respond? Do they leap on to it- "What?! Oh my goodness, tell me more! This is great news! Was there anything unique about this situation, which prevented those predicted economic disasters from happening? Let's think about how to replicate this in other places! HUGE IF TRUE!" Or do they ignore it, or even act like they don't *want* it to be true?
Another example: I received my absentee ballot for an election one year, and it included a proposal that I could vote "yes" or "no" on. The proposal was something like this: "Equal Rights Amendment: This proposal will make it illegal to discriminate on the basis of gender or pregnancy status."
So, that sounds good, the way it's written there, but you should always do your research to see what it's actually about. Maybe the way they wrote it on the ballot doesn't give the whole picture. So I looked it up online, and found a Democrat statement on it, which went something like this: "We support this proposal because we think it's wrong to discriminate on the basis of gender or pregnancy status." Very straightforward, very "duh"- equal rights are obviously a good thing, so that's why we should support this.
And the Republican statement on it: "We don't support this proposal because the way it is written is too vague, and we think it could maybe be used to allow late-term abortion." I read that and I was like "???" What do they mean, it's too vague? What do they mean, it "could" allow late-term abortion? Is there any substance to this, or do they just feel uncomfortable with the term "equal rights" and are casting about for an excuse to vote against it?
Imagine a young person coming from a conservative background, who has internalized the idea that it's suspect when Democrats put forward a policy about "equal rights", though they can't necessarily explain why they feel that way. This young person can't put together a coherent argument for why something called "equal rights amendment" would be bad, but it just kind of... feels like the kind of thing they shouldn't support. It feels liberal. And so they look to their Republican role models, to offer an argument about why it's reasonable to not support an "equal rights amendment." And the Republican role models give this statement, about how "oh it's kinda vague and something something abortion"- is that supposed to convince anybody? Or is it just, like... "oh good, I didn't want to support this, but I didn't have a good reason, but at least I know there is a good reason out there (even though the Republican side hasn't articulated it in a way that makes sense to me), so I can be assured that it's okay for me to vote against this."
Another example: One day, years ago, as I was walking around on my college campus, I happened across a protest about the Darfur genocide. The protesters were trying to get people to sign a petition about it. I recognized one of them; she was in one of my classes, and so she started talking to me about the Darfur genocide, and asking me to sign the petition.
I felt like... if it's true that this is happening, then of course I oppose it. Of course genocide is bad. But taking a stand on this feels like the kind of thing that my Republican role models wouldn't do. I can't explain why, but it feels liberal, and so I don't want to get involved. Maybe if I talked to some well-informed Republicans, they would be able to explain why the situation was much more complicated than "it's a genocide, obviously that's terrible, let's protest against it."
I didn't want to sign her petition, but I didn't have a good answer when she asked why not, so eventually I just scribbled something and kinda pretended I was signing my name. Honestly, my worry was that I was going to find out later that the protesters had completely misrepresented the situation, and that I had actually signed my name to something bad. Like, of course if there really is a genocide, I want to oppose it- but I felt that my Republican role models might know what the real truth was, and that it wasn't actually what the protesters were saying.
I mean, thinking about it now, it would have been reasonable for me to say "this is the first I'm hearing about this, I want to take some time to read more about it before I have an opinion." Always a good idea to fact-check! At the same time, I understand why a protester wouldn't like that answer, and would see it as an excuse made by people who don't care about others.
It depends on whether you're actually going to go off and read about it on your own, and then take action, or if you just feel like "this protest makes me uncomfortable, I want to get away from it" and then you don't think about it again after that.
Outsourcing your thinking to "Republican role models." Feeling like you can't really explain the reasons you support certain political ideas, but there are serious adults who hold these positions, and surely they have good reasons because that's their job.
To some extent, though, don't I do the same thing now? Now I follow a lot of progressive/liberal/feminist/queer people online, and sometimes there are situations where it seems like everyone dislikes something, but I don't understand why, but I just kind of go along with them and vaguely dislike it too.
I guess the key is, don't go along with other people's opinions on an issue if they don't give you a reason that actually makes sense to you. If it's about something that's not that important, then it's fine if you don't really have an opinion. No one has time to form an opinion on everything. But definitely avoid situations where you're like "I support this position, even though I don't understand why, but I have to in order to be a good feminist." Instead, ask more questions.
But, at the same time, yeah there will definitely be people on the internet reacting badly to someone "asking questions" rather than just holding the "correct" opinion they're supposed to hold. (I remember seeing an internet thread one time, where someone was asking "does 'trans woman' means they were a woman and changed to a man, or they were a man and changed to a woman?" just genuinely trying to understand the terminology, and someone else kept angrily replying "Trans women are women!" Not helpful! Btw the answer is, a trans woman is "a man who changed to a woman" but you shouldn't phrase it that way because it's oversimplified to the point of being offensive.) But they react this way because there really are people "asking questions" in bad faith, trying to argue rather than really understand. So, uh, that's a problem.
This phenomenon of not looking into issues yourself (either because it's impossible to have time to have an opinion on everything, or because emotionally you just want to believe something) and just going along with what other people say because they seem like "reasonable adults"- this is related to the Overton window. The Overton window is the range of ideas that are seen as okay for a reasonable person to hold. People talk about "shifting the Overton window"- this means taking an idea that is seen by society as so "out there" that it's not even considered as a real possibility, and talking about it a lot, so that eventually people will think of it as an idea that is normal for people to hold (even though most people may not agree with it), and then from there it can progress to convincing more people and being an actual policy.
Whatever's in the Democrat and Republican party platforms, regardless of whether you agree with them or not, you recognize that those policy positions are held by many "normal people." And this was not a good thing for me when I was younger and trying to figure out my own views, because I believed that if there were "Republican role models" who held some opinion, then there must be good reasons behind it. For example, denying the reality of climate change. Yes, there are *reasons*- politicians getting donations from the oil industry, for example- but not *good reasons*, not reasons along the lines of "here's why this position benefits society."
News shows would bring in 2 "experts" to discuss climate change. 1 of them would be a scientist who said climate change was real. The other would be a climate change denier. And it communicates the idea that- how should I put this- that it's okay to be a climate change denier. Regardless of how their "debate" goes, it sends the message that there are normal and reasonable people who don't believe climate change is real.
The thing is, though... there are "normal and reasonable people who don't believe climate change is real." There are people who are normal people, good people, who generally vote Republican and so they tend to believe the typical Republican talking points, about climate change and other issues. Or at least, back when I was in college and voting for the first time, that was the status of the Republican party. Now it's a personality cult around Trump, and I just cannot fathom why anyone would vote for him... I can't bring myself to believe "there are normal and reasonable people" voting for him.
Is it bad that I'm viewing 60-ish million Americans as so "out there" that it's impossible for me to relate to them?
Is it bad that I'm viewing 81% of the white American evangelical church- which is literally the subculture I come from- as so "out there" it's impossible for me to relate to them?
Is it better to use a strategy of "these ideas are so ridiculous, we shouldn't even legitimize them by talking about them" or "the only way we can reach these people is if we really understand the reasons why they believe this"? Well, it depends who you're talking to, and what your goal is.
I remember there were people I followed on the internet in 2016, who made it a point to continually note that what Trump was doing was "not normal." This wasn't just typical politician behavior- he is something different, and we should be appalled over and over at how wrong and how offensive his behavior is. Over and over, every time he did something that just a few years before would have been seen as so over-the-top, offensive, career-ending... and his supporters and the media just kinda went along with it, as if it was just normal politician behavior. Some people I followed on the internet would remind us all, "this is not normal."
The thing is now, 8 years later, it basically is normal now.
I did something similar back then- I refused to use his name; I called him the orange antichrist, because it was so shocking how evangelicals were getting in line behind a man who broke all the moral principles they supposedly cared about. And I didn't want to say his name because I viewed him as so beyond-the-pale that we shouldn't even be talking about him.
I still think it's beyond-the-pale to support him. But I've stopped doing the thing where I don't say his name. Kinda wish I could go back to doing that, actually... but now he feels like a normal part of politics, rather than something that will soon go away if we all just stubbornly refuse to acknowledge it.
Anyway, what was I saying? The Overton window. So you don't want to legitimize bad ideas by setting up a discussion about them. But at the same time, if those bad ideas are never addressed, their followers will literally not know that there exist good arguments against them. I used to be a young-earth creationist, and I always saw people treating young-earth creationism like it was so ridiculous they shouldn't even bother responding to it- and that gave me the impression that creationist arguments were so good that those evolutionists couldn't respond to us at all, and the only way for evolutionists to fight back against us was to cover up our evidence and say nothing about it.
I'm not a creationist any more. And it was a while after I stopped being a creationist that I found this site- An Index to Creationist Claims - and I was astounded. Whoever put this site together really knows what they're doing. They truly understand creationism, and they wrote good responses to all the common creationist talking points. Wow. I had no idea anybody had answers like this. This would have been life-changing if I had had access to something like this back then.
My point is, you avoid talking about some "extreme" ideas because you don't want to give legitimacy to them in the eyes of the public, but for people who already hold those ideas, that strategy just makes them even more certain that they're right and you have no counterarguments at all.
Same thing with being "pro-life." In the environment where I grew up, everybody was "pro-life." I never heard any pro-choice arguments that meaningfully addressed my "pro-life" ideology. Sure, I knew pro-choice people were saying "my body my choice"- but that didn't do anything for me because hey it's not about your body, it's about your unborn baby's body. And pro-choice people were saying this was about women's rights, but that didn't mean anything to me either, because I felt abortion was only relevant to those "bad" women who had unmarried sex, not women in general. I totally could not imagine how anyone could be pro-choice.
And then I went to college, and it seemed that everyone was pro-choice. And some of them had very strong opinions about it. And I was so confused, I could not understand how anyone could be pro-choice, but I didn't feel like I could ask anyone about it, because they viewed "pro-life" people as so incredibly wrong- they would probably get angry rather than put together an argument that actually connected with ideas I could understand.
(I have written some blog posts which explain my own pro-choice beliefs: What Pregnancy Taught Me About Being Pro-Choice and Why I Am Pro-Choice.)
So I would say, on the question of whether to treat other people's opinions like they're so ridiculous they're not even worth discussing: It depends what your goal is. If your goal is to convince people, then you do need to learn the actual reasons for their beliefs. You need to understand how someone could believe those things. But, you're not required to do that. Maybe you have a different goal- like supporting people who are hurt by those bad beliefs.
And one more thing I want to say about voting: Voting is kind of a unique thing in that you can just vote for whoever you want, without needing to explain yourself or give a good reason for it. You have the right, and your vote counts, regardless of whether you articulate a "good reason." And in the past I sort of saw it as... "here are the candidates, I'm confused about how to choose one, but I thought about it a long time and really thought about what's important to me, and I picked one, and maybe I don't even know exactly why I feel one candidate is better than the other, and I'd be too embarrassed to stand up and try to explain my vote to other people, but there it is, it's my right." A personal thing, a confidential thing... a thing where your voice still counts even if you don't know what you'd say to people who would hate your voting choices.
Maybe that's how it is for people who aren't well-informed about politics? I don't feel that way now at all; I'm very confident about voting for Kamala Harris. My #1 issue is I support American democracy, and the Republican party just, uh, doesn't anymore??? Never thought that would be something a major political candidate would oppose. We all remember January 6. Why are people still voting for this guy?
The phenomenon of just going along with what other people ("role models") believe... to some extent it's unavoidable, because nobody has the time to research every issue. But it's a problem if it allows you to feel justified in your positions which are motivated by your own selfishness/fears/biases. I think all of us are susceptible to this; it's not related to being a Republican or being a Democrat.
---
Related:
I'm just wondering what happened to the Republican party
"This Doesn't Make Sense, But It Must Be Right"
That Time I Voted For Obama ... Plus a Bunch of Republicans
I'm concerned that there's still an argument to be made for "pro-life" policies where women die
