Before I start, in case you haven't seen it, I have to embed the clip that inspires the title of the article. You have to at least respect Louis Stevens for getting his hands dirty.
Despite our struggle against binary choice, or at least mine given my recent article https://www.thedisconnectblog.com/blog/2017/3/26/its-a-simple-yes-or-no-question-the-illusion-and-trap-of-binary-choice-yes-paul-ryan , there is the most obvious and unavoidable binary choice in politics that smacks us in the face every ballot.
Democrat or Republican?? ... (or one of those other guys that probably won't win).
Now, I don't think it's entirely bad to categorize candidates on by their most prominent shared views. It simply makes it easier to quickly get an idea of the ideals and beliefs that the candidate holds (and also who will provide most of the money for his campaign shhhh); but I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why citizens have to or want to be categorized in this same way??
-All this seems to do is to separate us in another arbitrary way.
-It also compels us to defend the actions and beliefs of everyone who identifies as "our team."
Neither of these are beneficial for the debate and discourse that can help us arrive at progress and more importantly TRUTH. And that's the thing here: truth and morality have become submerged in the murky water of closed-minded dissent caused by party lines.
I for one also DO NOT PREFER to be grouped this way. I feel I have more in common with an open-minded debating liberal/Democrat (I'd say I lean Conservative if you couldn't tell yet) than I do with a closed-minded right-winger who hasn't constructed his beliefs from logic. If we are to be grouped, I would prefer some kind of classification like "Open Thinkers" and "Non-Open Thinkers." I am certain these are very catchy names and will have animal caricatures as representatives soon!
Now, I know it isn't at all novel to think that political parties are "divisive" or "just a plain bad idea" (as early as the inception of the country, some guy named George Washington and other founders warned against them- here's an article with some quotes that illustrate the point; but I think it is novel to align yourself with people by THE WAY YOU ARRIVE AT AN IDEA. Namely LOGICAL DISCOURSE. That's what we've been talking about on thedisconnectblog.com after all. I WOULD RATHER GO TO THE MEETING TABLE WITH PEOPLE WHO SHARE MY CONCEPTS THAN PEOPLE WHO SHARE MY BELIEFS ONLY.
Here's a little interview of a guy (Reince Priebus, you may know him as President Trump's Chief of Staff) scrambling through nonsense to and referencing "loyalty" as a reason to pursue something you don't believe in:
He also hints at the "binary choice" we talked about before. He then references Trump's disappointment at some vague loyalty that he thought he was owed. Why? Cause they went to high school together and went halves on a limo to prom? Did they play on the same basketball team for years? This sentiment of "we're Republicans and we gotta stick together?" Yeah, in a way... but not with blind "fall on your sword" loyalty!
The Disconnect here for most people is lack of information and the incentive to be part of a team. It's so much easier and bears less responsibility to vote for a letter R or D next to a name than to have to gather information and form a personal opinion on an issue.
When you vote for a person you put the onus of the decisions on the person you voted for. When you vote in support of your ideal, you feel personal responsibility for the consequences of your decision. This is scary! For everyone! It's much easier to say "pass it to Jimmy and let him make the play" at the end of the game than to say "I think we should take a 3-pointer and this is the play we'll run."
Also you get to feel great when your party wins! You see numbers on the screen as seats of Congress or states' electoral votes are counted. Republicans-1 Democrats-0 yeah! Is a much easier to process feeling of victory than "I vaguely believe we have elected politicians that will make thoughtful, informed decisions regardless of personal predisposition YEAH!
Hopefully, if nothing else, what comes from this is that we can find ourselves engaged in debate again instead of watching with that "oncoming trainwreck" fear when you see a MAGA hat and an IMWITHHER t-shirt passing each other in the same room.