Attack of the Kerry-bot
Aug. 20th, 2004 08:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sinanjuSo I'm walking past the library downtown on my way to the parking garage after work today. There's a girl in her twenties with an armful of pamphlets. As I approach she asks me, "Are you voting for Kerry?"
"No," I say.
"Are you registered to vote?"
"Yes."
"You're not voting for Bush?" She sounds incredulous, like she can't believe her ears.
"Yes I am."
"But he's a Nazi," she said (I kid you not). I've been having this same "conversation" for months now, mostly online. I had no interest in explaining my reasons to her (even assuming she was open-minded enough to listen to them), so I kept walking. She fell in beside me, trying to engage me in a debate, asking why I'd support Bush. Brushing off my statement that I wasn't interested in talking about with an announcement that this was a big deal, an important election.
She asked me again if I was really voting for Bush. I said that I was, and why not? "Because he's a Nazi," she repeated. No evidence, no argument; just the flat assertion, as if it were self-evident. And then, as if the implications weren't clear enough for me, she added, "unless you...agree with the Nazis."
I thought, Does this line of argument work for you often, honey?. "That presupposes that I agree that Bush is a Nazi," I said. "I don't."
She made an effort again to draw me out, but I ignored her and went on my way. Sorry, honey, but you're no more likely to change my mind than I am to convince you to support Bush. So what's the point?
It was rather amusing, really. She was so sincere, so convinced that if only I'd let her explain it to me, I'd see the light. Either I was ignorant of the truth, or I was a Nazi sympathizer. The idea that I could look at the same events and draw a different conclusion was clearly not part of her worldview.
That pretty much was my every experience arguing politics with the anti-Bush crowd for the last four years in one two-minute encounter.
"No," I say.
"Are you registered to vote?"
"Yes."
"You're not voting for Bush?" She sounds incredulous, like she can't believe her ears.
"Yes I am."
"But he's a Nazi," she said (I kid you not). I've been having this same "conversation" for months now, mostly online. I had no interest in explaining my reasons to her (even assuming she was open-minded enough to listen to them), so I kept walking. She fell in beside me, trying to engage me in a debate, asking why I'd support Bush. Brushing off my statement that I wasn't interested in talking about with an announcement that this was a big deal, an important election.
She asked me again if I was really voting for Bush. I said that I was, and why not? "Because he's a Nazi," she repeated. No evidence, no argument; just the flat assertion, as if it were self-evident. And then, as if the implications weren't clear enough for me, she added, "unless you...agree with the Nazis."
I thought, Does this line of argument work for you often, honey?. "That presupposes that I agree that Bush is a Nazi," I said. "I don't."
She made an effort again to draw me out, but I ignored her and went on my way. Sorry, honey, but you're no more likely to change my mind than I am to convince you to support Bush. So what's the point?
It was rather amusing, really. She was so sincere, so convinced that if only I'd let her explain it to me, I'd see the light. Either I was ignorant of the truth, or I was a Nazi sympathizer. The idea that I could look at the same events and draw a different conclusion was clearly not part of her worldview.
That pretty much was my every experience arguing politics with the anti-Bush crowd for the last four years in one two-minute encounter.
