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Do as I Do, Not as I Say
If Democrats want to reach more evangelical voters, they should use a political language that evangelicals can hear. They should talk about the kind of people we are aiming to be and about the transformational journey that any choice will take us on. They should talk about how we can grow in compassion and care. They could talk about the way their policy interventions will allow those who receive them to become better people and how those of us who support them will better ourselves as we reach out in love. They could describe health care reform as a response to suffering, not as a solution to an economic problem.
To be sure, they won't connect to every evangelical. But the good news for secular liberals is that evangelicals are smarter and more varied than many liberals realize. I met doctors, scientists and professors at the churches where I studied. They cared about social justice. They cared about the poor. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, many of them got into their cars and drove to New Orleans. This is a reachable population, and back in 2008, a quarter of white evangelicals voted for Mr. Obama. Democrats could speak to evangelicals more effectively if they talked about how we could develop our moral character together as we work to rebuild our country.
| This is a anthropologist from Stanford, trying to explain her findings to the intended market of the New York Times in order to benefit a certain political spectrum. It may sound amusing, but consider that this is the political spectrum currently in charge at State, academia, the legal community, and Washington in general. If they can't understand Americans who they consider as part of a 'foreign culture', how are they dealing with actual foreign cultures, beliefs and mindsets like Pakistan, India, Syria, the Taliban, Tuaregs, Chinese, Palestinians, etc.? |
| They won't see a need to understand the Israelis as a foreign culture, anyway, because they're in perfect agreement with the American Jews in their circle. |
| All foreign cultures are amenable to the same worldview, since the inhabitants of either flyover America or Zimbabwe are the same, and both need to be managed by their betters... |
Posted by: Pappy 2012-05-09 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=344322 |
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