I've heard a lot of people say recently that whenever they try to talk to a Republican about this election, they come away feeling crazy. Every time they bring up an issue or make a specific point, the Republican has a come-back, often having nothing to do with the issue and always defying logic.
Example: My daughter who is a stay at home mother of three young children, and has recently become interested in politics, wandered onto a pro-Sarah Palin discussion board. Since she could not understand how anyone could think Sarah Palin was qualified to be vice president, she wanted to know what these women thought. Mostly what she found was feminist-bashing, as in "feminists just can't accept that a conservative woman like Sarah Palin or Margaret Thatcher could be in positions of power." (I don't remember any feminists getting their panties in a twist about Margaret Thatcher, but that's a different issue.)
Someone liberal apparently breached their firewall and asked how being a mother of five, a mayor of a small town, and a two year governor of a sparsely populated state qualifed her to be vice president, to which an angry member of the discussion group said "How does being friends with a criminal and a terrorist qualify you to be president?"
Now this was an absolutely perfect response if you are a Republican. If the woman had really tried to answer the question, she would have had to say "It doesn't," or "It doesn't but she can learn on the job" or even the ridiculous answer often given that "she has more 'executive experience' than Obama." But these answers really don't make Sarah look too good, so the better reply is to attack Obama. But notice the woman did not attack Obama on his experience as a state legislator or four year senator or ten year Constitutional law professor. She attacked him because of his knowing and associating minimally with William Ayers, who was never convicted of anything and who now is a professor and community fund raiser, and Tony Rezko, an alleged criminal who sold the Obamas some property.
These are two completely different things, one having nothing to do with the other. It would have been easy to go back and say "How does being married to a man who is an Alaskan separatist, or firing people who disagree with you, or helping elect the indicted Ted Stevens qualify you to be vice president?" but this just gets silly. The point is that the question was about experience and because there was not good defense, the woman simply deflected the question by attacking on a completely different topic. Obama isn't running on his credentials as an associate of either Ayeres or Rezko, while Palin is running on her credentials as a mother, mayor and governor. But those who have drunk the Kool-Aid cannot see the difference.
Another example from that discussion thread. One woman said how much she admired Palin for "choosing" to have her Down syndrome baby when ninety percent of babies with Down syndrome are aborted by liberals. (I have no way of knowing if this 90% statistic is true but I do know that liberals aren't the majority of women who have abortions. Some of the highest rates are in the southern states, and some of the lowest rates in liberal states like Massachusetts.)
This reference to liberals got under my daughter's skin, so she decided to join the conversation. She said she was a liberal, spoke of her own situation as the mother of three and how she couldn't imagine having an abortion unless her life was in danger, then she talked about her friend who is pro-choice but chose not to have abortions when she found out that both of her children would have Down syndrome. Someone replied that her friend's situation didn't mean anything, and then told her the discussion board was supposed to be confined to people who like Sarah Palin and asked her to leave.
Whoa! Hoory for free speech! These guys are really into the Constitution.
My daughter's conclusion and mine are that you cannot talk to these people because they are simply irrational. Their minds are made up and they have built in tactics to protect their dogma: distract, deflect, attack, accuse, demean, defame, project, rationalize, and when all else fails - banish anyone whose argument they can't refute.
