Hear Any Good Stories Lately?

As Norm mentioned, Republicans have a lot of ground to recover.

Basically liberals have a good story: “we want to help everyone and be really really nice; conservatives don’t want to help anyone, and they’re really really mean.”

When you walk out of a truly enjoyable movie, it’s such a drag to immediately hear someone pointing out all the plot holes. You inevitably view the person as a spoil-sport, even if you know (or suspect) what they’re saying is (or may be) true.

A much better approach is to have a distinct parallel story rather than beating “liberals” over the head with “The Truth.” In the liberal narrative, conservatives are essentially “mean.” Conservatives want to spoil everyone’s fun and force their beliefs on people (e.g. same sex marriage, abortion, helping the poor, immigration, etc.) So to respond defensively, yelling our positions louder and louder, only plays into the hands of those who would paint us as “mean.”

We need to tell our story. We need to show that “fake-helping” the poor (admittedly this phrase could use some work in the niceness department!) by stealing from the rich is in fact not some romantic Robin Hood-inspired utopia, but rather a violation of property rights and an encouragement of irresponsible behavior. We need to (not so directly) challenge the false alternatives of the liberal narrative (e.g. either the government helps the needy or no one helps the needy) without fueling the fire of the “conservatives are mean” line of thinking.

Rather than pointing out all the plot holes in the liberal story line, we need to craft a better, more appealing story line, to get the attention of the Bush-weary nation. And then we need to hold each other accountable to this narrative.

Now if only there existed one remaining creative person in the entire country who hadn’t been thoroughly turned off by conservative meanness…