Changing The Conversation: Political Debate Is Broken & How To Fix It
Seattle, where I live, and the country as a whole has a political climate fueled by charged rhetoric. You viscerally hear the emotion and fear soaked through much of our political messaging. Social media might be dumping gasoline on this situation.
Honestly, is there even any other emoji for political debate these days?
Now look back into your own life. Think of the times you were anxious, scared, and angry. Did you make good decisions or rash ones? Did these choices lead to regret? - More often than not, rash choices made out of fear are not logical. See this study from the National Institute of Health, which concluded that when it comes rational thought ,“Overall, participants in a neutral emotional state performed best.”
Yet our politics is defined by emotion -> “It you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.” A common expression used by people across the political spectrum. What if you did pay attention, but learned not only to keep an even keel, but to investigate statements and ideas through a logic based paradigm? Even the people you agree with often use ideology mixed with fear/outrage and even hope to pull the wool over your eyes, sometimes deliberately and sometimes not.
Why are we trying to solve our political problems through an emotionally driven paradigm?!
My mission with this blog is talk about local issues that we as a community really can have an impact over in our daily life and at the ballot box - and to do so in a calm rational manner. I will touch macro topics here and there as well. And while I’ll be taking positions on issues, it should never be taken as gospel. The goal here is to foster discussion. I’ll admit when I’m wrong or when I changed my mind. If that doesn’t happen, then I’ve failed.
If you’re wondering what my ideological bent is, well I’m going to try something different. Rather than getting bogged down in hypothetical best case scenerios that ideologues tend to cling to, I just want to see if we can distill the best step forward. We have to start where we actually are and then propose solutions that push our community forward.
The main categories I’ll start proposing solutions for in our community are:
Housing/Affordability
Homelessness
Economic Opportunity
The Environment (FYI, Climate Change is real, humans cause it. In case you were worried)
Traffic and Infrastructure.
It’s my position that everyone of these issues disproportional hurts those in margailized communities.