Tyler Cowen (one half of Marginal Revolution) is one of our nation’s most thoughtful and generous political thinkers. The first time I became aware of him, a podcaster had asked him how people could disagree with his position. His response: “I don’t want to ascribe motivations to individuals.” And that was it. He didn’t want to gin up straw men to argue against. He just wanted to make his case and leave it to those who disagreed to make theirs.
It was a true “Aha” moment for me. Now, anytime I hear one side lay out the other’s position, I’m all skepticism. Contrary to Democrats’ most vociferous pro-choice defenders, Republicans don’t oppose abortion because they’re “anti-woman.” This would be a fairly awful political strategy given that women make up more than 50% of the population. Similarly, Democrats don’t support abortion because they’re amoral killers. This would be another awful political strategy since a vanishingly small percentage of the population (so small I’m not sure they bother polling for it) supports amoral slaughter.
People have their reasons for believing what they believe. No one makes these decisions in a vacuum, as we’re so often prompted to believe they do. Better to let them make their case for themselves rather than let their opponents try to do it.