http://nicoledavenport.com/2010/02/american-politics-black-white/

Though Obama’s State of the Union Address on 1/27/10 received all of the hype, his Q & A session with House Republicans two days later was a much more meaningful, constructive communication. I was delighted to see Candidate Obama behind the podium once more.

The President “entered the lion’s den” with a willingness to listen, but also a firm resolution to cut through the blame-game tactics. He admitted to, and took responsibility for failures that he felt were legitimate criticisms. But he chastised representatives for making false claims and self-promoting statements when they should have been engaging in an earnest dialogue based on questions. Most importantly, Obama told hard truths.

The biggest takeaway was that the tone of American political discourse must change. Mr. Obama called for an end to “slash & burn” statements. He posited that demonizing the other party puts politicians in a precarious position when called to the table to negotiate.

“You’ve given yourselves very little room to work in a bipartisan fashion because you’ve been telling your constituents that ‘this guy is doing all kinds of crazy stuff that’s going to destroy America.’…This is not just on your side by the way. This is part of what’s happened to our politics.”

After watching the Q&A I thought to myself: only the most rabid republican could see this and still believe that Obama is a radical leftist.

Or maybe conservatives are so out of touch with liberals that they’re unaware just how far the pendulum swings. Dennis Kucinich is radical. Brian Moore is radical. Barack Obama is moderate. And frankly, he’s a bit too conservative on certain issues (defense spending, “clean coal,” etc.) for my taste.

But I know people who can’t look at, or listen to, Obama without completely shutting down. And these are educated, thoughtful people! They’re not bigots (at least not consciously). During the State of the Union address, one of my friends posted this as his status: “Obama, blah, blah, blah, Spend Trillions, blah, blah, blah.” And later in the evening he conjured up Billy Madison saying: “Obama…what you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it.”

I have to admit that I’ve acted in the same self-righteous manner. Recently, in fact. I was so annoyed with my friend for airing his frustration publicly that I fired off an equally asinine retort. Then we battled it out, on Facebook mind you, in a “debate” that changed neither of our opinions and left both of us pissed off.

Has politics always been so black and white? So mutually exclusive? As a society do we really believe that if one person, party, or idea is good, then the other must be bad?

That’s certainly not what we aspire to, or how we think of ourselves. But blatant social inequalities prove that this type of primitive logic still weighs in on our minds. One researcher calls this phenomenon “The Hidden Brain.”

Maybe once we unlock the secrets of the subconscious we’ll finally be able to see our elected officials in shades of gray. Then it will be easier to spot the difference between those who are authentic, and those who are merely trying to score public approval points. Until that day, I propose that we all take a moment to reflect on the true source of our frustration when we encounter an idea we don’t like.