{"id":43170,"date":"2014-04-18T12:00:07","date_gmt":"2014-04-18T17:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=43170"},"modified":"2014-04-18T12:36:44","modified_gmt":"2014-04-18T17:36:44","slug":"shell-never-do-lunch-in-berkeley-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=43170","title":{"rendered":"She’ll Never Do Lunch In Berkeley Again."},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve always tried to understand people from “across the aisle”.<\/p>\n

Part of it was the fact that I\u00a0was\u00a0<\/em>a liberal for a while. \u00a0It’s easy for me not to see libs as “evil”; I wasn’t evil, I was just naive.<\/p>\n

And over the years I’ve found that getting to know people who think differently,\u00a0outside\u00a0<\/em>the context of politics, can be useful, especially for people whose primary interaction is via some sort of social media. \u00a0Social media – and the whole online user experience – tends to reduce inhibitions and focus emotion – which is a lousy combination for civil discussion. \u00a0And over the decade or so of doing MOB parties, I’ve met a lot of people who disagree with me – but spent enough time talking about anything\u00a0but\u00a0<\/em>politics that it was easier to start treating each other like human beings rather than collections of caricatures.<\/p>\n

(I said a lot. \u00a0Not all of them. \u00a0There are some Twin Cities leftybloggers who are not redeemable, and not worth knowing or understanding, because they are depraved and of no value. \u00a0But I’m not naming names).<\/p>\n

And it cuts both ways. \u00a0Liberal \u00a0commentator and strategist Sally Kohn spent some time, er, commentating at Fox News, and learned that conservatives are, in fact, human<\/a>.<\/p>\n

My time at Fox News was marked by meeting and working with some of the kindest, smartest, and most talented people I\u2019ve had the pleasure of meeting in life. As I said in my TED talk, Sean Hannity is one of the sweetest people you\u2019ll ever meet \u2013 and even now that I\u2019ve parted ways with Fox, he remains a good friend and mentor.<\/p>\n

For a radical progressive who once harbored negative stereotypes about folks on the right, it was a turning point for me to meet people such as Mr. Hannity, Karl Rove, Monica Crowley, Sarah Palin, and so many others, and see that \u2013 though we certainly disagree profoundly on political issues \u2013 they\u2019re personable and kind and human. Just like me.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s strange to suggest that a seemingly simple realization such as that is in fact a profound revelation, but in our hyperpartisan era, when we often vilify the other side as being less-than-human, it is.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m going to be watching for the waves of hatred that this piece generates.<\/p>\n

Because it will.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve always tried to understand people from “across the aisle”. Part of it was the fact that I\u00a0was\u00a0a liberal for a while. \u00a0It’s easy for me not to see libs as “evil”; I wasn’t evil, I was just naive. And over the years I’ve found that getting to know people who think differently,\u00a0outside\u00a0the context of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lefty-alt-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43170"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43194,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43170\/revisions\/43194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}