Parties -- through their platforms, through their leaders, through their policies -- offer simple answers. Don't know what to think about abortion/gay rights/climate change? No need to worry. Just vote straight ticket.
One can certainly see the appeal of subjugating one's own political ideology to party membership. or, if not precisely subjugating it, assuming that the party (whichever party) will simply take care of one. The paternal attitude between individual and party has a long history itself in American politics. And it is worth remembering that it is not all just smoke and mirrors. A poor, black, gay man is much, much more likely...
That's a quick-and-easy answer that is almost always bound to be right.
But easy answers tend -- in American politics -- to lead to easier answers, and finally to answers that require no thinking at all. Indeed, there is on the Right today in American politics a certain delight in know-nothingness. The fewer facts, the less individual thought, the purer one's heart must be. The result is people cheering for the
murder of doctors and others who wish to dismiss policies that make it easier for people to adopt. And each of these groups is happier and happier being at full battle with each other all the time.
How one feels about
abortion has become a rallying point. It is an abbreviation. Say yes or no on this question and that's all one needs to know about someone to classify another person as friend or foe.
And in such a dichotomous world, what value is the idea of citizenship?
