,
4 tweets,
1 min read
Read on Twitter
Reading responses to my earlier tweets, I don't think people know what a political argument, a political ideology, actually is. I keep hearing, "Oh no, so and so has 13 policies about x. It's on the website." And I think to myself, have you ever gone door to door, canvassing
for a candidate or a cause, and found that "here are 13 policies about x" is an effective way to generate support much less enthusiasm? You need to identify an enemy, or if you don't like that word, a group or a class that you're trying to topple or dispossess. You need to have
an argument, or a story, or a morality tale about why they deserve to be dispossessed, why you need this person's support in order to do that dispossession, how each of us, more than the candidate's website, is the arm of that action. The policies matter, absolutely, but they're
instruments or tools. First you've got to explain what the task is that you're using them for. And it's not just the policy goal; it's part of a larger story.
