Turning the Grand Old Peaps From The Dark Side

I've noticed alot of haters craping on each others canidates latly and was hoping that we could improve the overall mood at DU.

I was thinking that we should post some success stories on turning the Republicans from the "dark side". I don't have to much personal expierence with turning over any one specific person, but I have raised peoples awarness of the importance of the Democratic Parties principles.

I live in a military comunity full of stuanch Repubs and I am overseas. So I'm a dependent of a Civil Servent and was taking this English 101 class through University of Maryland asia division with a bunch of old confirmed Repubs. We would write a paper and we would get as many people as we could to proof-read it before we turned it in. I wasn't a member of DU but I was a certified "lurker" and was often inspired by many insightful debates here and that there were others who noticed the change in America since 911. Anyway I decided to do my part and force as many people in my class to read my semi flamingly democratic papers as possable. Well, needless to say repubs can be a little intolerent, especially officers wives, and they didn't take to kindly to my process paper on how to start your own fashist government in America. I kept it intentionally vague and mentioned no names and merely went through techniques "you" could use. So anyway I hand this paper to the most hardcore repub in the bunch to proof and snip at her "I wrote this paper for you". she starts reading slowly and then starts glancing at me more and more and halfway through, BOOOOMMMM!!! Explodes before she could finish, says I'm insulting president Shrub. I state that I never mention president shrub and ask her to point out where it says that. Everyone looks at her and she stamers a bit and starts reading my paper again looking for evidence. everyones kind of wide eyed now. She puts the paper down and starts arguing with me over how closly it resembles present day events. I state that may be true but I am talking about your start up fashist government and not pres shrubs fashist goverment. We argue a little while, she looks pretty dumb but she doesn't realize it yet. Meanwhile my papers being read by one after another in my class becuase they want to join in on the arguement. So anyway she accuses me of belitlleing her husbands sacrafice in less than civil tones, and apologeticly I say that I think youre taking it a little bit personally. Now about this time people are being pretty quite and I'm starting to feel pretty alone. I am the only civilian in the class excluding the professor. But low and behold slowly as they read my paper my classmates chime in on my side. I know that this may not sound like much, but I know that these people took my paper serouisly. i tell her that maybe she should be concerned if the first thought that comes to mind is that its like pres shrubs government.

So thats my story, right in the lions den fighting the good fight and coming out victorous. kind of. I didn't get personal and I think it really helped. I dont know if that will translate into votes but it sure makes me feel better when I think about it. a bunch of old repubs were able to see the logic of it if you don't associate it with shrub.The cool part is that I'm from a blue state and changing peoples minds there doesn't effect things as much, but since Im in a military comunity Im effecting the whole country... a little bit. Even if I didn't completly change thier minds I think I planted a seed of doubt.

Soooooooo.... what I was thinking is if you have any successful techniques and/or stories that could inspire other DUers you should post them here!!! (They would be for my education and that of fellow DUers)

On a side note, if you are trying to pull other dems to your primary canidate and arn't making much headway maybe you should try somthing new, Go convert some repubs. Or even better you could get the uninvolved involved in the process.

The problem you have with repukes is that their politics are like a religion to them. They don't look at facts. They rely on faith that conservatism is right and liberalism is wrong.

like that then it only stands to reason that somehow they could be unprogramed. Reformated. I think that a certain amount of very personal therapy and long term conversion for the programmed. On the other hand I've met Republicans that are fountains of wisdom and they think critticly about things, like thier jobs and how to get in womens pants. jk. But I've run into many different situations with people with very different motivations.

The most disturbing are the ones that hold a lot of sway, but are really stupid, you know the type. they are almost hopeless becuase they arn't smart enough to comprehend any more than just black and white, right and wrong.

Then thier are the intellectually lazy that cant be bothered to look at a thing deeply.

The self-serving. The religous fanatic. The "my parents voted repub and so will I". Theres more I just cant think of.

Anyway tell me one of your mistakes so I wont have to make the same one. Help get the ball rolling, the devisivness on DU needs a break.

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

Your words of wisdom are ones every liberal should remember-let's not bicker amongst ourselves. Let's get out there and talk to conservatives and undecideds. Let's get people to register to vote who have never voted before.

In my case, I had a conservative explaining that we had to go into Iraq because Muslims were all horrible people and Islam was the work of the devil. (Oh, and any Muslim living in this country is anti-American). I got out the Qu'ran and refuted every one of his points (helped that he misquoted Qu'ranic passages). The conservative conceded that I was a good debater. This was on a board at A&E. I don't know that I really changed his mind, but I know that I made the others at that board think. No one there has said that Muslims were bad or anti-American since. I claim that as a small victory.

Your methodology is excellent! Give them the truth and let them make their own conclusions like you have been doing.

Don't worry about officer's wives--most of them are arrogant bitches who think their husband's rank is theirs as well. They haven't earned it, and they know it.

Quite a smart thing to not mention names. Are you going to show DU'ers your paper?