Don't Shoot the Message

An insight on political psychology

I wrote on Twitter a few days ago: “Almost all of our politics comes down to shooting the message because we don’t like the messenger.”

I think there’s a heck of a lot of truth in this. So often we conflate an underlying political or policy idea with the people we think the idea is synonymous with. And then, ironically, that cedes the idea to one side, which creates this perception that certain policies “belong” to the right or left. And whichever one isn’t your side must be wrong.

One of the things that got me thinking about this was how people who sort of “officially” oppose zoning reform or more housing or whatever it is will often express support for the underlying idea they say they oppose—if the conversation avoids the political framings that indicate to them that the idea is “owned” by the other side. I’ve had conversations where it’s almost, “Oh, wait, I know I said that, but that’s something [liberals/conservatives/socialists/whatever] say.”