Change my mind: I think Trump's choice of Amy Coney Barrett was deliberately engineered to intensify our polarization.
I think the nones look at someone in a charismatic Catholic community, where members promise to yield to other people's authority, and declare to themselves that every single part of that is freaky-deaky. (Plenty of Catholics find it freaky-deaky, for that matter.)
I think a big slice of America looks at someone with seven -- count 'em, seven -- children and thinks to itself, "Freakiest-deakiest." A small but vocal segment of that big slice is looking at the combination of seven children and People of Praise membership and shrieking, "Aunt Lydia is about to rule over you, America!!!!!!"
Still another slice of America is thinking that deep commitment to the faith is admirable, and that anyone who can combine mothering seven children with Coney Barrett's legal career must seriously have her act together.
I am just waiting for the conservative quote-tweets of the Aunt Lydia comparisons, saying, "Look how they hate your faith and your families. We can't let that hatred win!" I think those voices will be targeting Catholics who don't want to vote for either Trump (because he's unequivocally the worst president in history) or Biden (because abortion), trying to persuade them to see Trump as the more authentically Catholic option.
These quote-tweets, of course, will be criss-crossing the tweets from left-Twitter, in which LGBTQ voices are saying, "Look how they hate your rights and your families. We can't let that hatred win!"
And I know that my perspective on this is a little quirky, since I'm a Catholic with charismatic sympathies and an eyebrow-raising number of children who leans left politically and also believes firmly in the unique and unrepeatable nature of each human life. But there are so many worthwhile conversations we could be having here, and instead we will only get sound bites on both sides: they hate you. You must vote against them.
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