I think it's far better to remain true to one's ideals instead of one's party. Identifying too closely with a party can do weird things to your head, as was explored in this fascinating NYT article about the 1909 claims and counterclaims of competing newspapers and competing seekers of the North Pole. It's a very interesting read.
Makes me glad I consider my primary political affiliation to be membership in the "reality-based community." I agree with Karl Rove that the opposite of that is the contemporary manifestation of Republicanism, but the Democrats are certainly not fully participating members in the community either. Maybe one day there will be a party that aligns with it, but I doubt it.
From the article:
In September 1909, Dr. Frederick A. Cook and Robert E. Peary each returned from the Arctic with a tale of having reached the North Pole. Neither provided any solid proof or corroborating testimony; both told vague stories with large gaps. They couldn’t even convincingly explain how they had plotted their routes across the polar ice. Yet each explorer’s claim immediately attracted its supporters, and no amount of contradictory evidence in the ensuing years would be enough to dissuade the faithful.
…
When we contemplate contradictions in the rhetoric of the opposition party’s candidate, the rational centers of our brains are active, but contradictions from our own party’s candidate set off a different reaction: the emotional centers light up and levels of feel-good dopamine surge.
…
In one study, Republicans who blamed Saddam Hussein for the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, were presented with strong counterevidence, including a statement from President George W. Bush absolving Hussein. But most of the people in the study went on blaming Hussein anyway, as the researchers report in the current issue of Sociological Inquiry.
And then there's this kicker: "Some came up with an especially creative form of motivated reasoning that the psychologists labeled 'inferred justification': because the United States went to war against Hussein, the reasoning went, it must therefore have been provoked by his attack on Sept. 11."
The most important question, I believe, is this: Who is profiting from the ginning up of this phenomenon, which clearly affects both parties?
