Thought exercise:
Imagine you are an evangelical and you live in the Bible Belt surrounded mostly by other evangelicals. Right or not on the abortion issue you believe with all your heart that any position other than the one you hold will send you to burn in everlasting hellfire for eternity. A vast majority of your neighbors feel the same way. You cannot change this about yourself or them.
However you feel because of your religion you should be welcoming to refugees and that there are too many guns and you want your kids safe at school and you were hoping that one day your kids could afford to go to college at a good school like Liberty University.
Now as Democrats we could:
- Stick to our principles and not allow anyone who is not pro-choice, ensuring you will never have a voice in government and some horrible monster will represent you who will take every benefit from you while enriching themselves, pouring more guns into your community, and generally destroying the country. Your only choices are to vote for the monster or just sit it out and leave politics behind so you can focus more on heaven and things beyond this world. You like harps and loose robes. Clouds are fluffy. The few liberals in your area as always are represented by a Republican and since there is no hope of winning they disengage with politics.
or - Recognize this region does not generally share the official Democratic position on abortion, but we could recruit you to run for office because you are well respected by other Evangelicals and you solidly will protect their interest on this issue with your vote. Now suddenly you and your neighbors have a choice you can reasonably make and suddenly we have the votes in Congress we need for gun control and immigration reform and curtailing gerrymandering and the world can become a better place. The handful of heathen liberals are unhappy you are running but they for the first time have an option to vote for someone who shares at least a few of their values and has an actual possibility of winning. Suddenly you have a political voice and they have a political voice where previously both you and they were completely excluded. You are uncomfortable mingling with sinners but you do your best to be gracious toward them. Maybe one day they will see the light and join you in your beliefs. Women’s rights are important, but they mean little when girls get shot before they can become women or they are left in cages because we don’t have the votes to free them. There are many rights other than abortion rights that are far more important, and they are in significant danger.