POLITICS FROM THE NECK DOWN

Some weeks ago, I observed how poor we liberals and progressives are at dealing with human irrationality. I further observed that fascists of any kind live and die by irrationality. They'll only deal with facts convenient to their bunk lines.
I now suggest that a, perhaps the, line of separation between the democratic left and what might be called the alt-left is in their respective attitudes toward human irrationality. The alt-left is rare now, much weaker than it was when I was in college, but it does still barely exist. We of the democratic left tend to treat irrational human nature as either one's own concern or, sometimes, as an inconvenience or weakness which needs transcending. The alt-left seems to me to have declared war on human irrationality, without realizing that 1) in believing that they've declared war on human irrationality, they are actually living by it and 2) the result of such 'wars' on human nature from the neck down tend to be very bloody indeed and 3) there is no going 'back to the Garden' and attempts to do so result only in bloodshed and more bloodshed. Neither alt-side grasps that last.
If we can gauge someone's politics by how they deal with human nature from the neck down, it is still also true that the political spectrum is a globe with a democratic Prime Meridian on one side of it with the democratic left and democratic right on either side. On the other side of the globe is the Autocracy Date Line with the alts back to back along it.
The alt-right is today's great danger to democracy as we all know. They're the ones who seek to grab their target followers by the heart and the gut and, if they could, have everyone headless at the same time. Now is the time that the democratic left and right need to join together and work out a way of grabbing the hearts and guts of those we need in order to preserve and extend democracy!
We of the democratic left have always been very good at engaging our actual and hopeful voters from the neck up; now we need to do the same below the neck. We cannot afford to ignore human irrationality in this time when it has an alarmingly good chance of swallowing us all up--human civilization, perhaps human existence and possibly many other animals and plants we cherish and/or know are instrumental to our own existence and flourishing.
First step is, we need to quit playing at being entirely rational beings ourselves. That's probably a big part of why people who, taking a largely above-the-neck view of their interests, ought to support us, don't. It's probably a large source of motivation for 'owning the libs'.
Tell more stories from our own growing up. I could tell plenty, for instance, about growing up in one of the few successfully racially (and economically) integrated neighborhoods in the whole country, never mind the city, and how it continues to shape my own personality and politics. Most of the MSNBC anchors seem to grasp this now. We need to share these histories with others and we probably need to keep hammering them until those who don't want to believe our truth have no choice but to know what we speak is the truth!
Above all, we need to engage our fellow-citizens by their hearts and guts as well as their heads. Maybe it's because the alt-left is at war with human irrationality that it's so much weaker than the alt-right. We may not like the conclusions to which this fact may lead us, but if we mean to be real liberals, progressives and small 'd' democrats, we need to face that fact and follow its ramifications. In any case, we need to engage and involve our fellow-citizens with both urgency and hope. The first because the jobs at hand needed doing yesterday, the second because without it, too many of us may succumb to despair's inertia. We can't afford that now either. Now we must rally and organize to save our country, our planet and to save and extend democracy.