Here's a nifty article in today's
ScienceTimes. Committed supporters of Bush and Kerry were put into MRIs and shown doctored documents where either man was depicted making statements contrary to expected. When faced with the "disappointing" documents, the men ended up "purging" the information, and in fact got an emotional charge from doing so. The "reasoning" portions of the brain remained quiet.
It's far from a surprising result, but it's confirmed by science! It explains Republicans holding on to increasingly contradictary positions in increasingly irrational ways. It explains people who defend some liberal positions in pretty contorted or propagandistic ways as well.
This reemphasizes my belief that politics and governing are not interchangeable. Politics can be emotional--in fact the best manipulators in politics understand and make use of the idea that people want to be emotionally invested in a "team", whether or not they would actually agree with everything on the platform when seen in the cold light of day. The best government, it would seem to me, would be "non-idealogical". It would seek the best solutions regardless of where they came from--it would seek the best people, regardless of political party. But inasfar as politics and government are intertwined (and lately, they have been inextricably and tragically intertwined), here's proof of how politics gets in the way of rational thought.
So clearly "stating the facts" is not enough to turn a committed partisan--certainly not overnight. The process would be more akin to turning someone from a rabid fan of one sports team to a rabid fan of another. If anyone has experience on how that's done, it might be useful.