I look at the title and think what do sentiments have to do with democracy? is the idea that we need to account for sentiments when we think about democratic systems?
The author describes the article as "on the political importance of changing how people feel and a pragmatist ethics based on the model of a joke."
I believe that this article refers to schools of thought that i don't know much about yet and will need to google up. for instance this paragraph
A pragmatist ethics calls for prioritising feelings instead of facts, because a truly humanist democracy is sentimentalist rather than rationalist.
I have a feeling that pragmatist and humanist here refer to schools of thought and not just the literal words.
There is simply no perspective we all share and from which all parties can neutrally weigh and exchange reasons.
Oh now I remember why this article appealed to me. It talks about the need for 'creative misuse of public language' for one, it seems to imply that your job is not to reason with people on the opposite side. you might not be able to use reason to make them see your point because you both don't operate from any same assumptions. so the first step is to understand that reason is not the tool. then the suggestion seems to be to do creative misuse of language? this part i am not yet clear on.
ok so maybe the thing is that language is all we have to express ourselves and communicate. usually you'd think that you must use language to construct rational and reasonable arguments to win over the other side. but when you can't use that due to a lack of shared set of understanding, what you are left with is some creative misuse of language to help them see your side.
What you want is not to convince them to accept some pre-established truth on our say-so, but instead cause feelings that lead them to reconsider what they take to be true or authoritative.
your goal is not to force compliance. and hence in that way your work is closer to art.
Last Section The article now moves to a special kind of art that does misuses language well - Humor
Doubts : What are some shared things people across the political spectrum agree on? What are the agreed upon standards that an evidence must meet to be accepted as valid