Parliamentarism is a surprisingly persuasive cause

I try to back my statements here with as much published theory and evidence as possible. For this post, I won't be able to do that and will rely solely on personal experience. However, I still find that the pattern I have observed is significant enough it bears mentioning. Parliamentarism is the most persuasive cause I have ever advocated for. By persuasive I mean a cause which people do not see as obviously correct (as democracy and human rights, for example) but that, after reading or hearing the arguments for a while, they come out a lot more sympathetic to it. 

You may think that this is some sort of humble-bragging, just me writing about how persuasive I believe I am. Let me try to persuade you (ha!) it is not. I have taken an interest in public policy from a relatively early age and have tried to persuade people of several things which seem to me to have a lot of good theory and evidence in their favor, and the results are often disappointing. Whenever I try to present to skeptics the best case for ideas such as free trade, no zoning, congestion charging, urban density, cash transfers, no state-level language planning, nuclear power, the use of cost-benefit analysis, freer migration, among other proposals which I believe have a wealth of good arguments in their favor, the result is almost invariably frustration on both sides*. 

My experience arguing for parliamentarism, however, is the exact opposite. People start out extremely skeptical it could have much of an effect, and their intuition is that the direct election of a president is a good thing in itself. As we advance in the conversation, it is very often the case that the person comes out substantially more sympathetic to the idea. As I said, I do not have hard data on this, but I have had enough interactions by now to see a clear distinction. 

The people involved in these interactions (me and friends and colleagues) are the same, so if not the intrinsic persuasiveness of the argument, what could be biasing the result? There are two best candidates, but I think neither of them satisfactorily explain the difference. The first one is social desirability bias on the part of the people that talk to me or give me feedback. These friends and colleagues know how much time I have invested in making an argument in favor of parliamentarism and would not like to hurt my feelings. But if that is the main cause, why would they react so strongly against the idea before hearing it and gradually change their mind as we discuss the issue? They could very well give a general "congrats on your passion for this cause, nice job" and change the subject. But they do engage with the arguments, present a great number of specific objections, and seem to come out satisfied with the counterpoints I propose. The second possibility is that I just know a lot more arguments for parliamentarism than for the other causes. This is indubitably true, but I also think I know enough of the arguments for the other causes so that it would be enough to persuade the people I interact with. 

While I do not completely disregard the second possibility that I argue better in favor of parliamentarism than in favor of the other stuff, I am increasingly convinced that parliamentarism is indeed a persuasive cause in itself. If that is true, it could signicantly alter the cost-benefit analysis of advocacy for parliamentarism as I very roughly presented here and make it even more attractive. That would be great news.