Spreading the Movement
Last week, we gave you a little background about a communication technique called the Perception Box. We explained how this tool is used to uncover and start to ameliorate misconceptions between us and the people we’d like to convert to our cause. This week, we’d like to add some tools to your toolbox to help you talk to the people around you about politics—a challenging topic for our society, with its deep and polarized political divisions and its squeamishness about disagreement. This is our call to action for July 4th—as we celebrate our nation’s founding on its lofty principles of liberty for all, we will fight for a nation that lives up to those ideals. We’ll do it by meeting the people of our networks and our communities where they are, with the hope to bring them closer to our vision.
We have two more stories to share with you from volunteers, about their reckoning with their own families’ political divisions, even with shared values.
It’s exhausting and frustrating sometimes when you try to reason with someone who believes they are your opposite, but it can be eye-opening to realize that you’re not as different as you think..
As the oldest of four siblings in a right-wing led household, I was the first child of my family to have the wherewithal to form my own political opinion about the world. It was one that differed greatly from that of my parents, and I could tell it kind of rocked their world.
They would find every scape-goat imaginable. They would blame the school system, the teachers, even the state itself for my left-leaning beliefs. When I would try to form arguments or make points at a young age they would blame my ‘youthful ignorance’ and ‘lack of real-world experience’ for my stances. Then, in the same breath, they would decline to help me with my taxes or changing a tire because ‘I was an adult’ who could do it on their own.
As I’ve grown older and I’ve seen my siblings take their own political stances, I’ve come to realize that blaming teachers or school systems is nothing but a coping mechanism. People often will believe only what they want to believe, and that is a damaging mindset.
I’m sure that my parents want to believe that their children don’t oppose them out of spite alone. Maybe they will realize that such compassion comes from a genuine place of concern for those less fortunate or those who come from different backgrounds. They probably want to believe that said compassion was taught from their example—because in many ways it was. The bravery and strength to stay rigid in our opinions is something that may also have been inherited in a similar way. These traits should be admired and respected for the way they shape us into individuals instead of causing people to be belittled or treated as ‘other’.
Extremists want to believe we are not their enemy, but the worms in their ears are constantly preaching that we are to be opposed and are unable to be reasoned with. By utilizing this ‘Perception Box’ method, we can find ways to introduce the idea that even if we support different political parties or political values, we share common ground.
I’m Catholic. Like many, I was brought up in the faith, drifted towards being a buffet-believer, then stopped going altogether after the weight of too many scandals within the church became too much for me to bear. In the last couple of years I’ve returned to faith in no small part because of my participation in a recovery program. It was the only higher power I knew.
Around the same time as my reentry into spiritual life, I listened to an episode of Chris Hayes’ “Why is this Happening” which featured Doug Pagitt, a leading voice for progressive Christianity and executive director of Vote Common Good. What struck me, and stuck with me, about the interview was Mr. Pagitt’s strategy for conversing with Trump voters when he said “we don’t try to change people’s minds. We try to work with people whose minds have already started to change.” We all have true MAGA believers in our lives, be they a sibling, a coworker, a cousin or the mailman. We also have those who held their nose and voted for him and some sort of pride is keeping them in his camp. They’re the ones we need to go after.
My sister is a deeply religious Protestant who is incredibly generous and kind; faith saved her life decades ago and she always comes from a place of love. And she voted for Trump. Political conversations between us never ended well, but when I sensed she had a bit of remorse over his election last year, I felt the time was right to give the episode another listen and try out Pagitt’s strategy.
My renewed faith journey has opened up a new lane of conversation between us and while we were on the topic, I asked her what she loved most about her Christianity. She answered that the love and kindness she has in her heart are her most valued Christian traits. This allowed an easy segue into the administration’s policy towards immigrants and how it jibes with the teachings of Jesus. Love thy neighbor, the Good Samaritan among many others I am sure (I’m new so I only know the famous ones so far!) This led to a wide ranging, but very civil, conversation. At no time did we take out the sledgehammer which was known to make an appearance when one of us wanted to drive home a point and end the talk with good old fashioned bludgeoning. We talked of humanity. We talked of kindness. We talked of love.
I knew I had her when she came to the rally in Newburyport June 14th.
So pick your targets wisely: there is plenty of low hanging fruit out there for us to pluck. Meet them where they are, take a few deep breaths, focus on one topic and help them lead themselves to water. Keep the sledgehammer out of it.
Let love and kindness serve as your hook but let the firm resolve of knowing you’re on the right side of history be your closer.
We won’t be able to convert everyone in our community to habitual boots-in-the-street protesters, and we shouldn’t try—it’s not reasonable to expect everyone to reach the same level of commitment to this cause as we have, even if we’re right about how absolutely crucial it is for us to oppose the authoritarian regime we find ourselves up against. Luckily, that’s not the barometer of success; it’s a success every time we leave someone a little more disposed to support our cause at the end of a conversation.
So what does this mean? It’ll mean different things for different groups of people. We can look at a few different cases.
Passive Allies
There are undoubtedly a huge number of people, particularly here in Massachusetts, who agree with us broadly that the administration is doing bad things that they shouldn’t be allowed to do. Our objective with these people is to support them in taking a more active stance; this could mean informing them about opportunities to take action, or helping them overcome obstacles.
Talking points:
What would you need to be able to get involved in the ways you would want to?
Timothy Snyder, in On Tyranny, suggests that free societies can’t obey authoritarian governments in advance; we need to use our First Amendment right to protest the things we don’t agree with, while we still have it.
The things the administration is doing aren’t just bog-standard Republican policies; our freedom is at stake here. If anyone within this country’s borders doesn’t have the right to due process, then none of us can be assured that we’ll be afforded due process.
Neutrals
There are a ton of reasons people could be neutral to our cause, and most of the solutions will involve education. They might be with us in spirit, but not know how to take action; this is an easy problem to solve, because you can just give them the information they need—whether it’s how to sign up to our mailing list, or when the next protest is, or who’s trying to stop what’s happening (we are!).
They might feel disempowered to have any kind of impact. In this case, perhaps you can help tell them about how 3.5 percent of the population engaging in consistent civil resistance is often a precursor to significant social change.
Talking points:
Change can only happen when enough people demand it—and each additional person speaking up is one step closer to the goal.
This administration is a threat to due process; and if anyone isn’t guaranteed due process in this country, then none of us can rely on it.
Opponents
Maybe you have people in your life who have been lifelong Republicans; they don’t agree with where the party is now, but they definitely don’t support the Democrats. They feel politically homeless, so maybe they’ve retreated from politics. With these people, it might be worthwhile to discuss how neither party is going to change unless they are pushed, and the people doing the pushing are the ones that control the direction.
Or, you might be in the awkward and painful situation of someone close to you, who you really care about, supporting Trump and the administration at large. Like our two volunteers who shared their stories, a good strategy here might be to appeal to common values: these people are clearly in your life for a reason, and that reason likely has to do with at least some shared values.
Talking points:
MAGA Republicans don’t honor traditional Republican values, like fiscal responsibility and national defense.
See: the budget bill which cuts services but still balloons the deficit.
See: the laxity of security around national defense information (eg, SignalGate)
Talking points that could be helpful with people, generally, if you don’t know where to start; tailor to your relationship:
Book recommendations?:
On Tyranny
They Thought They Were Free
Saving Us: A Climate Scientist's Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World, by Katharine Hayhoe
Talk about what you’ve been working on; you don’t have to ask them to do anything, right off the bat—see where the conversation goes:
“I’ve been going to protests, and the people I’ve been meeting…”
“I joined this Discord about resisting the presidential administration, and I am really struggling with how difficult Discord is to navigate! There’s like a million channels and…”
“I get this email newsletter every Friday, and I think you’d really enjoy it—let me forward this week’s to you!”
If this is someone you have a close relationship with, you could try to have a heart-to-heart with them—but this is absolutely a high emotional workload ask, so be thoughtful about when you employ it.
Strangers
It can be a lower-stakes conversation to try talking politics with a stranger; if it doesn’t go how you wanted it to, you can just walk away and never see them again.
Coworkers
Maybe your coworkers gripe at the news, but they don’t go out and protest. You could try to push them to join you at protests, but you don’t want to make the workplace awkward. Maybe you could try making jokes at the administration’s expense, or pointing out the ways that the bad policy directly affects your work (which, chances are, it does).
Friends
Your friends likely have a lot of the same beliefs as you—that tends to be how those relationships develop—but maybe you want to get them more involved in activism. Try making it fun! Invite them to come along with you to protests and other events, have a sign-making party, talk politics at a bar.
Family
Political discussions within families can be super fraught; you want to keep relationships with these people, but might seriously diverge in your political opinions. The strategy that our volunteers took in thinking about their family relationships are really valuable here: common values very often tie families together. Lean on those common ties when you work through these conversations—and if there’s a big point of disagreement, maybe try not to push too hard and to seek to understand instead.
The common component of all of these different strategies to take with all these different groups of people is that, in order to be effective, you first have to listen. You have to really understand where the person you’re talking to is coming from if you’re ever going to change their mind. You have to realize that every single person in the world is an individual, and there’s no cookie-cutter solution to bring someone over to our side; the only thing you can do is hear what they’re telling you, and speak what you know to be the truth. We have the great good fortune to be on the side of the truth—there’s no elaborate lie to sell here, there’s no ulterior motive.
Our Call to Action on July 4th specifically is for our supporters to join us in attending our communities’ events (either ones we’ll be at, or the ones in your area), where we’re celebrating our country’s founding as a nation free from tyranny, and advocating for a return to our foundational ideals to see if we can’t try to achieve them this time. We’ll be wearing our “No Kings” shirts over the weekend, and we’ll be having conversations with our families and neighbors about the ways the administration is impinging on our freedoms and what we can do to resist, and we’ll be handing out literature about how to join Mass 50501 and contribute to the cause—and we hope you’ll join us all across the state.
But this doesn’t end when this weekend is over; this is going to be a long, hard slog to keep resisting this regime bent on the people’s subjugation, and we’ll need all the allies we can get. The good news is that having these conversations is a simple (not easy) way to help the resistance that you can incorporate into your daily life. It can be painful to start speaking out, to disagree with people and even to push them toward action, particularly if you, like many of us, have become accustomed to quieting yourself to avoid conflict or to preserve relationships, but it’s a muscle you can exercise and build up. Start with strangers, start with jokes, start where you can—but start. It’s going to be a long fight, and we’re going to need the people in our corner.
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