"But the one action that I do not hear suggested as much is one that is available to just about everyone: You should talk to other people who may have different political beliefs than you—not only for the purpose of understanding them, but ultimately for the purpose of persuading them to change their thinking."
Yes, THIS. A thousand times THIS! That said, I'd also recommend at least keeping tabs on what's being written in the media consumed by the other side – within reason: I mean Fox News's website, not any bizarrely demented Telegram channels – if only to understand what they're *not* seeing.
Perfect case in point: when the stock market first collapsed due to Trump's tariffs, you'd've seen nary a mention of it on Fox News (TV or web): for the first time in 30 years, they removed their daytime chyrons with the real-time Dow & Nasdaq figures. Instead, a brazenly classist & racist story involving a high school stabbing in suburban Dallas has been the most "important" news to note. (One of the students was white. The other was Black. I think you can guess who stabbed the other and its purported "relevance.")
Point being: it isn't merely a matter of disagreeing. It's also a matter of one side receiving vastly different versions of the news even if they're *not* particularly MAGA-crazed.
Obviously that only goes so far, as Trump is seeing in his dismal polling numbers, but these types of conversations with Trump fans are proportionately more difficult depending on their level of indoctrination.
I agree that discussions of values are helpful, but we're still basically talking about trying to deprogram cultists here to a considerable degree.
This is a good point. We have some neighbors that are staunch "the other side" and when they used to come over to visit you could tell when they'd been fire-housing Fox in preparation to have at it. Have to admit we don't have those visits as much and if so they only last an hour and we try to maintain a "no politics zone." Although I have to admit I'm curious to see if their staunchness has wavered any because they are clearly 401K-centric and must have taken a hit along with everyone else. (Not to rub it in their faces or anything....)
“Don’t be in a hurry to condemn because he doesn’t do what you do or think as you think or as fast. There was a time when you didn’t know what you know today.”
And part of what allows the venom is not knowing each other as human beings, but simply as carriers of political views.
So we’re starting gatherings in our neighborhood.
Music, for instance. My husband is a first-rate mandolin player, and he knows bunches of musicians. Every so often we hold jams and pot lucks on our deck. The whole neighborhood is invited, and all are encouraged to bring instruments, songs, food to share. Or just to come.
Music supersedes politics - those who come automatically LIKE each other.
And - there is a guy who cultivates a garden on a small strip along our driveway. It’s a beautiful, productive showpiece. He’s passionate about gardening and has had great conversations with people walking by. A bunch have said to me, “I wish Steve would give me pointers.”
So in a couple of weeks, we are hosting a gathering of anybody who’d like to talk about how to get incredible amounts of great food from this small strip. They’ll meet him and each other, with pleasure, around a neutral subject. THEN can perhaps bring that connection to politics.
This is small - yet these groups matter. People are human beings able to hear each other.
I work for a trades union. It’s super frustrating on a good day. We have members call to see the status of work coming up - they often lead with, “we are gonna drill baby drill - he promised.” I simply say, “yep, he sure did promise and when they drill baby drill it won’t be union work.” Crickets. Or when our car plant shut downs no longer require 100’s of union members and instead need not even 20 to do the line change- my simple message answering the “why? I’ve been working that shut down for years,” is along the same lines. The most palpable visceral reaction happens when folks call wanting that next green energy job working 60-70 hours a week offering per diem even when they live close to the site (and not a traveler) . I tell them that kind of opportunity will no longer be available- and that multi billion dollar project that got started - sits unfinished. Crickets again. I simply inform them that those green energy projects - where you made a quarter of a million dollars a year - won’t be back anytime soon. It isn’t hyperbole - and perhaps it is just planting a seed. We are already seeing a slow down - a lot driven by the weather patterns that have certainly changed in our region where we now have very wet springs (historical flooding most years now).
Our president is the best at threading the needle when members come in - he never names names. He simply says, “this administration … “ etc. He lets the member connect the dots. Or not.
The sad thing to see is that this trades union - like countless others have been dialing it in with no commitment to internal communications and organizing. Our president’s hands are tied because the business manager has no strategy to move forward and is only interested in not rocking the boat so he can keep his title and perceived position of power. The nepotism and cronyism within this space also does not help.
When I worked in the service union space - it was far different. The stark contrast in strategy is stunning and disappointing at best. It’s hard for me to care tbh. But, I reach who I can how I can in the best way I can that fits the situation.
Very good advice here. Thanks for putting this out there and walking this walk. I've always tried to operate this way myself, especially with my neighbors and acquaintances but this inspires me to do it more often with strangers too. Good stuff
Oftentimes, I don't feel all that well informed. Certainly, I read about politics a lot – actually, my time management is so appallingly shite in large part because I can't resist the compulsion to spend *hours* every single day reading about politics – and the people I read are themselves informed enough to be worth listening to, but I always feel like it's not enough; I am ever conscious of huge black spots in my understanding of politics and the world, and I can't help but see them as defining me as a political actor.
Then I read something like this that snaps me right back down to Earth and I remember "Oh right, yeah, I'm one of the most informed people in any electorate I'm a part of. How sobering."
I'm thankful, then, that this article also contains a really optimistic and *joyous* message about how persuadable people really are, and a specific, actionable programme for trying to actually do that. A lot of other leftist commentators I've read on the subject of persuasion have debate bro tendencies of greater or lesser strength, and while some, like Nathan Robinson, can recognise that debate is not the persuasive tool it's often held out to be, I've been wanting for a practical way to go about persuasion for a while; if for no other reason than to be reassured that it can realistically be done. So thank you!
Thank you for this article! I have been trying to talk to people more and more for similar reasons, but you have given me a great outline to focus some of my more difficult conversations I know I need to have!!
Re: "You should talk to other people who may have different political beliefs than you—not only for the purpose of understanding them, but ultimately for the purpose of persuading them to change their thinking." Jess Piper wrote about campaigning for office in her area. She went door to door talking to people who had different political beliefs than she did. She engaged them in conversation about politics and then asked for their support. Most, if not all, replied that her policies and plans sounded good, but they would never vote for her because she was a Democrat because they were Christian.
As an inveterate door-knocker, button-holer, and campaign canvasser, and with decades of direct marketing experience, I am a firm believer that finding the people who already agree with me is the best use of my time. Attempting conversion, especially of true-believer fanatics, is a waste of time and energy. First rule of selling is find the ones who are already sold. If you have a good product you’ll be amazed at how many folks are just waiting for you. For example, you’re much better off finding and mobilizing the 70% of voters who want Medicare for All, or an end to genocide in Gaza, than to convince the 10% who don’t. Finding the people who already want what you’re pitching is what market research and those surveys are for.
I think your idea is good in theory, but as I read your post I could hear fictional people in my head saying things I couldn't possibly find common ground with. Therefore, I would like to suggest that you--or we--someone--come up with some mock conversations so we can see how these things might play out. For example, I can envision someone starting off by talking about their faith in God (I am an atheist); their belief that abortion is murder (I am staunchly pro-choice); some anti-immigrant rant (I love immigrants, am married to one, and am descended from others); etc. So, how does a conversation like that go? It would be immensely useful to game out some possibilities to see how your idea works in practice. Thank you!
Good tactics, but would we be using those to fight the last war? I see a both a fundamental challenge and, even if I am wrong, a mindset in need of fixing
On the most basic level, we do not (and need not) even encounter (much less hang out with) folks who might be different from us. We are more and more getting less and less accustomed to dealing with those who are not aligned (on any number of issues or policies). This HamNo substack is great and I hope that some Trumpers or even old school Republicans swing by and learn something . . . but the atomization and the algorithms conspire against that happening.
Thus I am pretty sure most of the preaching here is heard only by the choir. And while internet communities are certainly real and valuable, they are not terribly good at bringing light instead of heat to hard conversations among folks wandering in who disagree. More often, the good faith dissenters get hammered and that is even before the trolls get to work (this comment section so far being a notable exception!).
Unfortunately, apart from the internet, we don't even have that many battlefields on which to deploy these tactics. As a nation and even as left leaning fellow travelers, we are so often opting out of the communal, the joint, and the collective that I am not sure when I'd even have a chance to pull out my elevator speech on the "values we all share." We don't all go to religious services or to public schools or bowling leagues, political parties or join the Army or, to acknolwedge the governing theme here, union rallies. There is not even any "must see TV" to discuss over the water cooler -- and those water coolers remain a bit lonely in the offices we are no longer working from!
And even if we find our battlefields in a resurgence of communal activity or a less toxic internet, we need a better cooperative ethic among our fellow left/lib travelers, where good faith and seeking to understand are too often qualities in short supply. We lefties have perfected the circular firing squad, with the "purists" and the "practical" and all flavors in between firing off salvos instead of seeking to work on advancing the values we share. If we don't do this with each other, how in the hell will it work when you need to gently educate or a cantankerous relative at Thanksgiving or a saying-the-quiet-part-out-loud member of the condo board or your boss who is tax cheating prepper or wherever you might encounter folks outside the bubble?
Of course, the modern/American/techno focus on the individual is very often salutary -- folks are far more free to be who they are and do what they want to do than in generations past with more material wealth than ever (I am not focusing on distribution here, this comment is areadly too long!). But the irony here is that this individualism and subsequent cocooning in comfort was all made possible by actions in the organizing and politics sphere by teams of folks who managed to trundle along and live with their differences. It is not clear to me that in the age of microtargeting ads and appeals based on public (or worse, proprietary) demographic data and even our ever increasing residential self-segregation, that the sort of organizing that brought us various "movements" (Labor, Women's, Civil Rights, etc.) in the past is possible any longer. That sort of organizing seems almost quaint now -- I'd love to be wrong here, but I am trying to convince you all from my keyboard in my house because there is no other forum so cheaply and readily available. Maybe I will tee up a lunch with a conservative colleague and get it on -- wish me luck!
Hard agree on all of this. I have suggested a somewhat different method in my most recent substack post, that still is aimed at achieving the same end result: I think it's useful and efficient to enlist "translators".
What I mean by this are people that are already in a place where their believes and yours have some sort of overlap. An example I use is Anti-Trump conservatives pondering the merits of a General Strike. If you have people that come from different contexts and agree with your methods and potentially partially your aims then I found it - at least to some extent, as for the most recent Trump wave I haven't tried that yet - in the past extremely helpful to get those people on board and convince them that they hold these believes that are outside their core beliefs for a reason and that they need to further this agenda.
Conservatives have a lot of common ground with conservatives, they can avoid pitfalls, they can avoid stuff that i enticing to us, but may be offputting to others in places where it doesn't need to be, things like this. Using "translators" like these as a sort of multipliers had at least worked fairly well in some issues I worked on in Germany in the past and I believe it is generally an extremely useful method.
This being said: Your point with the good faith arguments - and that this is in some cases a truly enlightening experience for people - is made not often enough, so thank you for making it. I also found that taking people seriously and really listening to them and trying to show them that they are not alone, even if you may not agree with them, is for most people an experience that they never or at least only very rarely had and that they appreciate so immensely that many of them will consider you their ally for life. (In some cases even if you really don't give that much of a shit. But... with people who care, not giving that much of a shit is still a LOT.)
Exactly...This tack only works for talking to someone you ALREADY KNOW. Otherwise its: "Hi, I'm Bob, may I talk to you a moment about our lord and savior Jesus Christ"?
For ME, if I feel that there IS an 'in' on talking to someone I know about this stuff, I take it.
But one thing? I CANNOT and WILL NOT engage with ANYONE who argues in bad faith...I have a one strike rule for that. If you won't even give me the most BASIC respect of engaging honestly and candidly I GOT NO TIME for ya
I got really into having these conversations for a while. I’m posting because maybe they’ll be helpful to someone? Anyways, have the conversations people. Our working brothers and sisters are in a cult and we help them to escape by having empathy and treating them respectfully.
Convo 1:
Musk apologist: I’ll agree to disagree. Also while I don't like working myself to the bone so others can live a life of comfort, I'd be more ok with a handful of people getting away with it compared to the bulk of our elected representatives (both sides) and 50% of government employees. So I'm willing to turn a blind eye to the few while exposing the many. A lesser of 2 evils in my mind
Me: I see where you're coming from. Screwed in every direction we turn, so why not focus on unscrewing at least one half.
I guess I think there's a third choice. I think it involves all the regular people who have to work for a check to pay for the things we need to live- coming together as one to demand a better society that works for regular people. So much wealth has been created in the last 40 years in America, yet the lives of regular working people continue to get harder as wages stay stagnant and costs rise. Meanwhile, Elon Musk is on pace to become a trillionaire. The math isn't adding up.
Elon Musk apologist: I can agree with this sentiment as well. No right way to turn but at least we're moving I guess
Convo 2:
Me: I don't think you're naive. I think that our media landscape just makes it really really hard for ALL of us to discern truth. So we end up picking our blue or red lane, and just hope that we’ve chosen correctly.
I think that regular working people HAVE been taken advantage of in America the last several decades, and most of us just want things to get better for us and our families and friends. So I get why people WANT to believe that Musk is going to make that happen. But at the end of the day, I think the problem is fundamentally that billionaires and corporations have grown exceedingly wealthy by keeping wages for working folks stagnant while the costs of everything we nees to live has risen exponentially
Ilearned a few months ago about the neo-reactionary movement. These tech billionaires have big plans and ultimately their goal is to destroy democracy. Google Curtis Yarvin and neo-reactionaries. We shouldn't trust them, we should trust each other as regular people. Take care
Elon Musk apologist who came around: I completely agree with everything you posted. I'll look in to Curtis Yarvin. I'm open to all angles of discussion. Enjoy your day.
I got into doing this on Facebook right after the inauguration when Elon Musk was in full-effect. Hamilton, you’re right. We should be practicing this. I posted a comment on one of those pro-Elon propaganda posts, something along the lines of ‘I don’t trust Elon cause why would a billionaire want to work for free to help us regular folk’. People attacked as I’d anticipated and I just responded earnestly and respectfully to all comers. Several of the conversations went from antagonistic to fruitful and friendly. This was my most memorable conversation…it sticks with me and still brings me to tears:
Republican man: he or Trump are taking a penny of pay for what they are doing, they are going to stop all the corruption that the last President did, they took trillions from the American people, you would think you would be happy
Me: I think that's why l am especially suspicious. Why would the richest person do this for free? He's gotta want something out of it. Some people believe him and believe he wants to return money to Americans. I personally don't believe him. I think he has other motives and it has more to do w/the technology and Artificial Intelligence he is creating. I think he wants power to dominate us as humans
Me: You know what I think? | think you and I are more alike than you and Musk. I'm just a working person- I depend on my paycheck. I'm struggling w/my bills every month. I share 1 car because I can't afford 2. So I don't understand how regular working people got divided with billionaires on BOTH sides. I think they are dividing and conquering, and meanwhile it's getting harder and harder for regular people to live and billionaires are getting richer and richer. I wish it was different
Republican man: I think your probably right, I live pay check to pay check, but i,am hoping they will figure out a way to help us, with all the taxes I pay for my property is insane, I can't hardly survive anymore, Biden wanted to run us, and Trump wants to make America great again, i,am just praying he does something, but meanwhile I hope you get it OK with everything going on in this crazy world, I will say a prayer for you, and God Bless you
Me: Yeah, I am paycheck to paycheck myself. It's really gotten rough. And trust me, I am no huge fan of the democrats- I think they've left working people behind for decades. It shouldn't be so hard for regular people to just live in the richest economy in the history of the world. Anyways, thanks for your kind words, and I will say a prayer for you too that it gets easier! Take care
Republican man: you too, things will get better
And then we left heart emojis on each other’s posts. I’m a socialist athiest, but I still say prayers for Republican man. I hope he’s ok.
Hi. Don't want to piss anyone off, but you and other bloggers on Substack should really make your submittals short and sweet.
Stop writing tomes. Keep it to the fucking point. You're not getting paid...I get it...but you're damned sure not getting paid by the word. Keep it short and sweet.
"But the one action that I do not hear suggested as much is one that is available to just about everyone: You should talk to other people who may have different political beliefs than you—not only for the purpose of understanding them, but ultimately for the purpose of persuading them to change their thinking."
Yes, THIS. A thousand times THIS! That said, I'd also recommend at least keeping tabs on what's being written in the media consumed by the other side – within reason: I mean Fox News's website, not any bizarrely demented Telegram channels – if only to understand what they're *not* seeing.
Perfect case in point: when the stock market first collapsed due to Trump's tariffs, you'd've seen nary a mention of it on Fox News (TV or web): for the first time in 30 years, they removed their daytime chyrons with the real-time Dow & Nasdaq figures. Instead, a brazenly classist & racist story involving a high school stabbing in suburban Dallas has been the most "important" news to note. (One of the students was white. The other was Black. I think you can guess who stabbed the other and its purported "relevance.")
Point being: it isn't merely a matter of disagreeing. It's also a matter of one side receiving vastly different versions of the news even if they're *not* particularly MAGA-crazed.
Obviously that only goes so far, as Trump is seeing in his dismal polling numbers, but these types of conversations with Trump fans are proportionately more difficult depending on their level of indoctrination.
I agree that discussions of values are helpful, but we're still basically talking about trying to deprogram cultists here to a considerable degree.
This is a good point. We have some neighbors that are staunch "the other side" and when they used to come over to visit you could tell when they'd been fire-housing Fox in preparation to have at it. Have to admit we don't have those visits as much and if so they only last an hour and we try to maintain a "no politics zone." Although I have to admit I'm curious to see if their staunchness has wavered any because they are clearly 401K-centric and must have taken a hit along with everyone else. (Not to rub it in their faces or anything....)
“Don’t be in a hurry to condemn because he doesn’t do what you do or think as you think or as fast. There was a time when you didn’t know what you know today.”
— Malcolm X
Great quote from Malcolm X. Thanks!
Yes, Human interaction matters.
And part of what allows the venom is not knowing each other as human beings, but simply as carriers of political views.
So we’re starting gatherings in our neighborhood.
Music, for instance. My husband is a first-rate mandolin player, and he knows bunches of musicians. Every so often we hold jams and pot lucks on our deck. The whole neighborhood is invited, and all are encouraged to bring instruments, songs, food to share. Or just to come.
Music supersedes politics - those who come automatically LIKE each other.
And - there is a guy who cultivates a garden on a small strip along our driveway. It’s a beautiful, productive showpiece. He’s passionate about gardening and has had great conversations with people walking by. A bunch have said to me, “I wish Steve would give me pointers.”
So in a couple of weeks, we are hosting a gathering of anybody who’d like to talk about how to get incredible amounts of great food from this small strip. They’ll meet him and each other, with pleasure, around a neutral subject. THEN can perhaps bring that connection to politics.
This is small - yet these groups matter. People are human beings able to hear each other.
We need neutral places.
I work for a trades union. It’s super frustrating on a good day. We have members call to see the status of work coming up - they often lead with, “we are gonna drill baby drill - he promised.” I simply say, “yep, he sure did promise and when they drill baby drill it won’t be union work.” Crickets. Or when our car plant shut downs no longer require 100’s of union members and instead need not even 20 to do the line change- my simple message answering the “why? I’ve been working that shut down for years,” is along the same lines. The most palpable visceral reaction happens when folks call wanting that next green energy job working 60-70 hours a week offering per diem even when they live close to the site (and not a traveler) . I tell them that kind of opportunity will no longer be available- and that multi billion dollar project that got started - sits unfinished. Crickets again. I simply inform them that those green energy projects - where you made a quarter of a million dollars a year - won’t be back anytime soon. It isn’t hyperbole - and perhaps it is just planting a seed. We are already seeing a slow down - a lot driven by the weather patterns that have certainly changed in our region where we now have very wet springs (historical flooding most years now).
Our president is the best at threading the needle when members come in - he never names names. He simply says, “this administration … “ etc. He lets the member connect the dots. Or not.
The sad thing to see is that this trades union - like countless others have been dialing it in with no commitment to internal communications and organizing. Our president’s hands are tied because the business manager has no strategy to move forward and is only interested in not rocking the boat so he can keep his title and perceived position of power. The nepotism and cronyism within this space also does not help.
When I worked in the service union space - it was far different. The stark contrast in strategy is stunning and disappointing at best. It’s hard for me to care tbh. But, I reach who I can how I can in the best way I can that fits the situation.
Get back into service union work
I have MOSTLY been a person who asks questions because I am truly interested (not just in politics) in people's history or culture.
At present it is easy to get angry and jaded by the level of ignorance and I am also guilty of this.
Thank you for this article. I am saving it so I can keep myself mindful of not losing my head.
Very good advice here. Thanks for putting this out there and walking this walk. I've always tried to operate this way myself, especially with my neighbors and acquaintances but this inspires me to do it more often with strangers too. Good stuff
Oftentimes, I don't feel all that well informed. Certainly, I read about politics a lot – actually, my time management is so appallingly shite in large part because I can't resist the compulsion to spend *hours* every single day reading about politics – and the people I read are themselves informed enough to be worth listening to, but I always feel like it's not enough; I am ever conscious of huge black spots in my understanding of politics and the world, and I can't help but see them as defining me as a political actor.
Then I read something like this that snaps me right back down to Earth and I remember "Oh right, yeah, I'm one of the most informed people in any electorate I'm a part of. How sobering."
I'm thankful, then, that this article also contains a really optimistic and *joyous* message about how persuadable people really are, and a specific, actionable programme for trying to actually do that. A lot of other leftist commentators I've read on the subject of persuasion have debate bro tendencies of greater or lesser strength, and while some, like Nathan Robinson, can recognise that debate is not the persuasive tool it's often held out to be, I've been wanting for a practical way to go about persuasion for a while; if for no other reason than to be reassured that it can realistically be done. So thank you!
Thank you for this article! I have been trying to talk to people more and more for similar reasons, but you have given me a great outline to focus some of my more difficult conversations I know I need to have!!
Re: "You should talk to other people who may have different political beliefs than you—not only for the purpose of understanding them, but ultimately for the purpose of persuading them to change their thinking." Jess Piper wrote about campaigning for office in her area. She went door to door talking to people who had different political beliefs than she did. She engaged them in conversation about politics and then asked for their support. Most, if not all, replied that her policies and plans sounded good, but they would never vote for her because she was a Democrat because they were Christian.
When you get that reply, what would you say?
As an inveterate door-knocker, button-holer, and campaign canvasser, and with decades of direct marketing experience, I am a firm believer that finding the people who already agree with me is the best use of my time. Attempting conversion, especially of true-believer fanatics, is a waste of time and energy. First rule of selling is find the ones who are already sold. If you have a good product you’ll be amazed at how many folks are just waiting for you. For example, you’re much better off finding and mobilizing the 70% of voters who want Medicare for All, or an end to genocide in Gaza, than to convince the 10% who don’t. Finding the people who already want what you’re pitching is what market research and those surveys are for.
I think your idea is good in theory, but as I read your post I could hear fictional people in my head saying things I couldn't possibly find common ground with. Therefore, I would like to suggest that you--or we--someone--come up with some mock conversations so we can see how these things might play out. For example, I can envision someone starting off by talking about their faith in God (I am an atheist); their belief that abortion is murder (I am staunchly pro-choice); some anti-immigrant rant (I love immigrants, am married to one, and am descended from others); etc. So, how does a conversation like that go? It would be immensely useful to game out some possibilities to see how your idea works in practice. Thank you!
Good tactics, but would we be using those to fight the last war? I see a both a fundamental challenge and, even if I am wrong, a mindset in need of fixing
On the most basic level, we do not (and need not) even encounter (much less hang out with) folks who might be different from us. We are more and more getting less and less accustomed to dealing with those who are not aligned (on any number of issues or policies). This HamNo substack is great and I hope that some Trumpers or even old school Republicans swing by and learn something . . . but the atomization and the algorithms conspire against that happening.
Thus I am pretty sure most of the preaching here is heard only by the choir. And while internet communities are certainly real and valuable, they are not terribly good at bringing light instead of heat to hard conversations among folks wandering in who disagree. More often, the good faith dissenters get hammered and that is even before the trolls get to work (this comment section so far being a notable exception!).
Unfortunately, apart from the internet, we don't even have that many battlefields on which to deploy these tactics. As a nation and even as left leaning fellow travelers, we are so often opting out of the communal, the joint, and the collective that I am not sure when I'd even have a chance to pull out my elevator speech on the "values we all share." We don't all go to religious services or to public schools or bowling leagues, political parties or join the Army or, to acknolwedge the governing theme here, union rallies. There is not even any "must see TV" to discuss over the water cooler -- and those water coolers remain a bit lonely in the offices we are no longer working from!
And even if we find our battlefields in a resurgence of communal activity or a less toxic internet, we need a better cooperative ethic among our fellow left/lib travelers, where good faith and seeking to understand are too often qualities in short supply. We lefties have perfected the circular firing squad, with the "purists" and the "practical" and all flavors in between firing off salvos instead of seeking to work on advancing the values we share. If we don't do this with each other, how in the hell will it work when you need to gently educate or a cantankerous relative at Thanksgiving or a saying-the-quiet-part-out-loud member of the condo board or your boss who is tax cheating prepper or wherever you might encounter folks outside the bubble?
Of course, the modern/American/techno focus on the individual is very often salutary -- folks are far more free to be who they are and do what they want to do than in generations past with more material wealth than ever (I am not focusing on distribution here, this comment is areadly too long!). But the irony here is that this individualism and subsequent cocooning in comfort was all made possible by actions in the organizing and politics sphere by teams of folks who managed to trundle along and live with their differences. It is not clear to me that in the age of microtargeting ads and appeals based on public (or worse, proprietary) demographic data and even our ever increasing residential self-segregation, that the sort of organizing that brought us various "movements" (Labor, Women's, Civil Rights, etc.) in the past is possible any longer. That sort of organizing seems almost quaint now -- I'd love to be wrong here, but I am trying to convince you all from my keyboard in my house because there is no other forum so cheaply and readily available. Maybe I will tee up a lunch with a conservative colleague and get it on -- wish me luck!
Hard agree on all of this. I have suggested a somewhat different method in my most recent substack post, that still is aimed at achieving the same end result: I think it's useful and efficient to enlist "translators".
What I mean by this are people that are already in a place where their believes and yours have some sort of overlap. An example I use is Anti-Trump conservatives pondering the merits of a General Strike. If you have people that come from different contexts and agree with your methods and potentially partially your aims then I found it - at least to some extent, as for the most recent Trump wave I haven't tried that yet - in the past extremely helpful to get those people on board and convince them that they hold these believes that are outside their core beliefs for a reason and that they need to further this agenda.
Conservatives have a lot of common ground with conservatives, they can avoid pitfalls, they can avoid stuff that i enticing to us, but may be offputting to others in places where it doesn't need to be, things like this. Using "translators" like these as a sort of multipliers had at least worked fairly well in some issues I worked on in Germany in the past and I believe it is generally an extremely useful method.
This being said: Your point with the good faith arguments - and that this is in some cases a truly enlightening experience for people - is made not often enough, so thank you for making it. I also found that taking people seriously and really listening to them and trying to show them that they are not alone, even if you may not agree with them, is for most people an experience that they never or at least only very rarely had and that they appreciate so immensely that many of them will consider you their ally for life. (In some cases even if you really don't give that much of a shit. But... with people who care, not giving that much of a shit is still a LOT.)
Exactly...This tack only works for talking to someone you ALREADY KNOW. Otherwise its: "Hi, I'm Bob, may I talk to you a moment about our lord and savior Jesus Christ"?
For ME, if I feel that there IS an 'in' on talking to someone I know about this stuff, I take it.
But one thing? I CANNOT and WILL NOT engage with ANYONE who argues in bad faith...I have a one strike rule for that. If you won't even give me the most BASIC respect of engaging honestly and candidly I GOT NO TIME for ya
I got really into having these conversations for a while. I’m posting because maybe they’ll be helpful to someone? Anyways, have the conversations people. Our working brothers and sisters are in a cult and we help them to escape by having empathy and treating them respectfully.
Convo 1:
Musk apologist: I’ll agree to disagree. Also while I don't like working myself to the bone so others can live a life of comfort, I'd be more ok with a handful of people getting away with it compared to the bulk of our elected representatives (both sides) and 50% of government employees. So I'm willing to turn a blind eye to the few while exposing the many. A lesser of 2 evils in my mind
Me: I see where you're coming from. Screwed in every direction we turn, so why not focus on unscrewing at least one half.
I guess I think there's a third choice. I think it involves all the regular people who have to work for a check to pay for the things we need to live- coming together as one to demand a better society that works for regular people. So much wealth has been created in the last 40 years in America, yet the lives of regular working people continue to get harder as wages stay stagnant and costs rise. Meanwhile, Elon Musk is on pace to become a trillionaire. The math isn't adding up.
Elon Musk apologist: I can agree with this sentiment as well. No right way to turn but at least we're moving I guess
Convo 2:
Me: I don't think you're naive. I think that our media landscape just makes it really really hard for ALL of us to discern truth. So we end up picking our blue or red lane, and just hope that we’ve chosen correctly.
I think that regular working people HAVE been taken advantage of in America the last several decades, and most of us just want things to get better for us and our families and friends. So I get why people WANT to believe that Musk is going to make that happen. But at the end of the day, I think the problem is fundamentally that billionaires and corporations have grown exceedingly wealthy by keeping wages for working folks stagnant while the costs of everything we nees to live has risen exponentially
Ilearned a few months ago about the neo-reactionary movement. These tech billionaires have big plans and ultimately their goal is to destroy democracy. Google Curtis Yarvin and neo-reactionaries. We shouldn't trust them, we should trust each other as regular people. Take care
Elon Musk apologist who came around: I completely agree with everything you posted. I'll look in to Curtis Yarvin. I'm open to all angles of discussion. Enjoy your day.
I got into doing this on Facebook right after the inauguration when Elon Musk was in full-effect. Hamilton, you’re right. We should be practicing this. I posted a comment on one of those pro-Elon propaganda posts, something along the lines of ‘I don’t trust Elon cause why would a billionaire want to work for free to help us regular folk’. People attacked as I’d anticipated and I just responded earnestly and respectfully to all comers. Several of the conversations went from antagonistic to fruitful and friendly. This was my most memorable conversation…it sticks with me and still brings me to tears:
Republican man: he or Trump are taking a penny of pay for what they are doing, they are going to stop all the corruption that the last President did, they took trillions from the American people, you would think you would be happy
Me: I think that's why l am especially suspicious. Why would the richest person do this for free? He's gotta want something out of it. Some people believe him and believe he wants to return money to Americans. I personally don't believe him. I think he has other motives and it has more to do w/the technology and Artificial Intelligence he is creating. I think he wants power to dominate us as humans
Me: You know what I think? | think you and I are more alike than you and Musk. I'm just a working person- I depend on my paycheck. I'm struggling w/my bills every month. I share 1 car because I can't afford 2. So I don't understand how regular working people got divided with billionaires on BOTH sides. I think they are dividing and conquering, and meanwhile it's getting harder and harder for regular people to live and billionaires are getting richer and richer. I wish it was different
Republican man: I think your probably right, I live pay check to pay check, but i,am hoping they will figure out a way to help us, with all the taxes I pay for my property is insane, I can't hardly survive anymore, Biden wanted to run us, and Trump wants to make America great again, i,am just praying he does something, but meanwhile I hope you get it OK with everything going on in this crazy world, I will say a prayer for you, and God Bless you
Me: Yeah, I am paycheck to paycheck myself. It's really gotten rough. And trust me, I am no huge fan of the democrats- I think they've left working people behind for decades. It shouldn't be so hard for regular people to just live in the richest economy in the history of the world. Anyways, thanks for your kind words, and I will say a prayer for you too that it gets easier! Take care
Republican man: you too, things will get better
And then we left heart emojis on each other’s posts. I’m a socialist athiest, but I still say prayers for Republican man. I hope he’s ok.
Hi. Don't want to piss anyone off, but you and other bloggers on Substack should really make your submittals short and sweet.
Stop writing tomes. Keep it to the fucking point. You're not getting paid...I get it...but you're damned sure not getting paid by the word. Keep it short and sweet.
Dan please subscribe at the $300 annual level for the “griping about editorial decisions” package. Thanks.
Not helpful Dan. You have the ability to avert your eyes from the words you do not want to read