Don't Fear the Boogeyman
We let assumptions and generalizations about "the other side" scare us out of talking to them
A driving question in Smart Politics work is, “What keeps us from talking to people who disagree with us? From having conversations that build connection, understanding, and trust?”
Part of it is that both sides avoid talking to others across the aisle or go into conversations in full defense mode because we have pre-conceived notions and stereotypes about who we’d be talking to. Often those are based on the most extreme, obnoxious, and intractable “discourse” we see online, in social media, or on talking-heads pundit TV. We fear the Boogeymen* we’ve built up in our minds.
(*I know “boogeymen” is gendered language, but “boogeypersons” or “boogeypeople” conjures George Clinton and Bootsy Collins—not that there’s anything wrong with that, mind you.
Another fun fact learned while proofing: One-O “bogeyman” tends to be the British spelling, while two-O “boogeyman” is more often used in America. ‘Cause we do everything… more.)
Battle of the Boogeyman!
Remember a few weeks (feels like years) ago, when the GOP talking points were all about the “violent radical left Antifa” who were going to show up at No Kings and set stuff on fire? Remember how frustrating and triggering that was to many of us, as we looked around at ourselves and our fellow peacefully marching progressives? We aren’t fond of being tarred across the board with a wide brush of extremist accusations and characterizations.
But we often do the same thing to folks on the Right. Maybe we make overt statements about how extreme and lost and hopeless MAGA folks are, or maybe we just simmer in assumptions about Trump voters based on the worst examples: the loud, obnoxious online instigators, trolls, and financially motivated online grifters who come to mind when we think of “MAGA” or “Trump voter.”
We made “MAGA” into our bogeymen, and over time we’ve come to recoil in fear and revulsion from them and even the suggestion that we should talk with them. Too often we further dehumanize them, lump them all together, and then assume they’re all “beyond saving.”
Divisive Media Isn’t Here to Help
Influencers, pundits, grifters, and attention-seekers on both the progressive Left and Trump-supporting Right have often intentionally painted supporters on the other side as radical, violent, ignorant, even “evil” and unfortunately, many of us—myself included—too often buy into it and act accordingly. This extreme negative partisanship is fueled by good old overgeneralization and group attribution error—we see something extreme and upsetting from one person in a group and assume everyone else in the group is the same.
It doesn’t help that 24-hour political news and social media platforms are intentionally programmed to lean into and stoke conflict. That rewards the worst, most outrageous and contentious impulses both in online influencers and two-bit pundits but also in ourselves, the dopamine-juiced consumers of their divisive content. All in the name of attention, engagement, and profit. And so, terminally online folks have long-since learned that being extreme gets attention and attention makes them money.
Meanwhile, our instinctual lizard brains are also programmed to spot and sound the alarm on “threats”—we pay more attention to shocking negative interactions that our subconscious minds read as a danger to us. We come to believe the boogeymen is under our collective bed and tell ourselves we’re just protecting ourselves from the monster.
No, Where Goes One Do Not Go All
The problem for Smart Politics work is that if we aren’t diligently open-minded and self-aware, we start to often inadvertently, subconsciously assume that every Trump voter we know, meet, and talk to in real life is going to share not only those hack extremists’ views but also their often bullying, asinine behavior and tone. So we talk ourselves out of engaging constructively with folks on the other side, with Trump voters. We might fear doing so will end up in an unpleasant screaming match, so we create rationalizations for avoiding the conflict: “It’s a cult, they’re too far gone, they can’t change, talking to them is pointless and a waste of our time.”
That feeds the creeping doomerism we’ve all probably struggled with to one degree or another over the past decade and especially this past year. Doomerism may rationalize itself as being clear-eyed about what’s happening and preparing, even prepping, for the worst, but at its heart, it’s a surrender, a choice to let goosed-up, geeked-out fears and imagination talk us out of trying and doing. Once we start believing we’re doomed, they’re doomed, everyone and everything is doomed, then we stop looking for nuanced, effective solutions and succumb to our own extremism. It’s giving in to the Boogeyman.
But with all due respect to one Michael Myers of Haddonfield, Illinois, the Boogeyman isn’t real. It’s not true. It’s a story concocted to scare and divide us.
Talking to Human Beings Instead of Spooky Stereotypes
In fact, most everyday folks we talk who voted for Trump—our friends, neighbors, loved ones, coworkers—are not raving right-wing social media trolls. Of course, some of them are going to have views we disagree with or even find upsetting. Some of them may believe or say things we find offensive or identify with groups we consider problematic. They may have beliefs we find morally wrong, but when we talk with them in person respectfully listening with patience and empathy, we find that unlike online grifters, they usually don’t make those things the screaming core of their identity. Unlike professional trolls (who get paid for online engagement), average folks aren’t nearly as emotionally or ideologically committed to the extreme talking points.
They may repost extremist, offensive slop on social media, but most of the time they’re just parroting, even cutting and pasting rage-bait boosted by algorithms intentionally designed to keep us scrolling and clicking while snapping at each other’s throats. If we respectfully ask someone one-on-one about something harsh or extreme they posted or said, they often reply with something like, “Well, yeah, that was a little much; I guess I don’t agree completely with all that…”
Yes, sometimes if they feel attacked and become defensive, they might double down and shout louder. When riled up and “in our feels,” we’ve all said or posted provocative stuff that we later realized wasn’t our true, nuanced view, and we’ve all needed a little space and trust to lower our defenses and walk ourselves back from it.
Smart Politics asks us to approach Trump voters and have conversations with them in a spirit of openness, trust, compassion, empathy, grace, and yes even forgiveness. We struggle to do that when we see them all as anonymous monsters in rubber masks.
Instead, we need to see them as our fellow Americans and human beings. As individuals, with individual complexities and contradictions. As our friends and loved ones. Not as media-created boogeymen, but as people we can and should have a conversation with.
What does a conversation look like when we don’t fear the boogeymen?
What is the Smart Politics Way?
Smart Politics encourages and teaches progressives to have more productive conversations with Trump voters. We believe the most effective actions for achieving short- and long-term progressive goals involve talking one-on-one with and listening compassionately and constructively to folks with different opinions.
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Locke Peterseim is the Smart Politics Content Manager.