The Smart Politics Toolbox
The nuts and bolts of having productive conversations with Trump voters
Lately, I’ve written about what the Smart Politics work is (and isn’t), and our founder, Dr. Karin Tamerius, has written extensively about how to manage our emotions so we can do that work.
But how exactly do we do it? How do we have one-to-one political talks (in person or online) that are respectful, productive, and persuasive? What’s the conversational magic trick?
As with most things in life, our Smart Politics tools are simple to understand but can take some dedicated practice to use effectively.1 For starters, our goal is to effectively persuade others by:
Showing empathy and compassion
Lowering reactive defenses by building trust and connection
Always addressing feelings ahead of facts
There are hundreds of nuanced approaches that can help with that, but the two primary tools we teach and practice in Smart Politics are the Trust Pyramid and the Persuasion Conversation Cycle.
I’ll lay out the Pyramid and Cycle here in broad, introductory strokes, but will really just skim the surface. In coming weeks, I’ll dive deeper into each of the steps below with more concrete “how-to” tips.
THE TRUST PYRAMID
If the primary goal of Smart Politics is more productive and persuasive conversations with Trump voters, the Trust Pyramid—inspired by Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs—stacks up the emotional goals that help that happen. Think of the Pyramid as what you need to climb, starting from the bottom and working to the top, to build that connection and, well yeah, trust.
1) Comfort
Show you won't attack or try to control them. Starting from the base, the first thing we want to do is put the other person at ease. Our minds respond to challenges to our beliefs and critiques of ourselves and our group the same way they responds to threats to our physical safety—by going into fight, flight, or freeze. As long as someone is in that state they can’t think rationally, process new information, or respond empathically across differences. That’s why in a political conversation, people need to know they aren’t in emotional danger. We need to be friendly, kind, and open, not aggressive or judgmental.
2) Connection
Show interest, establish affinity, and form an alliance in pursuit of common goals. We naturally gravitate toward and trust people who are like us because we believe they want the same things; we have shared experiences, interests, values, goals, and emotions, even some policies we agree on. Plus, when we open up to others and they open up to us, we build a bond which can become an alliance in pursuit of common goals.
3) Comprehension
Show you understand them and their point of view. One of the most important ways to cultivate trust is to show the other person you’ve listened to their point of view and understand where they’re coming from. Often progressives avoid understanding what’s going on inside the hearts and minds of people we disagree with, who are outside our tribe. Instead, we make assumptions about who they are, what they believe, and why. But the more we understand about the other person—not just the beliefs they’re expressing in the moment, but their life experience, their emotions—the more they will trust us.
4) Compassion
Show you care about them and aren't just out for yourself. It’s not enough for someone to feel understood. To truly trust us, they also need to feel cared for—we need to show them how their fears and struggles resonate with us. It’s also critical to show them our relationship isn’t transactional but based on genuine affection and concern for their well-being. We acknowledge and appropriately respond to their emotional experiences, celebrate their joys, and offer sympathy when they’re suffering.
5) Credibility
Show you're rational, knowledgeable, and unbiased. Only after we’ve worked our way to the top of the Pyramid can we effectively share our own views. To demonstrate our rationality, we need to start on common ground and gradually work toward ideas outside the other person’s political comfort zone. We also need to show some degree of objectivity by acknowledging the parts of their argument we agree with. And when we provide new information, it should build from their existing beliefs and shared values then gently broaden their understanding of the world.
THE PERSUASION CONVERSATION CYCLE
If the Trust Pyramid stacks up our emotional goals when talking with someone, the Persuasion Conversation Cycle is the step-by-step guide for actually carrying out that conversation. I like to think of it as the bicycle (get it?) we use to ride up the side of the Pyramid to the top.
The Conversation Cycle is designed to do several things:
Remind us to always focus first on the other person (and especially their emotions) by asking, listening, and reflecting their responses. We do this over and over, asking more questions, working to understand their beliefs, repeating as often as necessary, all long before we ever get to sharing our own opinions.
Slow us down. Those first stages of the Cycle act as speed bumps to keep us from rushing to the “Share” part and blurting out all our passionate views and facts and figures and sources.
STEP ONE: ASK
Ask nonjudgmental, open-ended questions. Build trust and comfort with others by letting them lead the conversation—hear what they believe and let them know the conversation is about them, not us. We’re here to have a conversation, so our priority is to draw them in, not push them away. We want to gear our questions toward welcoming them to share their thoughts rather than not-so-subtly judging them. That means focusing on their beliefs, ideas, and experiences with open-ended questions (not Yes or No) that draw out their feelings and experiences, not facts or reasons.
STEP TWO: LISTEN
Listen to the other person's replies to try to understand their views. Don’t listen while waiting for your turn to reply or rebut. Instead, set aside our own agenda and ideas and genuinely hear and think about what they’re saying. That can be tricky and potentially triggering if what they’re saying goes against everything we believe or seems full of misinformation, so we work hard to manage our own reactive emotions while paying attention to what they’re saying. We want others to feel heard and understood.
STEP THREE: REFLECT
Summarize the other person's perspective by reflecting or repeating what you heard them say. This both builds compassion by letting them know they’re heard, but also makes sure you heard them correctly and fully understand what they mean, therefore increasing comprehension. You don’t have to parrot back each talking point they shared—there may be many of them. Instead work to summarize as much as you can, synthesizing their side of the conversation into the broader thematic strokes or gist of their idea. That includes perhaps helping them “name” the larger emotions behind their views.
STEP FOUR: VALIDATE
Identify and name areas of common ground. This can seem daunting, given some of the extreme things we may hear. The point is not to agree with their whole takes, but to find common ground we can agree on, whether that’s specific policy points, or pulling back to find shared larger values, concerns, emotions, and goals. Those may include keeping our loved ones safe, decent wages and lives, or leaving a better world for future generations. At the least, maybe we can agree that these are challenging and confusing times for us all.
STEP FIVE: SHARE
Share your perspective without making an argument. This is the part most of us rush ahead to: Telling them our take on the issues, often armed with facts and figures and sources. But no matter how polite we are, facts and reason won’t change their minds. The Cycle puts this last because before we share our take, we want to work hard to build that connection and trust we seek at the top of the Pyramid. But even now we don’t want to undermine that trust or raise the other person’s defenses. Rather than falling back on sources and data and facts, personal stories are a much better approach. Humans hear and connect better with a personal story that carries emotional resonance—someone can argue with our facts and sources, but it’s harder to argue with our genuine, heartfelt story of a personal experience or perspective.
And then…?
You might find yourself starting all over again at the beginning of the Cycle! Back to asking more questions, deepening that connection, and keeping the conversation going now and into the future!
I know this was just a quick peek—as I said, I’ll be writing more about each step in coming weeks.
But if you’d like get deeper into learning the Pyramid and Cycle, next week on Wednesday, March 12, 7 pm ET, I’ll be hosting a semi-casual “Smart Politics Intro/Primer/101” Zoom call to walk through our approach with a special focus on these tools. I’ll take questions about the steps, and we’ll do some role-play practice.
You can get the Zoom link for this and our usual Sunday night calls by signing up for our weekly email updates via this Google registration form: https://forms.gle/XB9uw5rtzub5RF3e9
If you can’t make it to the calls and would like to hear Karin teach these tools, check out her introductory webinar from last spring:
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.
My recent pieces on our work:
Why This is the Way https://karintamerius.substack.com/p/why-this-is-the-way
Five Things We Won’t Ask You to Do https://karintamerius.substack.com/p/five-things-smart-politics-wont-ask
Want to learn more about Smart Politics and get involved?
Every Sunday night (and some Wednesdays), we meet on Zoom to teach, share, and support one another. Sign up for email recaps and reminders about these weekly calls: https://forms.gle/XB9uw5rtzub5RF3e9
Locke Peterseim is the Smart Politics Content Manager.
In our long-ago youth, my sister and I used to play a ‘70s Go-like strategy game called Othello, whose marketing slogan was: “A minute to learn, a lifetime to master!” So yeah, that.
Perfectly understood. Good reminders for what is missing.
This is so very helpful.