I’d love to see some evidence that such skillfully handled conversations between individuals will produce sufficient social change fast enough to prevent the loss of our democracy and the chance for our planet to avoid climate catastrophe. I think at this point it’s delusional to believe this.
This situation we are in is not a difference of opinion. It is not politics. This is a social moral crisis that requires facing and countering widespread moral disengagement on a large scale and a fast timeline.
Hey folks, it’s great to see so much enthusiastic engagement with this article. You’ve given me (and hopefully each other) a lot to think about. For the most part, it seems like people are engaging politely, which is a great start, but in the spirit of Smart Politics, I urge you to stretch a little bit and work on listening and reflecting back what you hear. Even if you vehemently disagree with someone, there is great value in understanding where they’re coming from and learning from their perspective.
I suppose I am like many, eager to take steps to turn this crisis around, and feel very frustrated when the recommendations we are offered - while not wrong and probably somewhat effective on an extended individual to individual level - are so proportionally mismatched to the scale and urgency of the problem. Psychiatrist Bandy Lee has termed those in the MAGA universe as having “mass psychosis” as they have adopted an alternative reality. The first step to “cure” this is to remove the cult leader. But how are we to accomplish that when those cult members vote him back in?
As far as what studies and evidence I would wish for, I’d just like to know that recommendations are made with valid supporting evidence for their effectiveness. In the current context, I’d like studies/evidence that can point to what can be done to move a mass of authoritarian followers away from their authoritarian leader before that leader can bring down the country.
It’s not the only thing that decided the election. In general, it’s your lack of common sense in your party’s policies. This is just one of many. It’s your party’s disdain for white men, women in general, unscientific response to Covid, & disrespect for our country’s sovereignty & borders.
You said, "I’d love to see some evidence that such skillfully handled conversations between individuals will produce sufficient social change fast enough to prevent the loss of our democracy and the chance for our planet to avoid climate catastrophe. I think at this point it’s delusional to believe this." But remember, it is being compared to the alternative of thinking rational debate will "produce sufficient social change fast enough to prevent the loss of our democracy and the chance for our planet to avoid climate catastrophe" and that seems clearly to have been proved false as well. At least with the method the article proposes, you then have a person who has been changed. If enough of the right people can be reached, real change can happen in society. The loss of trust was a human-created situation that came about because of human action. And that means change in the other direction can happen by the same means.
It will not. You may not retain full possession of your democracy, and you may not continue to use it as a method to abuse and harm other people who live beneath its purview. Your control over the nation is over. Besides, democracy is stupid anyway, we monarchists now.
Climate catastrophy is a non-issue. Yes it is changing but no one can stop it. A natural event, magnetic poles reversing, is in process and will make you forget climate change
I agree with you on much of what you say, but the bottom line is that the democrat policies or what they’re willing to die for does not resonate with a high percentage of the American voters. We do not feel it’s permissible for men to be in women’s bathrooms or competing athletically against them. That has no common sense value to many Americans. Nor does opening our border to 20 million illegals from many countries without being properly vetted or verified why they actually left their country. True that many of these countries are not good, but we can’t save the world by letting everyone come into our country illegally. How about using that money to make their countries better for them, similar to what churches and missions do?
Regardless of how you perceive her, she shouldn’t be competing in women’s sports, or getting hormonal or surgical transitions before adulthood. Until your side caves on these things, the issue is lost to republicans . The good news for you is trans issues aren’t ranked highly in most voter priorities .
She suffered through an adolescence without testosterone
blockers because of this idea. Permanently changed her skeleton, resulting in severe dysphoria. She attempted suicide twice. Is that good health care? I don't think so.
Most other countries , ie europe, have stopped hormonal and surgical interventions before 18 due to lack of scientific proof behind it. There’s no guarantee getting testosterone blockers would have helped your daughter. The research on this is mostly done by activists with policy goals, and doesn’t replicate well or withstand rational inquiry.
Democrats - by and large - **don’t** believe “men belong in women’s bathrooms or competing in women’s sports.” This statement is a gross misrepresentation of the facts (men and trans women are two different sets of people).
If the majority of trans activists vote for Democrats, that does not mean all Democrats are trans activists. Activists often hold beliefs that are more extreme than the consensus. Democrats, as a whole, do not subscribe to everything left-leaning activists promote.
I do think many people - some Democrats included- wonder where transwomen can safely go to the bathroom in public spaces, however, and I do think that is an issue of human dignity.
I do think some people wonder what the best solution is to ensure fairness in athletic competition and still allow as much athletic participation as possible. For example, many school sports, even in high school, are “no cut” sports, and participation is a positive for both the athletes and the school community.
A “common sense” approach doesn’t seem all that sensible if it asks us to ignore the factual presence of trans women (and trans men) in our society. Democrats are likely to feel alarmed if proposed government trans exclusion policies are similar to historical government exclusions for race or religion or ethnicity or gender - policies which led to Jim Crow, apartheid or, worst of all, genocide. Democrats, generally, want to avoid the slippery slope of dehumanization followed by violence that historically follows legal efforts to remove targeted groups from public life because of their identities.
Here’s the surprising part: Democrats believe they are also protecting their political adversaries when they defend a universal right to unfettered public life.
This is why the Democratic party lost. “Trans-women” are still genetically men & many still have their penis. Instead of promoting gender drugs & surgeries, they should be receiving mental health help, especially if they are under 21 yo.
Democrats - meaning people who vote for Democratic candidates - don’t offer therapy, diagnose medical conditions or prescribe medications or perform surgery.
Doctors do.
Do you see the difference?
All Democrats are not doctors. All doctors are not Democrats.
Medical experts arrive at policies that govern the way they practice medicine. You have your own opinion about what medical treatment you think is appropriate in these circumstances - and the good news is that no one can force you or your minor children to consent to this or any other treatment you object to. But, given that you are not licensed to prescribe medical treatment for others, your opinion about what medical treatment other people should have access to is not helpful to anyone.
I'm hearing deeply-felt opinions about this topic. Am I right about that?And I'm wondering if those opinions are come from your desire for safety for girls/women when they use a public bathroom?
“A “common sense” approach doesn’t seem all that sensible if it asks us to ignore the factual presence of trans women (and trans men) in our society. “
Such people define themselves into existence, and we are under no obligation to indulge their delusions. Tiny groups of people are not allowed to culturally redefine an entire concept with massive implications on their own terms without consent of the majority, and punish people who object. This isn’t democratic, it’s technocratic tyranny. The people behind this aren’t doctors, they’re activists who don’t have evidence, only idealogical capture of institutions. This idealogical capture is at the root of the massive distrust towards academia, media, and government. Until this one sided capture by a tiny minority is addressed, conversations won’t go anywhere. The way you feel when Trump takes over is how we felt when activists took over college campuses and launched their war on the American public.
We all want common sense solutions. Turns out on most cases we all agree or at least are much closer than the extremes both parties want us to belive. I hate that part of politics!! Do you know any trans people? I've known a bunch of them for 30 years. They are just people trying to do the best they can. Most found they did have physical, hormonal or genetic issues that made them intersex or have the wrong equipment and are trying to treat those conditions. Not entirely different than a nose job or correcting a birth defects. What most people are afraid of are straight men raping girls in bathrooms, not a transwoman (likely to be attracted to men not girls) who either has already had surgery or doesn't identify with the offending part anyhow. A trans woman does not identify as a straight man and won't act like it. Most avoid public bathrooms because they are the ones likely to be abused in them, not be the abusers themselves. In terms of sports, it should be a case by case basis. Men don't become women to compete in sports, it just doesn't happen. There are sports teams and competitions cropping up that cater to Trans and non binary folks who don't fit neatly in one category. That is likely to be one solution we can all agree with.
When female high school students compete for university sports scholarships or when females competing for Olympic positions it automatically puts them at a big disadvantage. Start trans/binary sports teams!
Children share bathrooms with different sexes and ages in a multitude of different settings - in their homes, when a parent takes a different sex youngster to the bathroom in public settings, on airplanes, in preschools, and so on.
I notice that you didn’t my answer the question though, and I would like to ask you to think this through. Trans individuals have the same human needs as others: they need access to bathrooms in public. Where do you imagine they are going to go? What’s the solution?
Are you willing to exclude trans women from public life in general to guarantee that they don’t have access to “women’s spaces”? Does that include schools, employment, recreation? How about trans men? Do you want to exclude them from “men’s spaces” and “men’s sports” and so deny them access to all public spaces, too?
Women-only spaces may seem like common sense. At one time, so did segregation. We know that isn’t true now and never was the case. When we learn better, we can do better.
As for sports, there are governing bodies at all levels to determine policy and ensure competitive fairness. There are co-ed teams and no cut teams. Most school teams, especially younger ones, are developmental as opposed to competitive. I personally believe we need to let the sports regulate themselves - there is no need to politicize, or heaven forbid, federalize, sports administration.
Have you seen what most trans men look like? They look like MEN, beards and all. And these "bathroom laws" are forcing these trans men into women's bathrooms, because that's the bathroom that corresponds to their sex at birth. So these laws are forcing people who look and act like men into women's bathrooms. And they are forcing people who look and act like women into men's bathrooms. And cis-women are being harassed and attacked for going into the women's bathroom, because some people don't think they look "feminine" enough to be using that bathroom. How about we just STOP policing bathrooms and let all people take care of their business in PEACE?!
Only if we aren’t contributing to the national debt. Why not have the democratic party start up their own non-profits that don’t depend on tax payer $$ from the federal government.
You are a clear example of a rampaging elephant ignoring her rider.
First, you are dismissing an entire political party based on what you are seeing on Fox News about a vanishingly small number of trans girls/women competing in women's sports. There is much more nuance in the Democratic party and, in addition, making decisions about whether or not impoverished children should have health insurance or whether the craven Republican party can crash the global economy because they are unwilling to stand up to Trump's tariff police based on this issue is frankly insane.
Second, you are entirely wrong about USAID. It was a miniscule amount of our budget, paid massive foreign policy dividends, and hundreds of thousands of the poorest and most vulnerable human beings in the world will die because you are unwilling to allow the equivalent of a single latte of your tax dollars be used for it. If you don't care about starving African children, that's your remit, but please, forever more refrain from pretending that you are a Christian, if you are, because Jesus would be embarrassed to be associated with the likes of you.
I don't know you, so the whole comfort, connection, blah blah blah thing is never going to work between us. So all I am obliged to say to you is that you should grow up and stop mainlining propaganda.
Talk about stopping mainline propaganda; your comment on crashing the global economy is ridiculous. Our economy is up since the tariffs & other countries need to compromise with Pres. Trump if they don’t want those high tariffs to affect their economies. If those countries would stop following the globalist narrative, they would be better off economically stop blaming the US for other countries economic demise.
Hungary & a few others are refusing the globalist agenda. Just look at the chaos going on in Paris. Many other countries have serious issues with globalist immigration . What makes you think they have?
I agree with you in regards to Capitol Hill picking in your pocket. On the other hand when we ignore issues that are of importance to many of us those issues can reproduce into worst case scenarios down the road. In 2015, same sex marriages were accepted in most states. And now, we have people claiming they are different genders & even animals. We were told we must call them by their disclosed pro-noun or get fired from our jobs.
Well, no, they're not on your team. They're violently reactive to the Left because the Left is built on a collective hatred of independence, white men, and successful families. These pro-environmentalist Christian Nationalists are well aware that you hate them, and that you'll lie to their face to get them 'on your side'. They'll never be 'on your side' because the Left has been lying about their true goals for decades, and is unlikely to change any time soon.
Not a Sith Lord, but rather one who will not put up with the lies of a modern equivalent.
I don't believe you. I believe that when pressed, your "people on the left who don't give a rat's boot about any of that" will fall in line with the dogma of the death-cult. Just like they did during the pandemic, not a one of them will stand up against the imposition of evil policies as long as it's their team doing it.
I generally presume anyone who uses pop culture as their method for understanding complex morality is a Leftwing Cultist. Where would you say your position is, then, if not on the Left? Also, your underground-fort looks cozy.
Ted Kaczynski knew what was up. Although I'm of the opinion that all democratic systems are inevitable failures, especially in the age of mass media. They're just glorified autocracies. As a result, I have proposed actual
monarchy as a feasible political system for the 21st/22nd century.
Er… you are acquainted with only a segment of “doomsday preppers.” The last one I saw up close had thousands of plastic and foil retort food pouches, and tanks of diesel.
Has it ever occurred to you that this might be nothing more than projection? Your opening line reads, “The real reason GOP voters seem impervious to facts and reason.” But when was the last time you asked yourself, “What if I’m wrong?” When was the last time you truly re-examined your own views, not just to reinforce them, but to challenge them?
I’ve voted Democrat my entire life. But in the last election I chose not to vote at all. I couldn’t in good conscience support a party that I feel has drifted from the values that once made it principled. The Democrats used to be the adults in the room. They were grounded in substance, in policy, in fact. But over the last decade, and especially the last five years, narcissism and certainty seem to have taken hold. The nuance of facts has given way to the comfort of simplified narratives.
Always remember, the key to intelligence and the key to rationality is humility. The ability to say “I might be wrong” is not a weakness; It’s the foundation of real thought. And until both sides are willing to look inward, to question themselves with the same intensity they question others, nothing will change.
In a demonstration of the elephant/rider concept of the article, I disbelieved you from your first sentence, second paragraph. Why? Because you used the same language twist that many right wingers do in saying you voted Democrat all your life instead of the proper Democratic. To me, that signals untrustworthy troll. But I could be wrong. I hope I am.
Then there is the response, ‘can we discuss the ‘…drifted from the values that once made it principled…’ part? Will you walk me through this?
Methinks partizan supporters ‘need to be reminded that’ the vote strike is too often a rejection of the system itself. Of course the ‘apathy’ and ‘acquiescence to whomever’ cards will be played. The alternative ceded that we are in far deeper turmoil than parties can admit without undermining their own pretense to political legitimacy.
Trotsky pointed out that the positions people take are determined NOT by their philosophical merit but by class interests.
No one would say “vote Democratic”, at least not a native speaker of American English, don’t be absurd. The shibboleth you’re groping at is “Democrat party”, “vote for the Democrats” or “voted Democrat” is totally normal ingroup language. Your paranoid style would assert that anyone would say “I voted for the Democratics”, NO ONE DOES THIS. Get a grip.
I am a Marxist and I align with the International Trotskyist Tendency. In the absence of any acceptable candidate, I have steadfastly refused to vote for anybody.
Don’t worry … I won’t throw a bunch of historical material dialect at you.
But I do support EW Harrelson’s admonition that you heed his words.
Your Parties [to say naught of your society] are in more peril than you guess.
I didn’t intend to denigrate you at all. I pointed out a flaw in my thinking and what triggered it. Maybe my hope that I was wrong about my trolling reaction offended you? I wish you and the people who liked your comment could recognize the inquiry for what it was. And people wonder why we don’t take risks when we talk to each other.
Given that you used such a hyperbolic term in a clearly pejorative way, I have a hard time believing my opinion genuinely matters to you. That said, I’m not claiming my opinion is particularly important anyway. My basic view is this: if you want to believe that 1 plus 1 equals 3, go right ahead, enjoy.
But then that’s a problem because the very people who should be taking note of how many people used to vote for the Democrats or who are liberal, but are just disenfranchised with the left end up ignoring it because it’s inconvenient for them to pay attention.
Wow, a Leftist calling someone who disagrees with them stupid. How novel. What an intriguing and unique statement that will definitely produce a result different from the other hundred million times it's been done.
This is helpful. But another issue that does not get enough attention is that our educational system does not instill the concept of intellectual honesty in instruction, and so a social culture and milieu that we all share does not exist. As a result, people are not aware of cognitive biases such as confirmation bias and motivated reasoning.
Intellectual honesty involves
1. “Ensuring support for chosen ideologies does not interfere with the pursuit of truth;
2. “Relevant facts and information are not purposefully omitted even when such things may contradict one's hypothesis;
3. “Facts are presented in an unbiased manner, and not twisted to give misleading impressions or to support one view over another;
4. “References, or earlier work, are acknowledged where possible, and plagiarism is avoided.”
Dr. Tamerius' advice would be more successful if we all understood these.
Many teachers ARE teaching confirmation bias to students as young as 6th graders (the age of my students), as well as how to do careful research and find trustworthy sources, identify author bias, etc.
Do you hear the generalizations in the comment/accusation that the educational system is not instilling intellectual honesty? That type of sweeping gereralization seems hypocritical while espousing intellectual integrity.
Yeah, they do seem to have overcorrected on that, noble as the intent may have been before it jumped the shark. We all know what the road to hell is paved with, after all.
Hi, Dan. Yes, you could substitute “Democrats” for “Republicans” and the advice would be just as relevant. However, Smart Politics is a progressive organization so my writing always approaches the topic from that perspective. I would love to see a conservative organization teach these same tools to Republicans.
I am pretty firmly of the belief at this point that most of the Left are members of a death-cult that will lie to you to gain enough power to hurt you. They have no desire to create a better world, only a desire to hurt others as some bizarre appeal to their death-god "progress." No desire for understanding, only a desire to deceive. This is, of course, based on observing the behavior of these individuals and groups over a quarter of a century and noting that the results of their actions are always a net reduction in quality of life, an increase in suicides, and a decrease in economic stability.
What would you say to try to convince me that I'm wrong? What lies would you use to try and achieve social power over me sufficient that I'll accept the activities of your demon-cult?
You’re so deep in the rabbit hole you can’t see light. Claw your way out into the sun. It will feel scary at first but I promise it’s worth it. Read books. Talk to good people. Ask yourself why you prefer regression to progress. What did you love about the past? Was it the high rate of child death, the subjugation of women and minorities or something else? The past was never better than now, even if we can point to a positive thing here or there, and we can. We can bring back better and fresher food, for example, without bringing back the rest of it.
You could try NOT behaving like an irredeamable monster, but instead you choose the path of more lies. More projection: "If you don't agree with our death-cult, you must hate women and children and minorities." The line is getting old. Rather than attempting to build a better world your ego is entirely built upon relieving your_percieved_trauma of the past. Trauma that you didn't even live through, but claim must have existed in order to justify your faith in your god, "progress" at the expense of all human life and well-being.
You literally don’t believe how many children died in infancy in the past? You think I made that up? You literally don’t know or believe what life was like for women and people of color? I could go on.
You want to doom millions to death and misery. Fuck you, no.
"If you don't support my extremist views you want to murder children" says the feminist. Ignoring the fact that her ideology explicitly endorses the mass murder of children, the mass castration of men, and mass chemical dependency on SSRIs.
You project that which you are onto those superior to yourself... because you are so horribly evil that you can't accept a world where other people are less detestable than yourself. Narcissism combined with Self-hatred: the foundation of Leftism.
It won't work because the Right has figured out that the Left predominantly consists of death-cultists who get off on hurting innocent people. At this point, the Right sees no reason to engage because there's no one "in there" to engage with when talking to some on the Left. Metaphorically, you're speaking to a human skin-suit being worn by a violent ideology, not an ensouled individual.
Excuse me, but the Left aren't the ones eagerly seeking to deny millions of poor and working class people healthcare just to give tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires. Nor are they the ones who proudly fiddle while the climate burns either. It's pretty clear which side of the political spectrum is the real death cult here, and it sure ain't the Left!
Yes, you are. You're denying Americans the ability to work for reasonable wages by undercutting them with illegal foreign labor. The Left is lying about it because they lie about everything. As stated, it's an addiction. I won't try to convince you you're wrong, because I know that I can't. You're an automaton, a skin-suit worn by an ideology of violent extremism. A death-cultist who enjoys hurting innocent people.
The only reason I continue to type here is because of the cognitive dissonance it creates in the (remaining) rational parts of your (damaged) mind. I am honestly telling you how the majority of the population sees death cultists like yourself. Stop trying to hurt innocent people, stop trying to maim your fellow citizens, stop trying to destroy our culture and civilization, and maybe you won't be seen as death-cultists hell bent on destruction for its own sake.
It's easy to work with the Right, just don't be an irredeemably evil liar. If you can try telling the truth (just as an experiment?) it'd be a huge improvement.
Looking forward to putting this info to practice — for the sake of my head and the wall.
The interesting discussion on origin of decisions as emotion-based, while making sense, confuses me. I’ve watched people I love compromise their own identities, struggling to stay aligned with every MAGAites inconsistency. Yet, they have no problem alienating family and friends over headlines. How do Trump and Fox merit the trust and loyalty of followers over relationships with family and previous principles?
What a nice surprise to see myself anonymously quoted :-)
I like what you write. It’s a good lesson that things that might work in a clinical session for a psychiatrist or in a legal setting for a lawyer may not work when you’re talking to an individual person.
I have actually made that comparison in the past that political arguments would be more satisfying if a neutral third-party could magically determine who is correct, and who is not. But the nature of debate means that a lot of answers are not clear cut as they may be with a legal dispute.
I appreciate your approach to writing and I do recommend your work to other people
I visited Oklahoma a couple months ago and ran into one of the people I mentioned with whom I had often hit a brick wall
I realized that I had built him up in my head to be a lot more antagonistic of a figure than he is in real life (because the internet for both of us did not always bring out our best sides).
We were happy to run into each other randomly at an open mic after many years, enjoyed each others comedy sets, and spent a good hour catching up
My takeaway? A lot of people who vote in a way we may not like, and may support policies we find detestable… Aren’t walking around with malice towards all. After all, this person voted Obama in 2008 to oppose foreign wars, became disappointed with his failure to end wars, and seems to have decided that Trump was the guy to stop foreign conflict.
It is unhelpful to caricature every single conservative voter in the country as some kind of cartoon villain. A lot of these people just hate the status quo and are voting against whoever represents the status quo.
So rather than demonize all these people, we would be better off finding ways to offer something better than the status quo defense.
Contrary to what I was quoted saying in the piece, these people are persuadable. They just aren’t going to be persuaded if your intention is to persuade.
Better it seems to keep yourself open to friendship (human connection is worthy in itself!) and build trust, rather than treat every person who disagrees as someone you must try to change.
A 3rd party such as AI Grok or ChatGPT doesn’t necessarily hold the truth when they pull their information from the internet which is controlled by the left MSM and when they are programmed with that information. I asked a question of ChatGPT, regarding listing the names of the Republican and Democrat presidents that had assassination attempts against them. ChatGPT did not include President Donald Trump nor his two assassination attempts. When I questioned ChatGPT about this, it did respond that yes it made an error and that there were two assassination attempts against President Donald Trump. But even though it admitted it made an error when I asked that question again it did not alter its answer and gave me the same answer as the first time. So unless it is programmed that way, it doesn’t give you that correct truthful answer.
I love how human this is, building the connection, starting by learning what each other cares about, recognizing - and accepting- fears, needs, and vulnerability. Benjamin Zander’s book ‘The Art of Possibility’ has a chapter on giving everyone you meet an Automatic ‘A’ - how to sidestep the fear and judgement so deeply engrained in us, and meet people from the get-go with grace, compassion, respect, and even, delight. Yes, there are going be individuals whose attitudes and beliefs may make you shudder, and maybe you can’t tolerate engaging with them. But beginning any interaction with an ‘Automatic A’ makes it more likely you’ll find what you have in common and a way to talk with and hear each other.
I'd argue that it's "pretending to be human," something the Left is good at. Being human, however, requires empathy and understanding; the Left has never been good at those.
You say debating with GOP voters is like debating a wall. Ever noticed debating left voters usually end with them using name calling, labeling or accusations of some sort of ism? Many times with extremely limited information more than a disagreement of one portion of the premise, (Complete black and white thinking from a CBT standpoint). So the exact thing you accuse the right of, the right is feeling from the left.
Hi, this helped me think about my own approach to political discussions / debates with others. I have questions on ideological infighting and the internet. Would these tactics apply to say a disagreement between a centrist liberal and a progressive? And are these kinds of talks online more futile or more of the same than the ones in real life?
Yes! These skills help no matter who you’re talking with. Also, they work online as well as offline. In fact, I often encourage folks to practice online first since communication is asynchronous. It gives you time to think through your responses and take a break if you start to feel angry.
I heard Pete Buttigeg in an interview recently. When he talked to a Trump voter, I saw him show empathy. “You don’t deserve this kind of treatment . You deserve to be treated better than this.”
I liked his response. I think it might work as well.
I’d love to see some evidence that such skillfully handled conversations between individuals will produce sufficient social change fast enough to prevent the loss of our democracy and the chance for our planet to avoid climate catastrophe. I think at this point it’s delusional to believe this.
This situation we are in is not a difference of opinion. It is not politics. This is a social moral crisis that requires facing and countering widespread moral disengagement on a large scale and a fast timeline.
Hey folks, it’s great to see so much enthusiastic engagement with this article. You’ve given me (and hopefully each other) a lot to think about. For the most part, it seems like people are engaging politely, which is a great start, but in the spirit of Smart Politics, I urge you to stretch a little bit and work on listening and reflecting back what you hear. Even if you vehemently disagree with someone, there is great value in understanding where they’re coming from and learning from their perspective.
These are great questions. Here’s my answer. https://open.substack.com/pub/karintamerius/p/talking-with-trump-voters-can-feel?r=g6x5x&utm_medium=ios
I also wonder how long this approach would take. But what kind of evidence are you asking for? What studies do you wish existed?
I suppose I am like many, eager to take steps to turn this crisis around, and feel very frustrated when the recommendations we are offered - while not wrong and probably somewhat effective on an extended individual to individual level - are so proportionally mismatched to the scale and urgency of the problem. Psychiatrist Bandy Lee has termed those in the MAGA universe as having “mass psychosis” as they have adopted an alternative reality. The first step to “cure” this is to remove the cult leader. But how are we to accomplish that when those cult members vote him back in?
As far as what studies and evidence I would wish for, I’d just like to know that recommendations are made with valid supporting evidence for their effectiveness. In the current context, I’d like studies/evidence that can point to what can be done to move a mass of authoritarian followers away from their authoritarian leader before that leader can bring down the country.
I hope this answers at least some of your questions: https://open.substack.com/pub/karintamerius/p/talking-with-trump-voters-can-feel?r=g6x5x&utm_medium=ios
It’s not the only thing that decided the election. In general, it’s your lack of common sense in your party’s policies. This is just one of many. It’s your party’s disdain for white men, women in general, unscientific response to Covid, & disrespect for our country’s sovereignty & borders.
👆THIS. We’re quite honestly past this. And the why of it is because ppl do not, will not agree even on proven fact now.
You said, "I’d love to see some evidence that such skillfully handled conversations between individuals will produce sufficient social change fast enough to prevent the loss of our democracy and the chance for our planet to avoid climate catastrophe. I think at this point it’s delusional to believe this." But remember, it is being compared to the alternative of thinking rational debate will "produce sufficient social change fast enough to prevent the loss of our democracy and the chance for our planet to avoid climate catastrophe" and that seems clearly to have been proved false as well. At least with the method the article proposes, you then have a person who has been changed. If enough of the right people can be reached, real change can happen in society. The loss of trust was a human-created situation that came about because of human action. And that means change in the other direction can happen by the same means.
Ditto.
It will not. You may not retain full possession of your democracy, and you may not continue to use it as a method to abuse and harm other people who live beneath its purview. Your control over the nation is over. Besides, democracy is stupid anyway, we monarchists now.
Climate catastrophy is a non-issue. Yes it is changing but no one can stop it. A natural event, magnetic poles reversing, is in process and will make you forget climate change
I agree with you on much of what you say, but the bottom line is that the democrat policies or what they’re willing to die for does not resonate with a high percentage of the American voters. We do not feel it’s permissible for men to be in women’s bathrooms or competing athletically against them. That has no common sense value to many Americans. Nor does opening our border to 20 million illegals from many countries without being properly vetted or verified why they actually left their country. True that many of these countries are not good, but we can’t save the world by letting everyone come into our country illegally. How about using that money to make their countries better for them, similar to what churches and missions do?
My trans daughter is not a man.
Regardless of how you perceive her, she shouldn’t be competing in women’s sports, or getting hormonal or surgical transitions before adulthood. Until your side caves on these things, the issue is lost to republicans . The good news for you is trans issues aren’t ranked highly in most voter priorities .
She suffered through an adolescence without testosterone
blockers because of this idea. Permanently changed her skeleton, resulting in severe dysphoria. She attempted suicide twice. Is that good health care? I don't think so.
Most other countries , ie europe, have stopped hormonal and surgical interventions before 18 due to lack of scientific proof behind it. There’s no guarantee getting testosterone blockers would have helped your daughter. The research on this is mostly done by activists with policy goals, and doesn’t replicate well or withstand rational inquiry.
Judgment is obnoxious.
Democrats - by and large - **don’t** believe “men belong in women’s bathrooms or competing in women’s sports.” This statement is a gross misrepresentation of the facts (men and trans women are two different sets of people).
If the majority of trans activists vote for Democrats, that does not mean all Democrats are trans activists. Activists often hold beliefs that are more extreme than the consensus. Democrats, as a whole, do not subscribe to everything left-leaning activists promote.
I do think many people - some Democrats included- wonder where transwomen can safely go to the bathroom in public spaces, however, and I do think that is an issue of human dignity.
I do think some people wonder what the best solution is to ensure fairness in athletic competition and still allow as much athletic participation as possible. For example, many school sports, even in high school, are “no cut” sports, and participation is a positive for both the athletes and the school community.
A “common sense” approach doesn’t seem all that sensible if it asks us to ignore the factual presence of trans women (and trans men) in our society. Democrats are likely to feel alarmed if proposed government trans exclusion policies are similar to historical government exclusions for race or religion or ethnicity or gender - policies which led to Jim Crow, apartheid or, worst of all, genocide. Democrats, generally, want to avoid the slippery slope of dehumanization followed by violence that historically follows legal efforts to remove targeted groups from public life because of their identities.
Here’s the surprising part: Democrats believe they are also protecting their political adversaries when they defend a universal right to unfettered public life.
This is why the Democratic party lost. “Trans-women” are still genetically men & many still have their penis. Instead of promoting gender drugs & surgeries, they should be receiving mental health help, especially if they are under 21 yo.
Democrats - meaning people who vote for Democratic candidates - don’t offer therapy, diagnose medical conditions or prescribe medications or perform surgery.
Doctors do.
Do you see the difference?
All Democrats are not doctors. All doctors are not Democrats.
Medical experts arrive at policies that govern the way they practice medicine. You have your own opinion about what medical treatment you think is appropriate in these circumstances - and the good news is that no one can force you or your minor children to consent to this or any other treatment you object to. But, given that you are not licensed to prescribe medical treatment for others, your opinion about what medical treatment other people should have access to is not helpful to anyone.
This is not why Democrats lost. EVIDENCE please.
I'm hearing deeply-felt opinions about this topic. Am I right about that?And I'm wondering if those opinions are come from your desire for safety for girls/women when they use a public bathroom?
We'll judge you by your actions, not what you claim to believe.
“A “common sense” approach doesn’t seem all that sensible if it asks us to ignore the factual presence of trans women (and trans men) in our society. “
Such people define themselves into existence, and we are under no obligation to indulge their delusions. Tiny groups of people are not allowed to culturally redefine an entire concept with massive implications on their own terms without consent of the majority, and punish people who object. This isn’t democratic, it’s technocratic tyranny. The people behind this aren’t doctors, they’re activists who don’t have evidence, only idealogical capture of institutions. This idealogical capture is at the root of the massive distrust towards academia, media, and government. Until this one sided capture by a tiny minority is addressed, conversations won’t go anywhere. The way you feel when Trump takes over is how we felt when activists took over college campuses and launched their war on the American public.
How about human dignity for our female children having to deal with trans in their bathrooms & competing against genetics that out paces girls?
We all want common sense solutions. Turns out on most cases we all agree or at least are much closer than the extremes both parties want us to belive. I hate that part of politics!! Do you know any trans people? I've known a bunch of them for 30 years. They are just people trying to do the best they can. Most found they did have physical, hormonal or genetic issues that made them intersex or have the wrong equipment and are trying to treat those conditions. Not entirely different than a nose job or correcting a birth defects. What most people are afraid of are straight men raping girls in bathrooms, not a transwoman (likely to be attracted to men not girls) who either has already had surgery or doesn't identify with the offending part anyhow. A trans woman does not identify as a straight man and won't act like it. Most avoid public bathrooms because they are the ones likely to be abused in them, not be the abusers themselves. In terms of sports, it should be a case by case basis. Men don't become women to compete in sports, it just doesn't happen. There are sports teams and competitions cropping up that cater to Trans and non binary folks who don't fit neatly in one category. That is likely to be one solution we can all agree with.
Among athletes, there will always be someone who has genetic or metabolic advantages in the areas of size, speed or strength, or age.
Athletes compete first and foremost with themselves.
When female high school students compete for university sports scholarships or when females competing for Olympic positions it automatically puts them at a big disadvantage. Start trans/binary sports teams!
And they should be competing against the same biological sex unless it’s a co-ed team.
How about the safe spaces our children can go without having the opposite sex in their bathroom?
Children share bathrooms with different sexes and ages in a multitude of different settings - in their homes, when a parent takes a different sex youngster to the bathroom in public settings, on airplanes, in preschools, and so on.
I notice that you didn’t my answer the question though, and I would like to ask you to think this through. Trans individuals have the same human needs as others: they need access to bathrooms in public. Where do you imagine they are going to go? What’s the solution?
Are you willing to exclude trans women from public life in general to guarantee that they don’t have access to “women’s spaces”? Does that include schools, employment, recreation? How about trans men? Do you want to exclude them from “men’s spaces” and “men’s sports” and so deny them access to all public spaces, too?
Women-only spaces may seem like common sense. At one time, so did segregation. We know that isn’t true now and never was the case. When we learn better, we can do better.
As for sports, there are governing bodies at all levels to determine policy and ensure competitive fairness. There are co-ed teams and no cut teams. Most school teams, especially younger ones, are developmental as opposed to competitive. I personally believe we need to let the sports regulate themselves - there is no need to politicize, or heaven forbid, federalize, sports administration.
Have you seen what most trans men look like? They look like MEN, beards and all. And these "bathroom laws" are forcing these trans men into women's bathrooms, because that's the bathroom that corresponds to their sex at birth. So these laws are forcing people who look and act like men into women's bathrooms. And they are forcing people who look and act like women into men's bathrooms. And cis-women are being harassed and attacked for going into the women's bathroom, because some people don't think they look "feminine" enough to be using that bathroom. How about we just STOP policing bathrooms and let all people take care of their business in PEACE?!
We’ve tried that. How about we look at a system that exploits cheap labor. And the companies that hire them.
Sounds good, and also deport the illegals who shouldn’t be here.
That's a good idea--like what USAID used to do. I think it still exists, at least in part. We could advocate to restore USAID funding.
Only if we aren’t contributing to the national debt. Why not have the democratic party start up their own non-profits that don’t depend on tax payer $$ from the federal government.
You are a clear example of a rampaging elephant ignoring her rider.
First, you are dismissing an entire political party based on what you are seeing on Fox News about a vanishingly small number of trans girls/women competing in women's sports. There is much more nuance in the Democratic party and, in addition, making decisions about whether or not impoverished children should have health insurance or whether the craven Republican party can crash the global economy because they are unwilling to stand up to Trump's tariff police based on this issue is frankly insane.
Second, you are entirely wrong about USAID. It was a miniscule amount of our budget, paid massive foreign policy dividends, and hundreds of thousands of the poorest and most vulnerable human beings in the world will die because you are unwilling to allow the equivalent of a single latte of your tax dollars be used for it. If you don't care about starving African children, that's your remit, but please, forever more refrain from pretending that you are a Christian, if you are, because Jesus would be embarrassed to be associated with the likes of you.
I don't know you, so the whole comfort, connection, blah blah blah thing is never going to work between us. So all I am obliged to say to you is that you should grow up and stop mainlining propaganda.
No, we're dismissing an objectively evil group of death-cultists based on their collective actions and endorsed behavior over the last 25 years.
Talk about stopping mainline propaganda; your comment on crashing the global economy is ridiculous. Our economy is up since the tariffs & other countries need to compromise with Pres. Trump if they don’t want those high tariffs to affect their economies. If those countries would stop following the globalist narrative, they would be better off economically stop blaming the US for other countries economic demise.
What makes you think they haven’t?
Hungary & a few others are refusing the globalist agenda. Just look at the chaos going on in Paris. Many other countries have serious issues with globalist immigration . What makes you think they have?
Besides, we now know USAID was used to launder money based on the stupid reasons $$ was given to some of these NGO’s
I agree with you in regards to Capitol Hill picking in your pocket. On the other hand when we ignore issues that are of importance to many of us those issues can reproduce into worst case scenarios down the road. In 2015, same sex marriages were accepted in most states. And now, we have people claiming they are different genders & even animals. We were told we must call them by their disclosed pro-noun or get fired from our jobs.
Ok, so get rid of the illegals undercutting worker salaries?
If people were fired from their jobs, its a little hard to put food on the table. We can deal with both issues at the same time!
Well, no, they're not on your team. They're violently reactive to the Left because the Left is built on a collective hatred of independence, white men, and successful families. These pro-environmentalist Christian Nationalists are well aware that you hate them, and that you'll lie to their face to get them 'on your side'. They'll never be 'on your side' because the Left has been lying about their true goals for decades, and is unlikely to change any time soon.
Not a Sith Lord, but rather one who will not put up with the lies of a modern equivalent.
I don't believe you. I believe that when pressed, your "people on the left who don't give a rat's boot about any of that" will fall in line with the dogma of the death-cult. Just like they did during the pandemic, not a one of them will stand up against the imposition of evil policies as long as it's their team doing it.
I generally presume anyone who uses pop culture as their method for understanding complex morality is a Leftwing Cultist. Where would you say your position is, then, if not on the Left? Also, your underground-fort looks cozy.
I dig the hobbit hole. It is dug.
Ted Kaczynski knew what was up. Although I'm of the opinion that all democratic systems are inevitable failures, especially in the age of mass media. They're just glorified autocracies. As a result, I have proposed actual
monarchy as a feasible political system for the 21st/22nd century.
Er… you are acquainted with only a segment of “doomsday preppers.” The last one I saw up close had thousands of plastic and foil retort food pouches, and tanks of diesel.
Has it ever occurred to you that this might be nothing more than projection? Your opening line reads, “The real reason GOP voters seem impervious to facts and reason.” But when was the last time you asked yourself, “What if I’m wrong?” When was the last time you truly re-examined your own views, not just to reinforce them, but to challenge them?
I’ve voted Democrat my entire life. But in the last election I chose not to vote at all. I couldn’t in good conscience support a party that I feel has drifted from the values that once made it principled. The Democrats used to be the adults in the room. They were grounded in substance, in policy, in fact. But over the last decade, and especially the last five years, narcissism and certainty seem to have taken hold. The nuance of facts has given way to the comfort of simplified narratives.
Always remember, the key to intelligence and the key to rationality is humility. The ability to say “I might be wrong” is not a weakness; It’s the foundation of real thought. And until both sides are willing to look inward, to question themselves with the same intensity they question others, nothing will change.
In a demonstration of the elephant/rider concept of the article, I disbelieved you from your first sentence, second paragraph. Why? Because you used the same language twist that many right wingers do in saying you voted Democrat all your life instead of the proper Democratic. To me, that signals untrustworthy troll. But I could be wrong. I hope I am.
Look at his other comments on his stack page. Then decide how much weight to give his advice.
“I didn't vote last election because X, Y, Z wasn't perfect enough for me” is the ultimate Middle-aged White Guy Privilege.
People who “don’t vote” need to be reminded that, by default, they cast their “non-vote” for whomever won.
Then there is the response, ‘can we discuss the ‘…drifted from the values that once made it principled…’ part? Will you walk me through this?
Methinks partizan supporters ‘need to be reminded that’ the vote strike is too often a rejection of the system itself. Of course the ‘apathy’ and ‘acquiescence to whomever’ cards will be played. The alternative ceded that we are in far deeper turmoil than parties can admit without undermining their own pretense to political legitimacy.
Trotsky pointed out that the positions people take are determined NOT by their philosophical merit but by class interests.
words hurt your feelings boo womp :(
I’d encourage you to heed my words of advice. It might help you better understand those you so easily denigrate.
No one would say “vote Democratic”, at least not a native speaker of American English, don’t be absurd. The shibboleth you’re groping at is “Democrat party”, “vote for the Democrats” or “voted Democrat” is totally normal ingroup language. Your paranoid style would assert that anyone would say “I voted for the Democratics”, NO ONE DOES THIS. Get a grip.
I voted for the Democrats and voted Democrat are two different phrases. Hope you’re not an English teacher.
And verb tense related to subject/verb agreement was apparently not yours. What exactly do you hope to accomplish by calling me names around this?
I am a Marxist and I align with the International Trotskyist Tendency. In the absence of any acceptable candidate, I have steadfastly refused to vote for anybody.
Don’t worry … I won’t throw a bunch of historical material dialect at you.
But I do support EW Harrelson’s admonition that you heed his words.
Your Parties [to say naught of your society] are in more peril than you guess.
Consider your ways.
I didn’t intend to denigrate you at all. I pointed out a flaw in my thinking and what triggered it. Maybe my hope that I was wrong about my trolling reaction offended you? I wish you and the people who liked your comment could recognize the inquiry for what it was. And people wonder why we don’t take risks when we talk to each other.
So sitting on the fence and allowing the election of an autocrat was better, yes? How do you think this is working out for the American public?
Given that you used such a hyperbolic term in a clearly pejorative way, I have a hard time believing my opinion genuinely matters to you. That said, I’m not claiming my opinion is particularly important anyway. My basic view is this: if you want to believe that 1 plus 1 equals 3, go right ahead, enjoy.
Agreed. Attention's a scare currency and it's impossible to take anyone seriously who starts with an opening line like that
But then that’s a problem because the very people who should be taking note of how many people used to vote for the Democrats or who are liberal, but are just disenfranchised with the left end up ignoring it because it’s inconvenient for them to pay attention.
Wow, a Leftist calling someone who disagrees with them stupid. How novel. What an intriguing and unique statement that will definitely produce a result different from the other hundred million times it's been done.
And you wonder why it's so easy to recognize ya'll irredeemable death-cultists. I'm sure at some point we'll get to compare our ideologies in person.
This is helpful. But another issue that does not get enough attention is that our educational system does not instill the concept of intellectual honesty in instruction, and so a social culture and milieu that we all share does not exist. As a result, people are not aware of cognitive biases such as confirmation bias and motivated reasoning.
Intellectual honesty involves
1. “Ensuring support for chosen ideologies does not interfere with the pursuit of truth;
2. “Relevant facts and information are not purposefully omitted even when such things may contradict one's hypothesis;
3. “Facts are presented in an unbiased manner, and not twisted to give misleading impressions or to support one view over another;
4. “References, or earlier work, are acknowledged where possible, and plagiarism is avoided.”
Dr. Tamerius' advice would be more successful if we all understood these.
Many teachers ARE teaching confirmation bias to students as young as 6th graders (the age of my students), as well as how to do careful research and find trustworthy sources, identify author bias, etc.
Do you hear the generalizations in the comment/accusation that the educational system is not instilling intellectual honesty? That type of sweeping gereralization seems hypocritical while espousing intellectual integrity.
Very true. Unfortunately, too many people these days see that as a tall order. SMH.
Academia has been on a downward spiral since DEI policies were put in place back in the 70s.
That said, there are plenty of other factors at play as well.
Yeah, they do seem to have overcorrected on that, noble as the intent may have been before it jumped the shark. We all know what the road to hell is paved with, after all.
The intent was never noble.
Great points on the art of persuasion.
But, could we just substitute 'Democrats' for 'Republicans'?
Or is debating with them somehow different because only their ideas/opinions are the correct ones?
Hi, Dan. Yes, you could substitute “Democrats” for “Republicans” and the advice would be just as relevant. However, Smart Politics is a progressive organization so my writing always approaches the topic from that perspective. I would love to see a conservative organization teach these same tools to Republicans.
I am pretty firmly of the belief at this point that most of the Left are members of a death-cult that will lie to you to gain enough power to hurt you. They have no desire to create a better world, only a desire to hurt others as some bizarre appeal to their death-god "progress." No desire for understanding, only a desire to deceive. This is, of course, based on observing the behavior of these individuals and groups over a quarter of a century and noting that the results of their actions are always a net reduction in quality of life, an increase in suicides, and a decrease in economic stability.
What would you say to try to convince me that I'm wrong? What lies would you use to try and achieve social power over me sufficient that I'll accept the activities of your demon-cult?
You’re so deep in the rabbit hole you can’t see light. Claw your way out into the sun. It will feel scary at first but I promise it’s worth it. Read books. Talk to good people. Ask yourself why you prefer regression to progress. What did you love about the past? Was it the high rate of child death, the subjugation of women and minorities or something else? The past was never better than now, even if we can point to a positive thing here or there, and we can. We can bring back better and fresher food, for example, without bringing back the rest of it.
You could try NOT behaving like an irredeamable monster, but instead you choose the path of more lies. More projection: "If you don't agree with our death-cult, you must hate women and children and minorities." The line is getting old. Rather than attempting to build a better world your ego is entirely built upon relieving your_percieved_trauma of the past. Trauma that you didn't even live through, but claim must have existed in order to justify your faith in your god, "progress" at the expense of all human life and well-being.
You’re the monster here, of course.
You literally don’t believe how many children died in infancy in the past? You think I made that up? You literally don’t know or believe what life was like for women and people of color? I could go on.
You want to doom millions to death and misery. Fuck you, no.
"If you don't support my extremist views you want to murder children" says the feminist. Ignoring the fact that her ideology explicitly endorses the mass murder of children, the mass castration of men, and mass chemical dependency on SSRIs.
You project that which you are onto those superior to yourself... because you are so horribly evil that you can't accept a world where other people are less detestable than yourself. Narcissism combined with Self-hatred: the foundation of Leftism.
Let me be really clear: The Republicans are the ones who believe crazy shit and are wrecking the country.
Ain't that the truth!
Partisans are the problem. They are so caught up in an “us versus them” war that they can’t see how disastrous their own beliefs are.
Democrats are more likely to have formed their opinion by looking at the facts.
Indeed. Facts do tend to have a "liberal bias", after all.
You're better. Way better.
This is such a practical, helpful, and encouraging approach to having meaningful conversations. Thanks! 🌿
It won't work because the Right has figured out that the Left predominantly consists of death-cultists who get off on hurting innocent people. At this point, the Right sees no reason to engage because there's no one "in there" to engage with when talking to some on the Left. Metaphorically, you're speaking to a human skin-suit being worn by a violent ideology, not an ensouled individual.
Excuse me, but the Left aren't the ones eagerly seeking to deny millions of poor and working class people healthcare just to give tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires. Nor are they the ones who proudly fiddle while the climate burns either. It's pretty clear which side of the political spectrum is the real death cult here, and it sure ain't the Left!
Yes, you are. You're denying Americans the ability to work for reasonable wages by undercutting them with illegal foreign labor. The Left is lying about it because they lie about everything. As stated, it's an addiction. I won't try to convince you you're wrong, because I know that I can't. You're an automaton, a skin-suit worn by an ideology of violent extremism. A death-cultist who enjoys hurting innocent people.
The only reason I continue to type here is because of the cognitive dissonance it creates in the (remaining) rational parts of your (damaged) mind. I am honestly telling you how the majority of the population sees death cultists like yourself. Stop trying to hurt innocent people, stop trying to maim your fellow citizens, stop trying to destroy our culture and civilization, and maybe you won't be seen as death-cultists hell bent on destruction for its own sake.
It's easy to work with the Right, just don't be an irredeemably evil liar. If you can try telling the truth (just as an experiment?) it'd be a huge improvement.
Looking forward to putting this info to practice — for the sake of my head and the wall.
The interesting discussion on origin of decisions as emotion-based, while making sense, confuses me. I’ve watched people I love compromise their own identities, struggling to stay aligned with every MAGAites inconsistency. Yet, they have no problem alienating family and friends over headlines. How do Trump and Fox merit the trust and loyalty of followers over relationships with family and previous principles?
What a nice surprise to see myself anonymously quoted :-)
I like what you write. It’s a good lesson that things that might work in a clinical session for a psychiatrist or in a legal setting for a lawyer may not work when you’re talking to an individual person.
I have actually made that comparison in the past that political arguments would be more satisfying if a neutral third-party could magically determine who is correct, and who is not. But the nature of debate means that a lot of answers are not clear cut as they may be with a legal dispute.
I appreciate your approach to writing and I do recommend your work to other people
I do want to mention an interesting follow up
I visited Oklahoma a couple months ago and ran into one of the people I mentioned with whom I had often hit a brick wall
I realized that I had built him up in my head to be a lot more antagonistic of a figure than he is in real life (because the internet for both of us did not always bring out our best sides).
We were happy to run into each other randomly at an open mic after many years, enjoyed each others comedy sets, and spent a good hour catching up
My takeaway? A lot of people who vote in a way we may not like, and may support policies we find detestable… Aren’t walking around with malice towards all. After all, this person voted Obama in 2008 to oppose foreign wars, became disappointed with his failure to end wars, and seems to have decided that Trump was the guy to stop foreign conflict.
It is unhelpful to caricature every single conservative voter in the country as some kind of cartoon villain. A lot of these people just hate the status quo and are voting against whoever represents the status quo.
So rather than demonize all these people, we would be better off finding ways to offer something better than the status quo defense.
Contrary to what I was quoted saying in the piece, these people are persuadable. They just aren’t going to be persuaded if your intention is to persuade.
Better it seems to keep yourself open to friendship (human connection is worthy in itself!) and build trust, rather than treat every person who disagrees as someone you must try to change.
A 3rd party such as AI Grok or ChatGPT doesn’t necessarily hold the truth when they pull their information from the internet which is controlled by the left MSM and when they are programmed with that information. I asked a question of ChatGPT, regarding listing the names of the Republican and Democrat presidents that had assassination attempts against them. ChatGPT did not include President Donald Trump nor his two assassination attempts. When I questioned ChatGPT about this, it did respond that yes it made an error and that there were two assassination attempts against President Donald Trump. But even though it admitted it made an error when I asked that question again it did not alter its answer and gave me the same answer as the first time. So unless it is programmed that way, it doesn’t give you that correct truthful answer.
Debating anyone is a waste of time except for the audience to the debate.
Calm, considered discussion based on respect? That's another matter.
This is so thoroughly helpful, thank you!
I love how human this is, building the connection, starting by learning what each other cares about, recognizing - and accepting- fears, needs, and vulnerability. Benjamin Zander’s book ‘The Art of Possibility’ has a chapter on giving everyone you meet an Automatic ‘A’ - how to sidestep the fear and judgement so deeply engrained in us, and meet people from the get-go with grace, compassion, respect, and even, delight. Yes, there are going be individuals whose attitudes and beliefs may make you shudder, and maybe you can’t tolerate engaging with them. But beginning any interaction with an ‘Automatic A’ makes it more likely you’ll find what you have in common and a way to talk with and hear each other.
I'd argue that it's "pretending to be human," something the Left is good at. Being human, however, requires empathy and understanding; the Left has never been good at those.
You say debating with GOP voters is like debating a wall. Ever noticed debating left voters usually end with them using name calling, labeling or accusations of some sort of ism? Many times with extremely limited information more than a disagreement of one portion of the premise, (Complete black and white thinking from a CBT standpoint). So the exact thing you accuse the right of, the right is feeling from the left.
Hi Jay, you’re absolutely right. This is not a right or left thing. It’s a people thing.
Great advice. Even when talking about things besides politics, these steps are useful. I use them at work all the time.
Hi, this helped me think about my own approach to political discussions / debates with others. I have questions on ideological infighting and the internet. Would these tactics apply to say a disagreement between a centrist liberal and a progressive? And are these kinds of talks online more futile or more of the same than the ones in real life?
Yes! These skills help no matter who you’re talking with. Also, they work online as well as offline. In fact, I often encourage folks to practice online first since communication is asynchronous. It gives you time to think through your responses and take a break if you start to feel angry.
I heard Pete Buttigeg in an interview recently. When he talked to a Trump voter, I saw him show empathy. “You don’t deserve this kind of treatment . You deserve to be treated better than this.”
I liked his response. I think it might work as well.
thank you for this...a very useful article!
Very interesting! Thank you!