What's the best way to frame political arguments? Some argue that we should tell stories that express our own values strongly — preferably with many voices repeating and reinforcing the same story; this is the approach in George Lakoff's Don't Think of an Elephant. At the opposite end of the spectrum, we hear advice as in Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind (and Moral Foundations Theory) to spend more time listening to conservative opposition and coming to understand their values — more empathy, more compassion. Progressives often argue about where on this spectrum we are most effective. What does the Democratic leadership choose?
Even When It Doesn't Save Money: Don’t use other people’s values and logic, use your own by Nathan J. Robinson is a great place to start.
Robinson reviews progressive outreach on issues from the death penalty to drug testing welfare recipients. For each issue liberals have focused on cost-savings as a value-neutral way to push our policies without expressing own own liberal values:
"Each of these arguments has something in common: they support a left-wing policy position, without requiring a left-wing set of moral preferences."
This breaks the spectrum we set up just a moment ago. Saying that the death penalty is expensive does not involve listening to conservatives and understanding their values — we have not slowed down and explored their moral foundations. And we have not expressed our real values.
Democrats have been doing this for a long time now. Robinson finds example after example of triangulation, seeking neutral values between left and right, neither expressing our own values fully nor understanding and engaging our opponents deeper values.
Many Democrats see a conflict between echoing your own story with clarity and sometimes even anger vs. having empathy and taking time to listen on the other. But it's a false conflict, there is time to do both. The problem is doing neither. When it is your turn to listen, listen well, assume that voters (if not always politicians) are decent people and hear their values and their needs — leave people feeling like you are on their side even if you disagree. When it is your time to talk, don't turn down your volume. Don't pretend that your policies are just technically better, a way to save a few dollars, when you really are calling for treating human life with dignity — if you disagree, disagree, share your heart.
Since Reagan, Republicans have been able to accuse Democrats of being "card-carrying liberals" and gotten Democratic politicians to squirm instead of own it. You can not triangulate on values and leadership and stay popular over the long run: our nation is pretty strongly against Socialism, and in the polls right now arguably* the number one politician in the country often — proudly — associates himself with that word. The data from the polls and the last election is clear: you can have your idealism and be popular too. You can also treat voters who disagree with dignity and listen to them, without holding back your real feelings. If the party refuses to give stage time primarily to people who believe, that means the party is gutless, and will come across as gutless, and lose.
* I haven't found a good matchup of poll numbers. Sanders and Obama both seem to be doing quite well. Polls for Obama at 55% and Sanders, more recently, at 61%, but Obama was not in the same poll.
The Onion lifts the Orwellian veil and imagines Paul Ryan giving earnest and realistic advice, “GOP Recommends Americans Set Aside Income From One Of Their Jobs To Pay For Healthcare Under New Bill.” A liberal friend commented that “it sounds exactly like the kind of things Paul Ryan is already saying.” But this isn’t accurate: I went and listened to Ryan talking about healthcare, and The Onion describes what liberals hear when our media describes his policies, but it is not how he frames healthcare himself.
The mock report sounds as if Paul Ryan spoke his truth: his policies and his values applied to the real world. It might ring true to liberals, but I've never heard Republicans nor progressive activists frame the Republican health care plan this way: with clarity, without exaggerations or team-identifying “#resist” hashtags, simply taking the values actually felt by Republicans to realistic conclusions.
When Republicans frame healthcare, they avoid words about poorly-paid people working. In their world, "the poor" consume — for example iPhones — but in Republican stories they do not work. They certainly do not work two jobs. The Republican frame implies that work will set them free, and that less consumption will solve their problems, but the real lives of the working poor are never explored. The Republican conversations about healthcare use a lot of magic talk about how each step “will lower prices even more” without consequences. It's rare to hear liberals describe, in memorable story, how each money-saving step will leave someone hurting.
Ryan’s discussions of health care never give recommendations to people on how they will adjust to the new plan. This Onion article is accurate — people with low-paying jobs will need to add another part-time job, perhaps stick their kids in front of the tv and hope for the best, to pay for their healthcare. It is also true to Republican values of hard work, where most of the liberal attacks pretend that Republicans, in their hearts, are motivated by something more evil. Why not say it? Why don’t Democrats and their allies describe the Republican plan as this article does: using the Republican plan and Republican values of hard work, and showing what this means in the real world.
The Onion has lifted the Orwellian veil off the Republican plan, without adding mockery or opposition. They’re describing the Republican values of hard work in an unregulated market made manifest in the real world: and that true story is cutting comedy in a way that #resistance attacks are merely ephemeral shouts from people cheering for the other team.
Democrats and allies should explore framing this way. Use active listening, be able to describe Republican values better than they can, be able to say the positive values that regular people are motivated by. Tell the story while adding neither our disparagement nor their Orwellian veil. Tell a story of healthcare that matches Ryan’s actual, undistorted beliefs, his desire for people to work harder, as it would really work. Don’t tell people what to believe. If people don’t come to the same beliefs you hold at the end of your story, revisit your beliefs or revisit your story.
My Democratic feed has been full of numbers —not stories— of how many millions of people will lose health care. “Millions of people,” but no one with a name or a story. After all the abstractions, or sometimes before the abstractions, a few insults are tossed in. No Democratic frame takes each step of Ryan’s policies and explains, gives an example, of how each step that “will lower prices even more” takes away a needed service.
If Republicans want a strong work ethic, what does this mean for a family who works at Republican-contributor Walmart? If they want cost savings, where will those savings come from? Be willing to admit the positives next to the negatives: yes, my healthcare costs went up under Obamacare because some people with pre-existing conditions were added to my pool and are now insured too. Don’t describe them just by income level: don’t say “People who make $40,000 per year.” Start with a story of people living their lives in a particular way. Pull listeners out of abstractions. Say: "this is what Paul Ryan wants a young couple where both parents work at Walmart to do." Don't exaggerate: describe a healthy person who will pay less at the same time you describe someone with a pre-existing condition who will lose their coverage. Leave no points for them to pick apart. Footnotes with numbers are great, but they're not the story.
Unmuddle the Republican story — without any snark at all. Don’t call Paul Ryan whatever you think of him. Tell the story of what he believes and what he is doing. No paper tigers. None of your opinion. If your story doesn’t make people furious, your story needs work.
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Here is what Ryan actually says, choice and freedom:
The American Health Care Act lowers premiums, stabilizes the market, and gives people more choice and freedom. https://t.co/Ohx3SMsEtK pic.twitter.com/di1ZSUyJf2
— Paul Ryan (@SpeakerRyan) March 13, 2017
Do you live in a liberal enclave, and are heading home to see relatives who supported Trump? Feeling furious while reading advice not to shame people?
There is a lot of advice out there —this blog jumps in with a back-and-forth weaving of communication techniques, politics, and your hopes for connection and sanity at your Thanksgiving dinner table. Recommendations for more focused resources are interspersed; if you have a long flight home, take a copy of Cognitive Politics: a Communications Workbook for Progressives — available free as a PDF until Thanksgiving.
Trump won. What’s next for you? Do you want to maintain your family relationships without feeling silenced? Do you want to be acknowledged? Do you just want to understand? Just get out your anger? Do you want to have an impact on politics from your dinner conversations, either with the person you’re having a conversation with or perhaps nieces and nephews listening?
If you’re pissed and angry and feel betrayed by people who voted for Trump but hope to accomplish more than just fighting, a great place to start is imagining a conversation where you get out your anger. Write it down … and then be careful about saying any those things. This doesn’t mean that only gentle conversations make sense, but focus your challenge: unless you are actually sitting down to dinner with Trump himself, blaming and shaming voters with limited choices for everything wrong with Trump isn’t fair. But asking them to take some responsibility for the consequences of their vote may be fair.
Active listening is often the key tool to a good Thanksgiving conversation. If you want to be heard, start by listening. Get to the point where you can describe the other person’s values back in a way that they feel heard.
Find out what they want, what they care about. Make sure that they, and any listeners, know that you started out respectful.
One of the techniques with the best track record for improving conversations with people who are reasonably respectful but are full of anger based on Fox-news talking points: give them a respectful ear and encourage them to keep explaining until they talk right past the Fox talking-points without your guidance.
Another technique is “tit-for-tat” listening. Seek out everything they believe that you can agree with, and make it clear you agree. People across the political spectrum believe in fairness, if you switch from scoring points off the other person (a metaphor that means you are on opposing teams) to seeking agreement. It may take a long time to turn down the heat in politics, but try to move the conversation from scoring points off each other to seeking small agreements.
If you ultimately decide that dignity or other people listening to your conversation requires turning up the heat, these are still good places to start.
Much of the advice on the web (example: Livingroom Conversations) is how to have a good conversation with people willing to have a good conversation with you. I’m jealous if this is your cross-partisan family, reality is often more difficult.
Political conversations go particularly bad when we get personal about the wrong parts. We short-circuit a candidate’s views or corruption with the person sitting in front of us, when our friends and family are not actually the corrupt person or party. We also short-circuit blame in the other direction: if you are talking to someone who is cutting you off, avoid deciding that “all conservatives/liberals are rude” and stay in the room, feel angry toward them and not their group.
I’m ready to have disagreements about politics and still respect you. But right now in this conversation at the Thanksgiving table, I have been trying hard to give you a chance to talk and to listen to you, while you have been interrupting me. I feel [stressed, sad, disconnected…]
Sad or afraid might be better leverage points than anger. If you’re feeling angry at people at the dinner table, be careful that you know what you are angry about. There are reasons to feel angry. It’s probably better to say it rather than seethe.
If you feel angry, how would you express anger to someone you respect? How can they make it right?
Don’t be vaguely nice at Thanksgiving, nor vaguely rude. A great example and contrast is when Pence went to watch Hamilton along with his family: he was (his family was) boo’d and also given a challenging but respectful speech. Imagine Pence’s family hearing only the speech, or hearing it with the boo’s — which one is more powerful?
Boos indicate disrespect of a personal sort, they are about shame: the person being boo’d (and anyone who voted for him) is not being asked to change, just told that we think they suck. The Hamilton speech was a challenge that came from a place of respecting the other person enough to say exactly what you are feeling and what you want. Anger and respect can go together.
This post started by recommending that you write down a conversation where you get out your anger. What are you most angry about? Can you narrow it down? Can you find one specific example?
Have you felt attacked?
You called me unpatriotic for opposing the Iraq war, and then voted for someone who says he also thought the invasion was a terrible mistake (though he didn’t take the personal risks to stand against the war before it started). You never apologized for calling me unpatriotic. Can you talk about that?
What would it take for you to respect the people you are eating dinner with?
A pig is as intelligent as a dog.
There, you’ve heard the fact. Are you vegan now, or at least done eating pork? Why not? We need to create stories that help facts make sense or they’ll get lost — and we can’t use us-vs-them stories. Listing all the facts that favor your opinion and oppose theirs creates a metaphor that we are on opposing teams— or a story of lawyers, of opposing counsel, and you can never convince opposing counsel. How can you weave the facts that are important to you back to values, ideally shared values? Bring in the facts that are important to you in unexpected ways that break the old stories.
Republicans undermined Obama, doing their best to make him a one-term president. Trump led the racist Birthers. Why should I stand with Trump? Why should I not try my best to make him a one-term president. Trump was lying when he tried to delegitimize President Obama: tell me why I should not use the truth to delegitimize Trump? Wouldn’t that be fair?
This makes sense to me. If you are going to go for expressing power — that we can attack Trump and his policy, that this isn’t something we should just do but should also talk about at Thanksgiving—it’s good to keep focused on the fairness, to ask questions. I do think that some of the disfunction in Washington happens when Democrats fail to create consequences for Republican abuses. But, but as far as communication practices are concerned, you probably can’t do anything with this technique but squabble with your relatives, no matter how right you are. If you want to undermine the Trump presidency, get to work, don’t talk about it with conservatives at Thanksgiving. If you’re going to use power, use it—the young left has developed a growing habit of weak protests and pointless threats that we would be well to leave behind. Nonviolent communication techniques are what have worked to move justice forward in past struggles.
Trump won. That’s done. What’s next? Do you want your relatives who claim not be racist to be ready, if they see an immigrant or Muslim or black person being harassed, to not turn away? To talk to their kids and emphasize that we’re all in this together, and they should stand up for other kids who might be bullied? To post on social media to their conservative circle that all Americans should stand up if they see discrimination or harassment, to place their voice in their circle against something specific? To talk to their kids about consent?
Maybe we’re going to go fascist after this election, or maybe this is the infection that helps America finally build an immune response to day-to-day racism that the Civil Rights movement succeeded only at covering up. Maybe in four years our culture will shift, so that everyone knows that not being racist means standing up to racism when you encounter it, not just seeing it as the targeted culture’s problem. Maybe these four years we’ll undo the bystander effect that dominates racism and sexism. How do we get there? Check out: Showing up for Racial Justice. It’s something to work for if you can’t convince people to change votes, if your back-to-early-November time machine is broken.
You can’t easily ask people to regret or take back their vote. You can ask them to watch a video, to think about a topic. Perhaps react to police violence aimed at defenders of Standing Rock.
What would happen if you said something like this — both for the main person you talk to, and for other listeners, exploring how you and they connect:
Today, conservative America is asking for relief from competition with unfair labor practices in China. I first encountered this in my hippy coop, those were the first places to care that products were union-made or at least not from the most abusive places. I opposed the Iraq war—and was called unpatriotic for it—and now your candidate says it was a huge mistake. This country perhaps failed in the primaries, one candidate who thinks it’s ok to take bank’s money and keep speeches secret, one candidate who brags of sexual assault. So why don’t we treat each other like we’re on the same side as a starting point, instead of bringing the failings of politicians to the Thanksgiving table?
If Trump doesn’t work out, at the next election, can we stop separating into factions based on social issues, and seek out politicians with integrity rather than looking at their style? Can we all get engaged, on both sides, in making sure the primaries give us better candidates?
Seek “foot in the door” types of agreement. Don’t ask people to dismiss their entire worldview at dinner. Find something they can agree on, perhaps something that will cause them to notice things they haven’t noticed in the past.
If someone is harassing a woman wearing a hijab, will you say something? Can you be ready to stand up to racist talk among your friends? If you encounter “locker-room talk” about assaulting women, will you stop your friends and talk it out?
America should honor the treaty — that is a contract, that is our word — at Standing Rock. There is no wiggle room in this. We gave our word, it’s there in writing. Ask: Do you think we should honor our contract? Are you willing to write your politicians? Why, why not? I want to hear your reasons.
Don’t let politics define your values; let your values define your politics. Thanksgiving is a powerful holiday for this: we gather around a meal that is usually created mostly by people who earn little or no money for that work. It doesn’t take Steve Jobs’ genius to help us farm, transport and prepare a meal. When possible raise consciousness about the values that underly your politics without bringing up politics: thank all the people involved in creating your Thanksgiving dinner.
Some guides help narrow the focus: Showing up for Racial Justice is focused on what individuals can do, now, whether they agree on politics or not. Others focus on the communicating through tricky situations; Crucial Conversations is one of the best. Livingroom Conversations is a great resource when everyone wants to come together, when you might discuss ground rules first — similarly, here’s a great list of calm questions to read right before Thanksgiving, or even this suggestion to make a game of arguing each other’s points. Or remind yourself of communication techniques that might help: you don’t ever have the right to disagree with the fact that someone is feeling threatened and vulnerable.
