Yesterday, a front page diarist asked the useless question, “Do we think we are morally and intellectually superior?“ Meanwhile the never-ending diaries devoted to mocking and ridiculing Trump, especially about inanities like hair, small hands and urine prove daily that we are not.
We are not morally and intellectually superior, and thinking so will doom any efforts to resist effectively. Remember, THEY think they are morally and intellectually superior and have thought so for a long time. When each group holds that dichotomous view, ne’er the twain shall meet.
For example, mockery does not actually work. Mockery only motivates the target to dismiss anything you say as invalid, just as you (we) do when you (we) are the target of mockery. What you (we) really mean is that you (we) personally enjoy the entertainment Trump provides whenever he takes umbrage at any slight. Do not confuse your (our) enjoyment with actual effectiveness, because mockery will not actually change his policies, if anything, only solidify them.
Ridicule also fails to peel off the soft supporters, and in fact, tends to have exactly the opposite effect. The people you want to peel off showed up in some of the comments to this diary, and a condescending attitude will not win them (www.redstate.com/...).
We have a chance to win this guy on Redstate objecting to both the perennial charge that all those thousands of protestors are being paid and their dismissal of protestors as “snowflakes”:
Bill S
I'm sorry, but there's not a lick of credible evidence that "a great many" protesters are being paid. There are undoubtedly some organizers in that category, but I would bet that well over 99% of those people were there on their own because they despise Donald Trump and everything he has said and done.
And please stop with the "snowflakes" crap. It's just silly. The fact that people don't agree with Trump don't make them anything but intolerant of a patently misogynistic ass. His election has changed exactly nothing about him; he's still the same low-life scumbag he was in 2015 and before.
And this guy (www.redstate.com/...) who says he quit the Republican party (too bad on the way out the door, he could not resist the obligatory dig at Democrats). We have a chance with these people but we cannot be obnoxious.
The acrimonious tribal partisanship is so bad that they can watch the same video we did and conclude,
But seeing F Chuck Todd getting slapped down well [by Conway], that's priceless.
Keep in mind there are people out there who benefit from keeping us divided, and like nothing better than to have us interacting with caricatures of each other than real people.
Today we’re as divided online as we are regionally. And our regional segregation is epic. These divisions leave us vulnerable to being defined by those who — for money or for power — gain from us remaining divided.
That’s why you in your rural town and me in my metropolitan city only know each other as the caricatures we see beamed through our completely separate sources of news, entertainment, and political messaging.
Today, we only know each other through the false depictions created by those with an incentive to keep us at odds. I’m sure your version of me is as bad as my version of you.)
People will go to great lengths to in order to protect their cherished misconceptions. The nation needs healing, not the constant salting of wounds. Even more importantly, healing the partisan divide is actually a matter of national security. If we were as morally and intellectually superior as we think we are, we would be actively working toward this healing.
In this video about leadership, at 15:00 Simon Sinek explains why healing the partisan divide is actually a matter of national security.
To the question many people ask about politics — Why doesn’t the other side listen to reason? — Haidt replies: We were never designed to listen to reason. When you ask people moral questions, time their responses and scan their brains, their answers and brain activation patterns indicate that they reach conclusions quickly and produce reasons later only to justify what they’ve decided.
...[...]…
To explain this persistence, Haidt invokes an evolutionary hypothesis: We compete for social status, and the key advantage in this struggle is the ability to influence others. Reason, in this view, evolved to help us spin, not to help us learn. So if you want to change people’s minds, Haidt concludes, don’t appeal to their reason. Appeal to reason’s boss: the underlying moral intuitions whose conclusions reason defends.
www.skepticink.com/...
If we are not hard-wired to listen to reason, then what can we do. One thing we can do is account for our listener’s position on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.
Second, we can talk to them according to their values, not ours.
Third, take out the ideology.
1. Get their attention.
2. Give a logical, fact-based argument.
3. Make it personal.
4. Appeal to their sense of their morality using harm and care frames.
5. Be authentic, honest and open-minded.
Our own Pirran shows how it works:
If you want to convince people on a personal one on one level, you have to start by being respectful. You let them make points and agree at ever instance you can. You point out the inconsistencies without a hint of arrogance and share a common interest with them in the complexities of the debate. Then you don’t expect a quick victory. You wait a few days for the first shift to settle in. A few more for the second...the third. Then, eventually, a few years later you meet and see the impact of the seeds you have sown. And as often as not it is stunning. This is the only way I’ve ever seen it work. www.dailykos.com/…
Talking to them has worked for me in many cases. I’ve also seen people do it very poorly. It’s something I would only recommend to those who are really comfortable with temporarily taking on the world view of others in a largely accepting manner and who really understand not only the biases of the [opposition] but their own as well. If a person has any confusion over what this means or why it is important they should not be trying to engage in this sort of complex persuasive exercise until they do understand. www.dailykos.com/...
Finally, be thankful for little victories. Don’t worry about a big conversion. Bernie’s encounter with the woman at the town hall may not have been a conversion, but it was certainly a little victory, a little seed planted.
Data shows that nonviolent strategies have a better chance of success than violent ones.