According to Olga Khazan of The Atlantic, if we want to persuade Trump voters, we’re doin’ it wrong.
According to the Moral Foundations Theory, there are five basic human values: harm, fairness, group loyalty, authority, and purity. Where liberals and conservatives differ is the hierarchy we put on those values. Liberals tend to put high value on fairness and harm, while conservatives are more likely to value group loyalty, authority, and purity.
You may be rolling your eyes at the idea of valuing loyalty, authority, and purity over fairness and (preventing) harm, but keep in mind that your conservative uncle or neighbor is likely rolling his eyes at your emphasis on fairness and harm.
So what does this mean, practically speaking? You are more likely to be convincing if you frame your argument so it conforms to Republican values. A study described in Khazan’s article found that a picture of a forest reduced to stumps (harm) was less persuasive to a conservative than a photo of a forest strewn with garbage (purity). If you want to convince a Republican that the Muslim ban is a bad thing, cast your argument in terms of our proud history of immigration and the American dream, rather than on what harm might come to immigrants if we don’t let them in.
In a later study that’s currently under review, Feinberg and Tilburg University’s Jan Völkel found this even worked to get conservatives to dislike Donald Trump, and liberals to disavow Hillary Clinton. Conservatives were less likely to support Trump if arguments against him were presented in terms of his patriotism— “has repeatedly behaved disloyally towards our country to serve his own interests”—rather than a tendency to overlook the marginalized (“his unfair statements are a breeding ground for prejudice.”) Liberal participants, meanwhile, were more likely to be swayed by Clinton’s ties to Wall Street than by the incident in Benghazi.
So if it’s so easy, why don’t more people—either in studies or in real life—try this strategy?
“We tend to view our moral values as universal,” Feinberg told me. That “there are no other values but ours, and people who don't share our values are simply immoral. Yet, in order to use moral reframing you need to recognize that the other side has different values, know what those values are, understand them well enough to be able to understand the moral perspective of the other side, and be willing to use those values as part of a political argument.”
As the article notes, it can be very difficult for people to do this. Our politics are deeply entwined with our values, and it’s hard to see it from an opposing point of view. Not to mention, it’s increasingly a world where reality doesn’t matter in the face of “alternative facts.”
Still...it’s worth a shot. I wonder how the election would have gone, if we’d gone after Trump on his patriotism, rather than on the racism and sexism that’s so appalling to liberals.