There’s a real problem facing us, but also some possible answers. First, the problem:
Egberto Willies had a diary featuring an interview with Tanya Vojvodic, a Trump district chair who has become disenchanted, as she expressed a sense of being deceived by Trump. She feels he is breaking promises on issues important to her, like illegal immigration. She also has come to realize that many Trump supporters are acting like members of a cult. She’s had a negative opinion of Democrats and never expected to even be able to talk to one, but she did have an exchange with Willies that has given her reason to start rethinking a few things.
A followup post by Willies passes on the opinion of Cliff Nelson a liberal reader who doesn’t care that she is moving away from Trump. Here’s an excerpt:
...I wish Tania Vojvodic only well personally, but I don't want to be allied with her; I don't want to be friends; and I don't want any "dialog" with her or people like her. I don't want to make room for their rehabilitation, so they could have a place to come after they have betrayed Trump the same way they betrayed America. Life is too short, and after 58 years I'm starting to feel the press of time. Today I only want to commune with the good and the wise. And I want to defeat and destroy the political party to which Vojvodic will always naturally attach herself. Not make peace with it. That time has passed.
There is no question that feelings are running high — and every reason they should. But there’s also the point that people can and do change, so what do you do when a person who has embraced everything that repulses you starts to have misgivings? This is a big problem, because if we are to succeed in reversing the oncoming wave of neofascism, we’re going to have to find a way to accommodate a lot of people.
So What Do We Do Now?
Sara Robinson addressed this very problem back in 2006 with her critically important series at Orcinus: Cracks In The Wall. I’m going to quote some key passages from it and strongly urge everyone to read it.
From Sara Robinson’s Cracks In The Wall, Part I: Defining the Authoritarian Personality
We need to stop this. We have gone on too long assuming that our right-wing opponents are, in all times and places, unchangeable and unchanging. Yes, their arguments are confoundingly short on evidence and fact. Yes, their logic loops are closed up so tight as to be frustratingly impervious to reason. Yes, they absolutely do mean to do us -- and our democracy -- grievous harm.
Here's the good news. That Great Wall that separates our little reality-based community from The Fantasyland Next Door is not a monolith. Nor are the inmates of that Otherworld necessarily locked in there for all time and eternity. There's evidence -- from scientists, from experience, from history -- that there are cracks in that wall. They are small and subtle, to be sure (that's why nobody's ever noticed them before): at this point, they are mere hairlines, faint traces that are hard to spot without a good flashlight in the hands of someone who knows where to look. But, as someone who's spent much of her life pacing one side or the other of this wall, I am here to tell you: there are places where it fails. People do cross it, and survive to tell the tale. And, rather than continue to wallow in our frustration, it's high time we mapped those cracks, find effective ways to widen them, and eventually exploit them to help both afflicted individuals and our larger culture break through the insanity.
She goes on to explain how authoritarian leaders and followers view the world, and what kind of characteristics define them. If you can’t understand where they’re coming from, you won’t be able to deal with them — especially if and when they begin to break free of their world.
From Cracks In The Wall, Part II: Listening to the Leavers
...Taken together, this chorus seems to paraphrase the Bard: some are born authoritarian, some achieve authoritarianism, and some have authoritarianism thrust upon them. Most of us fall somewhere along a wide continuum of willingness to follow authoritarian leadership. Our place on that scale is determined by the culture and religion we grew up in, how our parents treated us, our education and life experiences, and our inherited temperament. These things conspire to make a few of us desperate to follow, and a few others obstinate in their outright refusal of all authority. The vast majority of us fall somewhere in between, open to seduction only in certain circumstances…
This passage is a key observation
...We must never, ever underestimate what it costs these people to let go of the beliefs that have sustained them. Leaving the safety of the authoritarian belief system is a three-to-five year process. Externally, it always means the loss of your community; and often the loss of jobs, homes, marriages, and blood relatives as well. Internally, it requires sifting through every assumption you've ever made about how the world works, and your place within it; and demands that you finally take the very emotional and intellectual risks that the entire edifice was designed to protect you from. You have to learn, maybe for the first time, to face down fear and live with ambiguity. On the scale of relative trauma, it's right up there with a divorce after a long marriage; and it requires about the same amount and kind of grieving.
emphasis added
Robinson looks at the various ways people find over, around, or through the walls they’ve been living behind. It takes real courage to completely rebuild one’s view of the world; we need to keep in mind how hard it is, and look at what motivates people to make that huge adjustment in their lives. Tanya Vojvodic is just now taking the first steps; that feeling of betrayal is forcing her to take a look at the rest of the assumptions she’s built her life on. If we truly believe in our own view of the world, we need to allow people like her the time and the understanding to help them reconcile themselves that they are not where they want to be, but there may be a better place to get to.
Cracks in the Wall, Part III: Escape Ladders gives pointers on where to focus attention:
John Dean tells us that we are not likely to change the hearts of the authoritarian leaders. And their hardest-core followers may be lost causes, too: most of them grew up with that model, have lived their entire lives by it, and in many cases have been so damaged by it that getting them to accept any other way of viewing reality is likely to be futile.
However, those two factions probably don't comprise even half of the current horde that's commandeered our country. And the rest -- the "normal folks" who got swept up in the right-wing hysteria of the past three decades -- have already demonstrated a certain fluidity: many of them have crossed the Wall once already and have at least some memory of life on the other side. Not all of them will return, of course (though it's always surprising to see which ones decide to make the jump) -- but bringing a good slice of this group back may not be as hard as we've been prone to think.
The experiences described by people who've left authoritarian religious systems point to possible ways we might convince individual authoritarians (of whatever type) to at least take a peek over onto our side of the Wall. This installment talks about some of the ways we can create the conditions that will encourage individual authoritarians to come take that look.
Robinson has a lot of suggestions on how to approach someone crossing over the wall. It’s important to remember that they and we may use the same words, but they have completely different meanings in our different contexts. You have to be able to reach them where they are, and talk to them in ways they can process, before they can find how to go further.
Finally: we need to make safe landing zones for those just arriving from the other side of the Wall.
It takes courage, time, and support to come out of an authoritarian mindset. Most RWAs are used to having people tell them what to think, where to be, what to do, and who to trust. In the reality-based world, we tend to assume that people can do this for themselves. While exiting fundies typically feel exhilarated with the freedom they feel in the first weeks after leaving; they've also got a huge new world to navigate, and acquiring the necessary skills takes time. They're often wobbly on their feet for a while until they get the hang of it.
Robinson promised a part 4, but apparently that wasn’t where she was ready to leave off. There is a set of related pieces that appear to continue and extend Cracks in the Wall: Tunnels and Bridges: Parts I, II,III, and IV, plus a Short Detour. You can find them at Orcinus (along with some really excellent work by Dave Neiwert) by checking the links embedded in the left margin of the Orcinus website. (Scroll down — that’s where you’ll find them.)
I’ve given you a few excerpts; I strongly recommend reading both the Cracks In The Wall series and Tunnels & Bridges in their entirety.
We are dealing with the product of decades of indoctrination by conservative media, the failure of mainstream media to recognize what’s been happening, and entrenched socio/cultural and historical forces that have long been present in America. If we believe in change for the better, as individuals, as a society, as a country, as a civilization — we really need to up our game. Robinson has put together some tools. Let’s see what we can build with them.
UPDATE: Judging by some of the comments I’m seeing, there’s a few misconceptions and misperceptions in response to this. Let me address them, not necessarily in order.
1) This is NOT a call to abandon our principles to ‘win over’ these people, the old ‘centrist’ move-to-the-middle gambit that has worked so well (snark). This is about recognizing that some of the people on the other side are not totally irredeemable nor incapable of change. If we automatically exclude them all, we’re just as closed-minded and bigoted as we think they all are. It ain’t so, and we’re unnecessarily driving people away who potentially could be salvaged — and confirming every stereotype they have about us. Go back and reread the first two paragraphs I excerpted from Cracks in the Wall, Part 1
2) I’m not calling for blatant disregard of really heinous views, prejudices, etc. To even think of moving in our direction where some of these people are coming from is a huge step. They’re not going to make it all in one jump. I reference Tanya Vojvodic because she’s at least able to have a dialog with Egberto Willies (who finds it useful to help him understand where these people are.) Now maybe, as one commentator put it, she’s disenchanted with Trump because she “wants a Hitler who will keep his promises”, and maybe she’s never going to change, BUT… she’s experiencing doubt. Trump has betrayed her, her friends are starting to look like brain-washed cult members, and she’s realized her beliefs have come at a big personal cost. There are cracks in her wall, and we need to find ways to shine light in, not consign her to the outer darkness.
3) Some people will always be lost causes. I’m not advocating putting all our resources into targeting all of these people, and certainly not at the expense of building our own base. What I’m saying is we need to remember that it’s not entirely hopeless for all of them. Go back up and reread the excerpts from Cracks in the Wall Part III — and pay attention this time. Donald Trump is without precedent. There are people who’ve been disturbed, even horrified by what they’re now seeing. If they’re ready to get off the train, we need to have someone at the station to give them a place to go. Go read Part II of Cracks in the Wall — it goes into some detail over what can motivate people to abandon the closed world they’ve been living in for the larger one. There are a lot of scenarios based on experiences Robinson has had with many in this position.
4) Don’t expect the process to be easy or quick. For those demanding answers on how we are supposed to make this happen, let me quote a bit more from Part III Escape Ladders. These first three guidelines (and there are more) should give you ideas on how to work with them.
Fear Is The Mind-Killer
In talking to right-wing authoritarians (RWAs) -- in any situation -- the first and greatest challenge is to reduce the level of fear and increase the level of trust. They cannot hear or see you at all until this happens. A few thoughts on how to accomplish this:
Stand on Common Ground -- Keep the conversation focused on the things you agree on. You may find more in common than you might have imagined, especially with "classical conservatives" who are outraged by the Bush Administration's spending, foreign policy blunders, and neglect of important domestic infrastructure. (Small businesspeople, in particular, can give you a real earful.) Move away from potential areas of conflict as soon as they appear, or state your position in a non-threatening way and then move right back to the safe zone. Remember, you're trying to reduce fear, not arouse it.
Avoid Ambiguity (yourself) -- The liberal penchant for seeing life in infinite shades of grey annoys the hell out of conservatives in general, and authoritarians most particularly. It's the main reason they think we don't stand for anything. "It depends" is not an answer they find comfort in, and long explanations are seen as obfuscation, not clarification.
There’s more advice, more ways to reach them where they are — and help them transition to a scary new world.
5) With all this, do not forget that the deplorables are still out there, and Robinson ends Part III with this:
However: as kum-bay-yah (and stereotypically liberal) as all this talk of "understanding" individual RWAs may be, it doesn't mean that we stop holding the authoritarians in our midst accountable for the misbehavior of their public figures and the recklessness of their policies. It doesn't mean that we stop correcting the media when it misrepresents our views, or aggressively fight for solutions that will ultimate break the cycle of right-wing authoritarianism that now dominates American politics. While the work of bringing these missing Americans back into the larger fold is gentle and slow (we may well spend a decade or more bringing the bulk of them back), the work of recovering America as we knew her requires a fierce energy that draws firm boundaries, demands an honest reckoning, and requires constant and determined assertion of our own good values.
emphasis added
Again, read both Cracks in the Wall and the Related series: Tunnels and Bridges: Parts I, II,III, and IV, plus a Short Detour. You can find them at Orcinus (along with some really excellent work by Dave Neiwert) by checking the links embedded in the left margin of the Orcinus website. (Scroll down — that’s where you’ll find them.)