www.huffpost.com/…
I’m sharing this story because I think she makes some points worth listening to.
I am not urging individual Kos readers to go out and take up this cross. I will not be doing that myself, not even with my brother and his wife. I don’t think I have the patience for it. He is not really a bad person; he is generous and helpful. He is also thoroughly brainwashed. Even after he and his wife got covid, he is refusing to get vaccinated. He even lies about it, subtly, claiming he’s “immunized” — which turns out to be his way of saying getting covid is all the immunization he’s going to get. Even though his wife (as far as I know) is still on oxygen.
I am not the person to take on this kind of stubborn, disinformed, flat-Earth denial. And you may well also not be.
Nonetheless, the article makes some very important points, and it’s worth our emerging from our (justifiably, imo) angry left-wing bubble to consider them.
Conspiracy theorists, as my Unitarian minister once said, are immune to facts. Don’t bother them with the details.
So what might work? Dr. Richter, author of the article who grew up with a fundamentalist father, says that listening and caring could work. It requires building a relationship with the people, and sustaining it over time. It requires being willing to listen, caringly, to their concerns, fears, and (most likely) Foxbabble. The vaccine question can only be successfully raised, according to her, in that context.
Granted, Dr. Richter’s father sounds like an exceptionally caring individual. Not all fundamentalism is founded in Love; a large portion of what we read at least in the media seems very much Hate-based. But let us go back to the fundamentals for a minute, even if just for the sake of argument. These guys are people, too. And we have to live with them. And, like my asshat brother, they almost universally have their good qualities: caring and sharing with those in their community, for example. To be fair, if you or I were in a crisis by the side of the road, my guess is that we are just as likely to be assisted by someone we disagree with politically.
Let me take this a step further, to the campaign of Chloe Maxmin, progressive Democrat in the Maine House of Representatives. Chloe’s campaign of 2 years ago is a model of how we can win in conservative districts, and it’s based on the very same principles as Dr. Richter’s: developing relationships and listening. A key aspect of this is asking questions, showing an interest in the person. It takes time, and patience, and the willingness to look for the human side of them, beyond the differences. Even if you don’t read the Richter article in Huffpost, I hope many people will read the Maxmin article in the Nation.
I’m not suggesting making friends with donald trump or ron desantis. But for better or worse, we have to share living space with people that we don’t agree with, and don’t even like. And let’s be real: the current polarizations are not only not working, but may well be heading us to further disaster. It’s worth thinking about.