- Joined
- Apr 8, 2019
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- Slightly Liberal
I do take notice and, as best I can I try to understand the variety of positions that they adopt politically but, whether through democratic means or not, their tactic is to close down other people's right to challenge what they say. Sure, the rhetoric doesn't sound like that but, that is what they aspire to.
How do you know what these people aspire to? Your guess about what other people want can be wrong at least some of the time. Let me give you an example.
Jonathan Haidt recalled a rally held by Trump supporters back in 2015 or 2016 in one of his book. It's either "The Coddling of the American Mind" or "The Righteous Mind," but those details aren't crucial here. This rally was peculiar because Black Lives Matter protestors happened to walk by the rally and approachedthe Trump supporters. Now, without being required to do anything, or prompted to do anything, guess how the organizer of the Trump rally reacted. The guy went on stage and he invited the spokespersons of the BLM movement to come on stage, that they would give them a few minutes to present their views to everyone present and that everyone would listen because it's a matter of freedom of speech. Just to be clear, the Trump supporters organized the rally. They gathered the crowd. They paid for the installations. They had no obligation whatsoever to let another group of people get on stage. Yet, they openly offered a stage, a microphone and a captive audience free of charge.
How did the speech go? Well, the BLM spokesperson started to explain that they were concerned about the few cops who engage in excessive use of force and the disproportionate consequences it has on visible minorities such as black people. Someone in the crowd then shouted "All lives matter!" Fortunately, the spokesperson was a smart person. He said "That's right, brother. All lives matter," and he went on to explain they just want to tackle difficult problems to make sure all Americans can be safe. He won over the whole crowd: Trump supporters and BLM protestors were all cheering along saying "USA! USA!" I bet you never even imagined something like this could be possible, but the proof is in the pudding.
So, I have established that there is at least a small crowd of Trump supporters who value freedom of speech so much they will give you ressources to speak about a message they might not entirely approuve. Some people on the right actually will go out of their ways to let you talk.
Do you know why this miracle worked? Jonathan Haidt quotes Pauli Murray to explain why it works: "When my brothers try to draw a circle to exclude me, I shall draw a larger circle to include them. Where they speak out for the privileges of a puny group, I shall shout for the rights of all mankind." The BLM spokesperson won the crowd because instead of focusing on what makes them different, he focused on what makes them the same: they're all Americans and they all want the country to be good for every American, even though they might disagree about how to do it. The thing most people would have done, had they been on that stage would have been exactly the wrong thing. They would have answered "all lives matter" by trying to convince the whole crowd that they are racists... and, today, I might be writting about how a dozen people lost their lives in a brawl instead.
It's the primary problem I have with how you approach those political issues. The discussions are emotionally charged and instead of trying to explain to me why you think conservatives are wrong, you try to explain to me that conservatives are bad people... Imagine that you sell cars and, one day, an obese person walks in. Your approach right now is like trying to explain to the obese person that they should take a SUV because they're fat. I think you'd sell more SUVs if you focus on the properties of the SUV and not on the properties of the clients: SUVs are spacious sells more than SUVs can fit fat people in.