... community seems to be a Republican.
We are social creatures. The most effective way to counter the Republican caricature of what a "Democrat" is for them to actually MEET and become aware of the existence of Democrats in their communities.
I've occassionally talked about my experiences with braverangels and livingroomconversations here. Both organizations provide opportunities to practice skills -- listening and asking questions in a way that enables connection, even as you express your own experiences and views with honesty and integrity. Both attract people who are actually interested in reaching out, so it offers great opportunities to hone skills you can take into the more difficult "real world."
A while back I posted a New Yorker Radio Hour interview with Sarah McBride (1st trans U.S. Congressperson). The whole interview is worthwhile, but here are a few bits I would love to see more of us take to heart.
This country is still at a trans 101 spot... Leaders should always be out front of public opinion, but in order to foster change in public opinion we've got to be within arms distance of the public, so we can pull the along with us. If we get too out ahead of it we lose our grip and are unable to pull the public along with us...
There is a space for diversity of messengers, and a diversity of message... What we do know is that as the movement for marriage equality moved forward, the most effective messengers for marriage were not same sex couples, were not parents of same sex couples or kids of same sex couples, the most effective messengers for marriage equality were those that evolved. They were effective because they gave a permission structure for people who had not yet gotten there that it was ok to be uncomfortable, it was ok to be on the other side of the issue. You were not a bad person, you weren't wrong. And by giving people permission to be wrong, it created the space and grace for people to grow. We need more grace in our politics if we want people to actually grow...
We are shooting ourselves in the foot as people who believe in progress when we create no incentive for people to grow because they perceive they will be permanently guilty for having been wrong. We create no space for them to grow by extending no grace for them to walk there...
One of the reasons you see people pushed into their respective corners -- you say something that's deemed problematic. And you are immediately hounded by one side and immediately embraced by the other side. Human nature is -- when faced with that degree of extreme binary reactions is to go to the people who are validating you instantaneously. So we unintentionally push people further and further into their own corners and into their negative opinion by responding with a degree of condemnation and vitriol that creates no incentive or space for them to grow.
https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/tnyradiohour/articles/sarah-mcbride-on-the-fight-for-trans-rights
The thing is, the people who are likely to be the most effective at reaching MAGA World are recovered MAGA people. But if we don't create space for that recovery -- if we don't seek to make connections to even find such people in our communities -- we will just keep going down the vicious raging and shaming "them vs. us" whirlpool of death while Christian Nationalist, Racist, Misogynist, and Xenophobic zealots and their billionaire sugar daddies capture and destroy the last vestiges of the institutions of our government capable of measuring and implementing our collective will.
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