Here is a post by someone reposted by Sara Robinson. It's about talking to the other side.
--Kim
I don't know who this guy is. He's been showing up in my feed for the last week. This is the third piece of his that's absolutely blown me away.
I'm a longtime conservative whisperer. The tricks of this trade are so hard to describe to most liberals that I've just given up trying.
But he gets it, and explains it extremely well. Follow him for more tips on how to reach people too many of us have given up on as unreachable.
Let's be honest: talking politics with a committed Trump supporter can feel like trying to argue with a bumper sticker. The slogans come fast. The facts don't land. Disinformation isn't corrected—it's performed, often with defiance or knowing amusement. You're not debating. You're witnessing allegiance.
And maybe that's the real issue. We've treated these exchanges as if they were about information—when they're really about identity. We think we're in a debate, but it's closer to a ritual. A performance of belonging, not a negotiation of facts.
In some ways, we're witnessing the replacement of civic ritual with political performance. Where once people gathered to solve problems or deliberate, they now gather around grievance, bonding not over solutions but shared enemies.
So what happens if we shift the terms? What if, instead of talking at them, we started talking with them?
Not about politics. About principles.
Because trying to fact-check a worldview only hardens it. But asking someone what they truly believe—about truth, justice, responsibility—isn't a challenge. It's a mirror. And mirrors invite reflection.
You might ask:
Do you think a leader should tell the truth, even when it's hard?
Most will say yes.
Then: What if someone keeps repeating things they know aren't true—just to stir anger or shut down critics? Is that strong leadership, or something else?
Now the conversation has moved. You're not sparring over court cases or election returns. You're standing next to each other, facing a deeper question: What do we owe each other as citizens?
You can ask:
What does freedom mean to you?
Is it still freedom if only some people feel safe speaking up?
Can justice survive if it only applies to the poor, not the powerful?
At what point does loyalty start to erase accountability?
You don't have to raise your voice. You don't have to name names. You just have to care more about understanding than about scoring points.
This isn't about winning. It's about planting something that might grow later—questions that don't demand an answer now, but linger. The kind that return when the crowd disperses, when the headlines fade, when something doesn't sit right.
Anthropologists are trained to enter unfamiliar worlds not to agree or convert, but to understand. We learn to listen beneath the words for the logic that holds someone's worldview together. In these moments, we aren't debating policies—we're witnessing the deep stories people tell themselves about who they are, where they belong, and what is slipping away. Often, what looks like rage is rooted in fear—of economic displacement, social erasure, or perceived humiliation. These are not just attitudes; they are affective structures that shape how people see the world. If we fail to acknowledge them, we mistake pain for malice.
Seen this way, a conversation isn't a battlefield. It's a field site. And your questions are not weapons, but tools of inquiry. You're not trying to win. You're trying to understand what this moment means for them—and maybe, in the process, create the conditions for something to shift.
We've seen what happens when politics becomes a test of loyalty and truth becomes a moving target. We've watched democracy hollow out—not through force, but through cheering. We've seen slogans replace substance and justice auctioned to the highest bidder. Words like freedom and truth now serve contradictory purposes—used to justify repression, exclusion, and vengeance. In anthropology, we call this symbolic inversion. It allows power to wear the mask of virtue while eroding the institutions that once gave those words meaning.
The way back won't be paved with takedowns or viral clips. It might begin with a question, quietly offered.
Not What's wrong with you?
But What do you believe?
And How will you know when that belief has been betrayed?
You don't have to agree. You just have to be the first person who cared enough to ask—and stayed long enough to listen.
In this sense, listening is more than strategy—it's democratic practice. It insists that even in fractured times, people are more than their slogans. And that democracy, if it survives, will do so not only in the halls of power, but in the quiet, persistent act of choosing to hear another human being.
Because in a time of noise, a real conversation is a kind of resistance.
And in a time of lies, a good question might be the most revolutionary thing we have left.
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