I watched this lengthy, but very insightful, dialogue between two focus group experts. The time was well spent. Consider taking the trouble to watch yourself, if you want to understand the current state of opinion among the masses of our fellow Americans.
Honesty is the Best Policy, and Other Thoughts About Communicating with MAGA
First of all, if you want to employ advocacy in the real world—not just in environments where you feel comfortable, but also in situations where advocacy might actually achieve something—then you need to identify your target and to be clear about what you want he, she, or them to do.
Now, it would be nice if everyone on Team Red would recognize the error of their ways, and come join Team Blue. But that is not going to happen. A more realistic objective would be to help them realize that things are going badly for Team Red—and there’s no real point in their voting in the next election or two. If lots of Team Red stay home, then we win—which, by the way, is exactly what has been happening in recent special elections.
Second, while honesty is essential, candor is likely to be counterproductive. To illustrate: the next time you’re dining with a MAGA acquaintance, you probably don’t want to say something candid such as, “I know that I am your moral and intellectual superior, but I’ll deign to talk with you if you will listen politely.”
A better course would be to argue along the lines, “Well, if you believe X, let’s talk about the implications of that belief.”
Third, if your objective is to get your MAGA acquaintance just to stay home on election day, then a good way of accomplishing that objective may to join he, she, or them in reasoning rationally and honestly from the false premises that he, she, or they entertain. To wit: your MAGA dinner companion may have voted for Trump three times because he or she believes that, while Trump is an asshole, he is an asshole who is working for the MAGA community and against the people whom the MAGA community hates.
Your objective is not to convince your MAGA acquaintance that he or she ought not to hate people—or that she or he ought not to hate the particular kinds of people that he or she hates.
No, your objective is to convince him or her that Trump is an asshole all right, but he is the kind of asshole who actually despises the people who voted for him three times—and that Orange Mussolini has absolutely no intention of prioritizing the core economic interests of his core supporters, namely, white people without a college education.
In other words, MAGA folks, yes, he’s an asshole, but he is most emphatically NOT YOUR asshole.
“The Epstein Class”
The biggest and most important thing I learned as a professional advocate for several decades is that it is so much easier—so much easier—to sell an argument if that argument is based on actual facts, as distinguished from delusional bullshit.
Notice how Jon Ossoff uses actual facts to construct his argument, and then to tie it all together with a pink ribbon using the concept of “the Epstein class.”
Facing MAGA 