6.1 Our turn, let's start with us
I’m opening this chapter with a conflict between…
A smart organizing strategy,
and
A smart communications strategy.
I was a fan of both, but they seemed to be at odds with each other and that stumped me. Then I found a happy resolution to the conflict, but realized there was something missing from both strategies, something we activists need.
I’m going to speed through the two strategies to get to the good stuff that the rest of this chapter is about.
First: The smart organizing strategy.
Years ago I signed up to walk a precinct for a city Supervisor on a Saturday morning two weeks before the election.
The precinct captain handed out sheets with street addresses and the names of people who lived there. He said…
You’ll notice each name is rated with a number, 1, 2, or 3.
#1 means this is a supporter. Knock on their door, thank them for supporting the Supervisor, and move on. Don’t get involved in a long conversation with them.
#3 means this is someone we believe is voting for our opponent. Don’t knock on their door. They’re not worth investing time into.
#2 means this is someone who, as far as we know, is undecided. Knock on their door, and engage them in conversation and spend time with them to see if you can win them over.
So that’s what we did for the next four hours…
We focused on the possibles, the people who could make the biggest difference in the election.
By the way, our candidate won.
From then on, when it came to my activism and organizing, I used that same strategy, except I translated the numbers into letters…
A = already with us
B = should be with us if they really knew us
C = see you later
It’s very comfy to keep talking with the A’s. And we do need to keep the A’s inspired and involved. But this is what’s called…
Preaching to the choir.
Engaging B’s is how we can make the biggest difference.
And when we develop better ways of talking with the B’s, we’re also going to deepen our conversations with A’s. And address doubts they might have. And hold on to them while our adversaries are trying to pull them away.
What about a C? That’s someone we might maybe hopefully someday get through to, but they will take too much time and energy.
It’s smart and strategic to put our precious time into engaging B’s, because…
For every C we might win over, we can bring in a dozen or more B’s.
But now here’s a problem. Many of us get obsessed with the C’s, and why?
Because if we could somehow find a way if win over a big number of the C’s, if we could find the right message and work that kind of magic, then we’d win elections easily and make the world a much, much better place.
This was true for me. I had to get over my obsession with converting C’s.
Where did that come from? I finally figured it out. My parents were C’s. They were conservative when I was a kid and drifted in a more liberal direction as they got older.
But personally they were shut down, because they had grown up in churches that followed a bleak form of Calvinism, and they stayed in that kind of church throughout their lives.
I wanted them to be more present and personal, I wanted to talk with them about feelings, I wanted a deeper relationship with them. I would have liked to have been best friends with both of them. But they refused to open.
I think when I was obsessed with breaking through to C’s in my activism, I was really acting out my wish to find a way to break through to Mom and Dad.
Over time, I learned to let go of who I wanted my parents to be and began relating to them as they were.
You might decide that there are C’s in your life, relatives, friends, co-workers, who you care about and are willing to invest time into.
But in terms of political activism I’d recommend making B’s your priority even if you have a side gig going with a couple C’s.
What’s the self-care dimension of being strategic about who you choose to spend your time with?
Think about this scenario…
You spend an hour with a C and feel exhausted after and you can’t tell if he even moved an inch forward politically.
And then compare it to this one…
You spend an hour with a B and as the conversation goes deeper, you find yourself liking her more and more and having more and more fun talking with her.
You see her make a couple discoveries about herself that she’s glad to make. And you see her take a step forward politically.
And maybe she says, “I have a couple friends I want you to talk with.”
Then at the end she thanks you for taking the time to talk with her. And maybe she even gives you a hug before you go.
Second: The smart communications strategy.
It’s common wisdom that you shouldn’t talk religion or politics, not if you want to keep the peace, because those two topics are incendiary.
But…
We need to talk politics.
Because, remember…
Politics is how we do our collective moral decision-making.
And at present our decision-making is not going well.
So what do we do about the dangers that come with talking politics? There are activists who’ve set up organizations to make it safer. The core element of their work is…
Listening sessions.
Which means, first, that you talk for a few minutes and I just listen. I don’t interrupt. I don’t roll my eyes. Then I talk for a few minutes and you listen.
What happens?
Sometimes people with very different political views find common ground with each other.
And feel empathy they haven’t felt before.
And get into a much longer political conversation after the listening session is over.
And maybe even work together on a project in their community.
All of which shows that sometimes, the conditions being right, we can engage productively with C’s. Cool.
Now, you can see the conflict between these two strategies. One rules out spending time with C’s, the other makes them the focus.
Except I finally realized there’s no conflict. We don’t have to choose one or the other. Instead we can use each strategy for its own purpose…
If the City Council is about to make a big decision, and if there are lots of C’s in our town with serious political power, then we need to know how to reach out to those C’s to try to find common ground and make the best possible deal.
But if this week we’re focused on basic movement building, then we want to have lots of conversations with B’s.
The missing piece.
So there it was, my happy resolution. It was such a simple solution, I wondered why it had taken me so long to get to it. And I was about to high-five myself, except I noticed I was really mad…
Why do we A’s always have to be focused on other people?
When do we get our turn?
When do we get to listen deeply to each other?
When do we get to nurture each other?
Don’t we deserve that?
Don’t we need that?
I looked back over my years of activism and thought about all the conflicts I’d witnessed…
Two best friends, with shared values, suddenly engaged in a bitter battle because of a miscommunication and hurt feelings over a difference in strategy. And their relationship broke so badly they never reconciled.
Organizations where the staff split into factions and there were bitter battles fought with unnerving eagerness. Sometimes those organizations imploded. They died.
Then I remembered my early years as an activist when I was in splits and battles myself. I remembered how each side demonized the other. And how apocalyptic the battles felt. How small points became magnified until they became in our delusional states, a matter of life and death.
I hated those battles, but I was in them, and all I can say now is, “Never again.”
And so with all my heart, I’m committed to us A’s taking care of each other with…
Deep care.
I want us to put serious time into this and not settle for a few quick conversations. I want us to put deeply personal conversations about politics at the very center of the life of our movements. Because even though such conversations ask a lot of us…
They make our relationships robust and resilient like nothing else can.
And because such relationships would make our movements…
Sustainable even under fire.
So how do we pull off this miracle of deeply nurturing political conversations? That’s what the rest of this chapter is about.
6.2 This gift we can give each other
PS:
Here are three organizations which help people reach across political differences to make genuine connections with each other.
Civity
https://www.civity.org/
Living Room Conversations
https://livingroomconversations.org/
Braver Angels
https://braverangels.org/
