Its Your Move

All around the country, things are getting real. OK, what’s next?

Do you know what you‘re going to do about the Trump administration?

Shouting ”Resist!” on BlueSky is only venting emotional energy. Thats understandable, but not moving us forward. Signing petitions doesn't usually work when the politcian you address isnt dependant on right-wing Sugar Daddies.

You do have agency. It’s time to use it.

So how does each of us, as well as all of us, eat an elephant? One bite at a time, oh course.

Start with the idea that the electorate that voted for Trumpf isn’t of one mind. There were votes for greed, votes of despair, votes for hate, votes based on propaganda, votes based on low knowlege, votes that were just going along with the crowd, and votes based on the entertainment spectacle that was the Trumpf campaign.

From an election perspective, we dont need to peel off many of the Trumpf voters to acheive victory. Doing so, though, is an information battle. Part of this battle is the job of candidates and campaigns. But much of the battle belongs to the rest of us. Again we have agency. For each us, it is our duty to determine who we know, and who we can reach out to via some channel or another. Then we have to understand what motivated these voters. Some will be unreachable. But plenty of Trumpf/Republican voters can be converted by the right pitch.

Clearly an antagonistic pitch won’t work. Calling out someone as dumb, or uninformed, or as a racist may be truth-based, but clearly this won’t move minds. It can be hard, especially if your audience starts by making nasty remarks about you. But, someone needs to be the adult inthe room, and establish a common ground on which to base a conversation.

For example, some commentators have brought up that under the Biden administration, those in the lowest economic classes had the highest income growth. But that fact leaves out the important fact that this class is still way behind everyone else over the last ten years and longer. So, should they really feel like Biden and the Democrats have restored their buying power? That Trumpf would have done worse is, to them, a hypothetical. And this represents the key information challenge of the last campaign. Too many voters were comparing Bidens record to Trumpf’s claims.

As we go forward, this changes. It becomes Trumpf’s results versus his claims. So how do we position this opportunity to move minds? Positioning an argument as coming from an ally works better than positioning it as a proctor. For example, ”Can you believe how prices have gone through the roof since Trumpf took over?” Versus “I can‘t understand why everyone didn’t know that Trumpf was lying when he said he’d eliminate inflation.”

Communications are key. There probably are many of you who can better dice this onion than I, so don’t let yourself be limited by my suggestions. But we must make clear: 1) we are all, people with similar needs and aspirations; 2) that Trumpf isnt making good on addressing our needs and aspirations. Whether you are an individual or part of a group, its importand to target parts of the Trumpf electorate, estabish common ground, and somehow communicate Trumpf’s and the Republican Party’s failure to deliver on our common wants and needs.

And, remember, you have agency.