Summary What is the Antidote to Fascism? | Offline with Jon Favreau Podcast - YouTube (Youtube) www.youtube.com
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Speaker 0 People don't go from my kids came home and said some weird things about America, like and how whether America is like a good country or bad country. People don't go from the 1 of that stimuli to the 10 of Crt is a radical marxist, you know, So project. To destroy America. There's a ladder of consciousness. And the right, as I'm sure you agree is very good building out ladder for.
Speaker 1 I'm John Favreau. Welcome to To. Closing My guest today is writer Anna Gi. Ana caught my attention earlier this month. When he wrote a piece in the Atlantic that had a very offline subtitle.
Speaker 1 What Russian trolls can teach us about American voters. On argues that the success of Russia's 20 16 influence operation may actually be a cause for hope He writes, quote, if those who seek to unravel our society, can figure out what moves citizens in this fragmented and confusing time. So too can those who wish it well. If Americans can be manipulated, they can also be persuaded. This idea that in our polarized extremely online era, persuasion isn't just still possible, but necessary.
Speaker 1 Is the basis for Anna new book the persuade, which went on sale this week. Here's Ana and Gi. Ana Gear da. Welcome to Offline.
Speaker 0 Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 So you have written what I think is a desperately needed book. About why the pro democracy movement has to do a better job of persuading people and how it's possible. So like, I I have been yelling about this to everyone I know from every platform I have now for, like, the better part of... I don't know how many years. So I'm like, super excited to dig in But I'd like to start with the the very offline subtitle of the Atlantic piece that you wrote about the book, what Russian trolls can teach us.
Speaker 1 About American voters. I thought that was a great great subtitle. What can They teach us?
Speaker 0 You know, the... When when people first got wind of this Russian operation, the idea of intervention, the kind of initial narrative that that developed was an an intervention to make Donald Trump president. Right? And there was a little bit of that, like, mature candidate kind of questioning and and like a kind of cloak and dagger kind of thing. And this...
Speaker 0 You know, obviously, like, there was some preference on the part of the Kremlin to have Donald Trump and do well. But when I think as a lot of people started to do deeper dives into what the Russian social media campaign, in particular was trying to do, And I... For the book, did up my own close read of a lot of these tweets, it's actually quite clear that Donald Trump was not the only thing they were trying to signal boost. Trump is was absolutely 1. They were also signal boosting black lives matter with equal fe, and they were, you know, signal boosting like gun culture.
Speaker 0 And they were signal boosting like immigrant pride. And so I kind of started to look at these tweets very closely for... For the opening of this book and try to understand what is really the project here? As you know, having worked in government you know, countries have a lot of tools available to poke at each other. Right?
Speaker 0 It this was a marquee effort. On the part of the Russians. So why this? And when I started looking at the the tweets and Instagram posts and other things it seemed to me that the simple story about Donald Trump or or the simple story even about anger and division was was too simple. What I read in the tweets was an effort to gin up contempt and dismissal, which I would say is different from anger and division.
Speaker 0 Right? Anger the division is you and I being in different places on a thing and feeling a certain kind of way about it. I actually don't think that's... People may disagree. I don't think that's on its own particularly problematic in a democracy.
Speaker 0 Like, democracy is about... We got a hundred bucks left? Should we help your kids for my aging parents first? Like, it's gonna get real. It's like, it's literally a negotiation about life and death and who who has helped first how.
Speaker 0 So I think it's supposed to be tense, and it's supposed to be contentious. Anger and vision, okay. Contempt and dismissal are different. Contempt and dismissal are John is just... That's just how John is.
Speaker 0 John is. Like that because John is XYZ. John is never... I'm not gonna bother with people like, John. People like John r, or John will never understand someone like me.
Speaker 0 My reality is You know, when you get to that place, as opposed what I would distinguish anger and division from contempt and dismissal. When you get to that latter place, I actually think you are very close to the erosion of democracy in a dramatic way. And I wish I had thought about this when I was writing the book. Other people in the last few days of talking about it publicly have said, like, this is the reigning theory in marital counseling. And in, like, in studies of marriage.
Speaker 0 Like Anger and division, fine in marriage. Contempt is the beginning of the end. And so it was very interesting to me that the Russian weapon of choice was not taking out the power grid in Houston or any number of things that were in the toolkit, it was making us mutually contempt. And gin up the feeling that persuasion is not worth it, These people are who they are. They will never change.
Speaker 0 They are XYZ. Move on. Mobilize around them, rally your own people. But give up on persuasion. And so I became interested in reporting the persuade in people who were who said hell no to the Russian operation, and to that larger culture of fatal around us.
Speaker 0 And and who instead said, it's not true empirical or morally that we can live in a society which we give up on the idea of changing minds or or the idea of our own change ability. And I wrote about a bunch of people who are showing how it can be done and grappling desperately for how it can be done in a time when it seems so hard.
Speaker 1 Yeah. I always thought that the the most damaging part of... Hillary Clinton's famous d ga was not the use of the word d, which I think is like a fine word to dis... Grab the behavior of a lot of drug supporters. It was that she then called them irr redeem.
Speaker 1 And I remember I remember thinking like, that is to the deployable heart's not the bad part, the irr d mobile part is what you do not wanna say about other Americans. Even if all of the reaching out in the world, all of the world, even if it ends up not working, when you write people off as irr redeem, you just stop the conversation.
Speaker 0 I so look. I have literally said that same thing that you just did do so many people. And I think it's like a relatively niche point because most people either like both those words or think both those words were a bad idea.
Speaker 1 Right. Yeah.
Speaker 0 Right. And I and you and I are, like, doing trying to do, like, a split ticket thing here. And and by the way, just to map it onto the thing I was saying earlier, I think d plural is like an anger and division word. And irr redeem is a contempt and dismissal word.
Speaker 1 For sure.
Speaker 0 For third she was speaking off offhand and like these... But like, I actually think there was a profound difference that you're identifying in saying it is really bad. People are being bad, morally bad to to support XYZ in the fe way they do. And the the second point is not a moral judgment. It is a prediction.
Speaker 0 Like, to say you're redeem, it is a... You're making a prediction. You're not making a description. You're saying there is... And it's actually by the way, it's a prediction about you.
Speaker 0 It's not a prediction about them. You are saying to the world, I am in politics. I'm 1 of the most powerful political actors on the world stage. And I am telling you right now. I can't change those people's minds.
Speaker 0 And part of what I would say to that is, well then maybe step out of the way for someone who thinks they can.
Speaker 1 Well, and and... The point that you make about democracy and persuasion, and I think it's so important. And I I first came to that point a couple of years ago, towards the end of his time in the White House, Obama ended up doing these conversations with the writer Marilyn Robinson. And in 1 of their first conversations, she's... Said, she's like, I I think that democracy depends upon our ability to persuade each other.
Speaker 1 That's like at the core. That's the most fundamental part of any democracy. And it's a... It seemed like an obvious point, but it was really profound to me because I was like, yeah. Once we stop trying to persuade each other, then we're just sort of this is how authoritarian regimes happen.
Speaker 1 Right? Then we're all just saying, like, well then someone can rule us, and that's it.
Speaker 0 That's right. And I think it's worth taking a second to, like, unpack why that is. Yeah a historical view. Right? Because it's not just like an aesthetic point or a moral point or like a a Comb combined point.
Speaker 0 So let's step back. For most... Like, the human pattern for, like, 99 percent of our history is that our communities, villages, towns, cities countries were ruled by very strong centralized authority, powerful people, 1 guy, usually 1 guy, because it was considered much harder for larger numbers of people to make any kind of group decision. That's just that's just how we've been ruled through much of your human history. You you would say that's kind of the law of how humans have been governed.
Speaker 0 Except for this very brief period, starting in the 17 hundreds, which America played a very significant role in which we try this other thing. And you could imagine at the time although it's so normal to us, how weird it must have seemed at the time to say, hey. No. Let's not have 1 guy. Make all the decisions that come into the community inbox every day?
Speaker 0 How Let's do this thing where everybody in the society is constantly having a 24 7 argument. All the time about everything. And then let's use that to, like, prep them to register formal preferences on on issues or or representatives every so often, and then we'll just all make these decisions that land in the community inbox. Like, this must have seemed insane until it became totally normalized. And that basic culture of democracy that we now live in and take for granted is premise on the idea that the best way to choose the future is through talking.
Speaker 0 That's Right. That's the premise of democracy. Right? Voting is is like what you do at the end... Like, we'll all talk about voting a lot.
Speaker 0 Right? But voting is what you do at the end it is like AA5 second moment in 4 years of talking or 2 years of talking. And once we believe and succumb to the belief that talking basically is an ineffective futile way to get another person to think that gay people are people if they don't think that now or to think that we should have a different way for people to come into the country more humane or to think about what are the right ways to soften the blow of someone who's displaced by trading with China. Like, once we think those decisions are basically not things that can be solved or resolved through talk As you say, we have basically gone back and opened the door and said, you know what? Let's just go back to how it used to be for most of human history.
Speaker 0 Let's just be ruled. It's easier. We can't figure it out. Right? Last thing I'll say on that is, I have 2 kids, 4 and a half and 7.
Speaker 0 Right? The rule in our house as in many houses is when they're playing and doing art in their room. If you guys can figure it out, I'm not gonna come in there and tell you what to do. You can't figure it out. I'm gonna have a say.
Speaker 0 Right? My power begins. Right? My power begins when you all can't figure it out and then neither of you is gonna get what you want. And that's kind of where we are, where if we basically think Talk does not work.
Speaker 0 We're asking for political violence, because then I just wanna eliminate you, so you're not even a factor in the decision about what the community should do. Or I wanna have, you know, a strong man takeover because that's the only way I'm gonna get my will.
Speaker 1 Yeah. And look, and I think even organizing mass mobilization, protest. Right? Because something you could hear some people be like, why are we talking? Which go out in streets and protest.
Speaker 1 But that's still... At the end of the day, it still requires you to convince someone else to whether it's through your protest, whether it's through sitting that I'm talking with them, whether it's through a speech, whatever it may be, it is still trying to figure out a way, to persuade your fellow citizens, the people that we shared this country with to believe what you want believe. And if you can't do that the only other way is violence,
Speaker 0 And and by the way, like, everything you just said, Pro. Those are all... That's what I mean by talking. Talking is not just, like... Like, gentle dialogue in which we're not...
Speaker 0 Everything's talking. Like... And I, you know, at the risk of, like, some of your listeners may disagree with me, you know, in a world in which the planet may not be habitable by the end of this century, I personally would include maybe throwing tomato soup at a painting you know. I wouldn't do it. But, like, it is part of that world of talk.
Speaker 0 Right? It is part... Like, you know, you can say it's a good tactic bag tactic. We can argue about whether it was, productive relative to their goals. But like, you know, I...
Speaker 0 That's not violence against a person that is people who feel powerless, try to make the entire world talk about something for 24 hours, which if you're trying to save the planet, maybe maybe something in the ecosystem of talk that you need to do, feel you need to do. So talk broadly defined. Persuasion broadly defined is the antidote to authoritarianism. It's the antidote to Civil war. It's the antidote to to kind of political violence.
Speaker 0 And I was desperate. I I didn't feel like I had the... In my own heart, the the the answer to how we get back on the road to to persuasion. So I went out and and tried to find people who who did.
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Speaker 0 wrong. A lot of things. And, you know, this is a book. My last book was about billionaires were trying to, you know, hijack and suffocate the future of humanity for their own profit. And that was a book of really stride out, you know, criticism of a of a distant powerful force.
Speaker 0 This is a... This is like a work of loving intervention. Right? This is like when you take, you know, take a sibling or a loved 1 aside, And I think the the people I write about you know, all on the political left at different phases of it a lot of them progressive. I would say, I think that they were issuing a couple warnings to their own fellow travelers, and I'm issuing that warning as well because it's my book.
Speaker 0 But it's often their voices. I think 1 warning is that there is, first of all, this just this kind of false mantra that people can't change. Right. People can't change. Anti va will never get the vaccine, Not true.
Speaker 0 Whole bunch of them. Whole bunch of last year's va are this year's va people. Right. As as the data show. Right?
Speaker 0 People voted it for Trump will never change. Not true. If you haven't checked, Trump is not present anymore because some of them did change. You know, people will never turn on Trump's criminality while January sixth hearings had quite a powerful effect in shifting opinion on certain things. So it's an empirical lie that that people's minds don't change.
Speaker 0 They change all the time. I mean, I don't think you and I when we were children would anticipated the revolution of consciousness around Lgbt, rights and marriage and family structure. Mean it's just, like, who had that on their Bingo card? It's remarkable. Right?
Speaker 0 To think of how intolerant our ancestors were, in every society on earth virtually on those issues and quickly quickly. In many, many places on Earth. Maybe most places on Earth. We have just realized we were all totally wrong about that and like changed it. Right?
Speaker 0 Like, don't discount that. That was utterly remarkable. Right? So this happens, we move. We evolve we grow, things that seem Outlandish become settled.
Speaker 0 We've lived through this many times. So it is just empirical false. I think a second a lot of the people I'm writing about the persuade in the terms of the book are trying to tell us that our view are kind of reflex view of people on the other side of the issue. Our mental model of them is is fundamentally flawed in this way. I think we all recognize that we are internally complicated and contradicted.
Speaker 0 Right? You have your outward stance. I have my outward stance, what you tweet, what you say on this show. But there's often like a b side to our opinions and sentiments. Right?
Speaker 0 As you know, there's sides to what administrations stand for in the world. There's narrow argument... There's arguments that are kind of narrowly lost. And administration may be known for x, but like, the other thing almost the opposite thing almost 1. Right?
Speaker 1 Yeah.
Speaker 0 And and I think people are actually like that. We know that about ourselves. We're contradicted as Beyonce says on her new album. But we deny particularly polarized time, I think we forget or deny the people on the far side of us politically are just as complicated and full of doubt. Frankly.
Speaker 0 And so we imagine ourselves to be kind of 60 40 on things, and we imagine them to be a hundred to 0 on things. And it's just very self defeating. That's where you get to the irr redeem place because you are forgetting that like, there's a contest for their soul going on and, you know Donald Trump is winning it right now. But it's not a it's not a resolved final contest. It actually never is.
Speaker 0 And I'm not talking about everybody. There's some people for whom it's an absolutely resolve final content. But there's just other people who are voting on vibes who are joiner, more than vanguard. Who who felt that there was something exciting here who felt like smash the system, you know all this stuff. The, you know, the people have voted for your, you know, former boss twice and then like, thought Trump kinda offered, you know, equally interesting vibes.
Speaker 1 Yeah.
Speaker 0 That's real.
Speaker 1 And you and you and you talk to those people and the explanations you get are wild. It's all over the place. I I remember I talked to a bunch of Obama Trump voters in Milwaukee last year, year before whenever for the for the wilderness, this other podcast I do, and they said there and they're like, you know, Obama was changed and Trump felt like change. And you're you're sitting there, like, what? What?
Speaker 1 Crazy. But I'm like, no. That's that's their lived experience.
Speaker 0 Like, totally.
Speaker 1 So we can either we can be mad at it, and we can say, that's fine. We can be outraged. And then we can decide to give up on those people. But if we decide to give up on those people for good, well, then we're gonna have a hard time finding a lot of other votes.
Speaker 0 Correct. And and first of all, like you can you can kind of judge it or you cannot judge it. But my sense as a someone who's done voter interviews. For a really long time. This...
Speaker 0 It my impression is more people are sort of like that than than the other kind of person which is someone who's whose stance are based on, like, a tremendous amount of reading and
Speaker 1 Yeah. Most most people are not like us. Correct. Got or or the people on the far right that we see on Twitter and cable and everywhere else like most... Most people are not like us or them.
Speaker 1 Right. Most people are just sitting in the middle not paying as much attention.
Speaker 0 And that's 1 of the core positions, of the book and 1 of the core positions that... That these persuade stop me Like, and once you go to that place and say, okay. People are complicated. Then you start to say that slightly silly j position of stance or or kind of moral frames you hurt hear in that person, that's not just laughable. Like, that's your opportunity.
Speaker 0 That's the whole thing. Right? Let me give you some real examples in the book that that come up. Right? I read about this experiment called Deep canvas in Arizona, which we can talk more about in time, but like, they're working on...
Speaker 0 Particularly white People's attitude to immigration in Arizona. Well, a lot of people are hostile to, you know, undocumented people living in their state in Arizona. We know that. We know the politics that grows out of that. Is that the only thing going on in those people's hearts?
Speaker 0 No. There... So what is what are some examples of the other things? A lot of people... A lot of Americans as you know, and I think it's a particularly American thing, like, have an underdog thing.
Speaker 0 Right? See themselves as people who like underdog. Right? They support the met or whatever. Right?
Speaker 0 So that's just like that's that's just g for the mill there if you're a Persuaders. A lot of people you know, maybe religious people like to conceive of themselves as as as good people, as people who do the right thing. Right who put, you know, put humanity first. That's another seed of a thing. A lot of people know some immigrants, who...
Speaker 0 Their personal relations with them suggest that some of their abstract views about immigrants in general, this tension. Right? And what the persuade I reported on do differently than frankly, what I do and differently from what I think a lot of folks on the left do. Is that they are relentlessly seeking not to implant like a microchip of their opinion in these people, but to play up these seed of other views in these people, to play up their own dissonance to make them a little bit more at war with themselves. And Yeah.
Speaker 0 I think an observation I would make here, the the the term that a lot of organizers use to me in the book is is meaning making. Like, this work is meaning making. Right? Asking for a vote or asking for 5 bucks is not meaning making. It's like a political transaction.
Speaker 0 Right? Meaning making, is being with voters and all those other moments in between the donations and the votes. What are you saying? How are you thinking about your town changing. How are you thinking about that?
Speaker 0 What story do you as describe to your town changing. You see things. You see... There's only Spanish speaking cashier at your walgreens now? They didn't used to be Spanish speaking cashier there.
Speaker 0 What's going on there. Right? People don't go from the 1 of Spanish speaking cashier to the 10 of an alien invasion is ruining America. People don't go to that by themselves. Someone is helping them make meaning.
Speaker 0 Right? People don't go from My kids came home and said some weird things about America, like, and how whether America is like a good country or bad country. People don't go from the 1 of that stimuli. To the 10 of Crt is a radical Marxist, you know, So project to destroy America. There's a ladder of consciousness.
Speaker 0 And the right as I'm sure you agree is very good at building that ladder for people. People. The right knows the stimuli in your life that is raising those things for you. And then Tucker and Trump, all these people. They're they're building that ladder people take you from that 1 to that 10.
Speaker 0 And if you look at our side broadly defined. I would argue no offense to anybody that we're not even, like, engaged in that work, Like, I don't think we're bad at it. I don't even think we're doing it.
Speaker 1 I found about your book from the Atlantic piece. And, like, I've even seen, like... You before or on Morning Joe or on Twitter. And like, I would think that your world views is more stride than you let on in the book, Right? Or in the in that Atlantic piece for sure.
Speaker 1 But I feel like that's probably what people think of me. That's probably what people think of a lot of the persuade that you talk about in this book. I mean, you talked to... You spent a lot of time with Ao. You talked to Linda Sa, You talk to our our friend Don not, who's been on all of our podcasts.
Speaker 1 To talk to Alicia Ga, like none of these people are any are people that anyone would mistake for centrist to moderates. But like, there is this... I feel like there's this this fear, and I and I... This is where I get to sort of the the theme of of our... This podcast, which is like being too online.
Speaker 1 There is this fear sort of because of the way we interact with each other now, which is through social social media that if you if you try to persuade, if you try to empathize with us. If you try to bring them along, You know, you're either labeled as a moderate or a centrist or you're accused of being blinded by privilege based on race or gender identity, you're accused of being soft and weak and naive when Republicans are supposed to be tough and true and or or you're ignoring the base for the mythical swing voter, right? Like, all of these exits and it becomes, like it's not worth it. So I'm not gonna talk about. I'm not gonna get into that conversation.
Speaker 1 And I wonder to what extent you think, social media and the Internet contributes to progressive problem in trying to persuade.
Speaker 0 I wanna step back because I think what you said there is actually. Be so important. And it actually helped me understand why I wrote this book in a way that I hadn't thought of until you said exactly those words. Like be is a lot of book cannot do. And then there's, like, some limited things a book can do successfully that I've seen.
Speaker 0 I think I wrote this book to basically create a permission structure. Yeah. For the people, I'm talking about to go do that without facing that pushback that you just described. That to me is actually the clearest sense of my own mission with this book, that I Yeah. That I got.
Speaker 0 Right? And it's... That that goes both the moderates and, like, your... There's different critique level. Right.
Speaker 0 But you're right that both... There's there's a kind of slack of all kinds you just named all the different sort of arguments for why that's appropriate to do. And I thought I'm gonna write this thing that actually flips that on its head and said, why are you not doing that? And so the choice of people is interesting. Right, My goal is not only to help progressive.
Speaker 0 The reason I focused the book the way I did. Look... I wanted the most uni impeach people.
Speaker 1 Yeah. That... And you got them. Why I thought it was so helpful.
Speaker 0 I I wanted the people who nobody could say, well, you're just some... Mushy milk toast, middle.
Speaker 1 Yes. No one's thinking Linda Sa is a Neo liberal skill.
Speaker 0 Right? You're you're just a sucker for, you know, white working class people in Pennsylvania. They always be sw. These are people who are as credential. Mean, I am not.
Speaker 0 Right? Like, this couldn't come from me. And it... It's not... I mean, A reporter.
Speaker 0 Like, this this is coming from people. I who want the big ambitious thing. Right? Who want the radical thing in many cases who want you know, want big change in this country, who are focused on structural change. None of this is about, you know, a kind of, like Bill Clinton, like I'm gonna I'm gonna offer you Path in exchange like for substantive structural policy.
Speaker 1 Right.
Speaker 0 But what they're all saying is if we don't have this movement be relentlessly small e evangelical. If it's not a missionary movement, What is it doing? And that and that you're not like, comp implicit, in people's baggage to try to reach them. They're comp in their baggage. You're not comp in their baggage, by trying to talk to them.
Speaker 0 Right? And I think... And you saw this so up close. I think the reigning democratic party in particular a theory of persuasion was has been Persuaders through dilution, start with a kind of moral, like ambitious moral frame. But then actually dilute dilute the thing you're trying to do, The act substance of what you're trying to do in the hope of reaching people in the middle who are more wary of you.
Speaker 0 Well And my book is an attempt, I think to flip that upside down. Because what often happens there is that those people you are trying to woo. Who are calling you a communist, they end up still calling you a communist. Even after you add a lot of water to the recipe and and the girl is now more thin, and they still think you're a communist, and they still hate you. And now the people who's who really are passionate about that philosophical project, that you're pursuing, they're now a little cold and sad.
Speaker 0 Right? And so you kind of end up a little bit homeless I think the people I'm writing about and and in a way what you're arguing for in the setup is actually a theory of persuasion, where you do a better job of standing firmly and bravely for big things and stick kind of non negotiable to the substance of really big demands, But then do much better than a lot of folks on the left do at outreach. Right? So it's not fight climate by doing like a like pro business corporate right. Climate policy.
Speaker 0 It's fight climate by doing something like the Green new deal, but let's do a lot better job. Of talking to Coal miners about how the green New deal is actually totally oriented. To helping people like them transition to a better way of life. That is a sales pitch that is completely failed to be made even though it's in the... It's in the...
Speaker 0 It's in the idea, actually. But the pitch hasn't been made. Let's help people see themselves in Medicare for all. I I would call it Freedom care. I think it's ridiculous that it's...
Speaker 0 That it's called Medicare for all? Like why is it named after government program instead of like a widely held American value? You know, that would be an example of sticking to the ambitious demand but saying, what are some other ways of talking about it? Right? Language of freedom is a much more res language in this country?
Speaker 0 People you know, health care is a human right is something that people progressive often say about Medicare for all. Well, that's actually not a particularly resident frame in America because it's not, like, the people who don't like universal health also don't like human rights. Right? What I think university universal health would be in truth would be a massive expansion of human freedom in this country. Like, I don't want my boss.
Speaker 0 Dictating, whether my kid gets care if heaven forbid my kid gets cancer. Do you want your boss having that decision? Over
Speaker 1 overview. Yeah.
Speaker 0 Like, I don't want I don't wanna not pursue my business idea because I have to stick to a stupid job for healthcare care. It's it's amazing to me how little progressive speak in this kind of language of personal liberty on this stuff. That's the kind of persuasion for that that I think the characters I'm writing about are interested in.
Speaker 1 You mentioned deep canvas thing. I tend to think that people who... Knock on doors and talk to voters, regardless of where they fall on the ideological spectrum, have a better sense of how to persuade and organize and bring people in and get voters than people who spend most of their days, posting online and yelling at each other. And condemning the other side and feeling like moral clarity because we were righteous and we said you know, Fuck you, you're wrong. And they never like, they never learned to, like, build the muscle, of persuasion in the way that organizers do, and particularly or like, you know, like you said, you talked to Linda and elite...
Speaker 1 And and Ga and and Ao mean, Ao at 1 point says to you that the left can't just be about finger wag and nagging and shaming people into positions. Which maybe think... Basically, my old boss who we interviewed Friday for Pod of America. It's basically said the same thing about the Democratic party. Said the Democratic party can be a buzz kill,
Speaker 2 And that's not how people think about these issues. They they think about them in terms of, you know, the life I'm leading day to day. How... How does politics even how is it even relevant to you know, the things that I I... Care most deeply about.
Speaker 2 In my family, my kids you know, work that gives me satisfaction, you know, having fun. You know, not you know, not not being a buzz kill. Right? Yeah.
Speaker 1 I something nothing for the democratic.
Speaker 2 And sometimes democrats are. Right?
Speaker 0 You know think you know
Speaker 1 you had a lot of people who are like, oh, let's see. He's just moderate. Or he's too old now. He's neo liberal and, of course, you know, the right picked it up. And and Fox and the post and they're like, obama rails against cancel culture.
Speaker 1 And there's something about the way we're all talking right now in the public square, which is the Internet, which just shaves everything down and simplifies it and makes everything about contempt, you know. And and I just... I wonder if We either have to get offline to have these conversations or how do we have these kind of conversations online if that's the dominant form of interaction in communication right now.
Speaker 0 No. I I think you're absolutely 2 things there. I think in retrospect, we can look at a particular culture that is flourished over the last decade or so online that is a you know, with the help of these Russian trolls and and with the kind of with the amplification really of those Russian trolls, we were doing it to ourselves. That is a very particular kind of online culture of calling out rather than calling in of contempt rather than than than discussion. You know, even just like these very online phrases like imagine thinking that.
Speaker 0 Right?
Speaker 1 Just yeah.
Speaker 0 Start something that way I I... By way, I do this. And none of this is whole than that.
Speaker 1 I've I know.
Speaker 0 I've written that tweet a million times. Right?
Speaker 1 But I've I've used... Yeah. What plenty of my tweets are bad. Like most of my tweets.
Speaker 0 That would imagine thinking that. Is like a class thing of, like, a person thinks differently from you. Right? And it's just like so anti persuasive. It's just like, it's just like treating the...
Speaker 0 Treating different opinions from you as like a museum piece that should be just looked at through the glass. It's like, no No. Like get in there, like difference of opinions are like your opportunity to get the kind of society you want. Right?
Speaker 1 It's it's it's all it's all of the Twitter. It's do better? Do better. Just in just an order to someone to do better. Why?
Speaker 1 What did they do wrong? Don't care. I'm right. You're wrong. Do better.
Speaker 1 Just leaving this here. Just leave Oh just leaving it where. Why? Is it obvious? You're you're...
Speaker 1 So you're trying to tell me that your opinion about something is so obvious. So obviously correct that you don't even have to bother taking the time to tell me why it's correct.
Speaker 0 It's basically theological. Right? It's politics as theology. And it doesn't work. Right?
Speaker 0 Like, it's like... Tweets are not in cyclical, you know? And so... But but I also wanna say something about what what President Obama said to you all. Full disclosure.
Speaker 0 I didn't... I've I've seen like the couple minutes clip. I didn't see the, you know, half an hour before and a half an hour after. So I'm participating in the same problem here. I think what he said is important and I agree with a lot of it.
Speaker 0 I think the thing that it's worth saying at the same moment. And he knows this as well as anyone, although with power and influence more protected from it Mh than than regular people. A lot of where the buzz killing comes from, that that kind of calling out thing the more inflammatory thing. A lot of it, not all of it. Some of it is just like Rupert Murdoch and like, bad incentives of platform.
Speaker 0 Right. But another part of it is a growing culture of accountability. Mh. Around more marginalized people.
Speaker 1 Yeah.
Speaker 0 Having... This
Speaker 1 was his this this was his wind up. Okay. This is the part that didn't make it. Yeah, this is his wind up.
Speaker 0 Right. Like, a whole bunch of women are now saying what it like to work in workplaces with men. And like, it was still bad 20 years ago, they just weren't saying it in a bunch of avenues. And so... Yeah, has that added inflammation to the discourse?
Speaker 0 Absolutely. Is it good? Right. Also absolutely. Like, you know, a bunch of people of color.
Speaker 0 Right? There... Like, I was bullied in school because of race and, like, there was a language for that. Right? Today, if you're 10 and what was happening is happening to you, there's all this language and you can, you know, go and tiktok and...
Speaker 0 And it could become a thing where everyone's dragging on something. Right? So...
Speaker 1 Yeah. Police departments literally got away with murder for for decades with no 1 saying anything
Speaker 0 about it.
Speaker 1 We're not enough or not.
Speaker 0 I... And that's what makes it hard. If otherwise, it be easy to not be the buzz kill. Like, and I'm glad that was in his wind up. Like, part of what is challenging here is the left has a challenge of both needing the stand up for all these people they're are being degraded and den by the other side.
Speaker 0 That's become the fundamental project of the other side to degrade. And so you do need to say things like they're trans lives, matter and black life. Like, you have to say... Becomes more and more and more important to say these things, and at the same time, you're being sometimes pulled into this like constant protection of groups and assertion of the dignity of different communities instead of saying speaking in the broadest most kind of
Speaker 1 universal, accessible Correct. Language
Speaker 0 Correct. You know? And it... It's not an easy challenge.
Speaker 1 Gray area from V is a philosophical take on culture politics and everything in between every week, H sean Ai sits down with journalists authors, academics and more to get some cool takes. The On a Very hot world. The first episode featuring A discussion with Neil Tyson about Scientific in What it will take to achieve A More informed democracy is out now. And new episodes drop every Monday. And Thursday, listen and follow the gray area in your favorite podcast app.
Speaker 1 You show this really well in the book. The actual work of persuasion is in cr difficult work. And I think what our... Or online culture has also done is its it's made us more susceptible to just wanting shortcuts to everything because our attention spans are so short these days. Right?
Speaker 1 And so if we can't persuade someone, we fall on the shortcut of, like, oh, well, forget about persuading people, We just need to turn out our base. Can someone like just spend spend a bunch of money investing and turning our race It's like, you know what? Actually, there's not enough people in our base. And number 2, the people who are non voters who might look like us and look like Democrats and should go their vote. They're not voting for a reason.
Speaker 1 And, yes, some of that reason is voter suppression, but some of the reason is just that they don't... They're not paying attention politics and they don't wanna vote and persuading them to vote is gonna be just as difficult as persuading a Trump voter to to to come over to the Democratic side. You just... You we cannot take a shortcut around the necessary work of persuasion as much as we would like to.
Speaker 0 Correct. And I think it... I think what, I guess bothers me at the deepest level about that strategy you just described. And I you you hear it so much. I hear it so much.
Speaker 0 I think at a... The most visceral level, it's like, there's a question of is it a bad strategy. Right? But that's that's a 1 concern. I think my highest level concern and the thing that really like makes me upset is that it's a kind of surrender that is in a way telling the public that you don't think the idea of America you have to sell, is broadly appealing.
Speaker 0 Like, I think at some level, it feels confession. It at some point, going back to the Hillary Clinton thing, it starts as a statement about them but I think it's an auto statement. I think you are saying, I am not sitting on a message, a program, an agenda, that I can reasonably tell you is appealing to more than about half the country. And that is an incredible self defeating surrender. And I think if if you do feel that way, it may be that you are not telling the right story about this country.
Speaker 0 And I think in particular, and this is at the heart of the book as well. There is a failure... So so Obama talked about the buzz. I think what's even more interesting is like, what's the alternative. Right?
Speaker 0 And he was Yeah. Very good at that in his time in his way. Go. Are we telling a story about America that is thrilling, gal, magna. Relentlessly devoted to kind of converting and pulling in souls?
Speaker 0 Are we rooted in communities? You know, that there is basically no Ir offline infrastructure for the democratic party anywhere. Like, I've never been invited all those email lists. I've never been invited to a location for anything.
Speaker 1 Yeah. Ever.
Speaker 0 Go to Fort Green Park. 2PM, drum circle to celebrate immigrants in light of the present former president's terrible comments about them. Never. Have invited once to anything. They know your Zip code, They know your address, they know how much you gave.
Speaker 0 They know how much your neighbor gave. Have they ever, like, What is your theory of history? What is your reading of history? If there's like no place for belonging and collective coming together and song and dance and comm of any kind? So I actually think I have a lot of hope.
Speaker 0 It doesn't sound that way, but like, it would be very bad news. If you and I were having this conversation and agreeing that these things are important, creating a... Having a strategy for belonging. Telling this kind of better story about America, embracing patriotism, getting involved in this meaning making effort. If you and I were saying persuasion is important, these activities I'm laying out important.
Speaker 0 And the Democrats are attempting all of them and doing them pretty well. Yeah. And and we're at 46 46 against fascism. Then I would say to, John, we are fucked and you better get that that that Portuguese a citizenship a lot of people are starting to to try to get. Well, I as you know, I don't...
Speaker 0 The... Here's the good news. I don't think we're really seriously attempting any of those things. Like, is there a serious belonging strategy in the Different democratic party, is there head of, like, community I I Like... I
Speaker 1 I know. But the... It's the problem is the further you get up the party, it's like all sanded down, sort of language that's... Been made... Talk about meeting making, it's been made meaning less because have used it so often.
Speaker 1 You know, just to the Obama point, something that he did so successfully starting when he gave that speech in 2004 in Boston is he reclaimed the idea of patriotism from the right by redefining patriotism.
Speaker 0 Correct.
Speaker 1 And he did this, and I think an even even more mature way in the Selma speech, which is like, actually, the most patriotic people in this country have been the marginalized and down and dis and sub who like, over the course of 200 years, believed in this country so badly that they fought for, even when this country didn't believe in them and didn't fight for
Speaker 0 them. Yes.
Speaker 1 And and what makes this country great is that we can continue be perfect this country that is imperfect. And has been imperfect since the founding documents. And I feel like sometimes on the left and this is more in the activists online activist space. There is this fear of expressing this pride in what this country can be even if this country is not there yet. And that we're sort of thrown out the whole thing and this idea of a common identity that we all have our own identities, but there's also common threads that pull us together, is now so out of V because we look at the other side and think they're so fucked up and awful that maybe we don't have anything in common and we just gotta...
Speaker 1 You we just a win by sub.
Speaker 0 I I deeply agree with that. I I personally think this is a very right moment for the left to reclaim the flag. You know the... American flag, the red, white and blue 1 since. The right seems determined right now to not use the red, white, and blue 1.
Speaker 0 The right is right now turning against the American flag, and it's generally using this police flag as the new flag of right wing people if you drive around this country, what's a great moment for the left to say, we believe in the American flag actually. We should we should be flying it outside our houses. Right? I've I've bet a lot of urine and my friends do not do that, and and we should. You know?
Speaker 0 Yeah. I think it's a it's a... It's a matter absolutely as you say of claiming that authentic patriotism. And telling the story, I think what president Obama did was it's tele an auto story at at the beginning.
Speaker 1 Yeah.
Speaker 0 That was a patriotism of a place where only this was possible. Right? But his story is only possible here. It's now been, you know, some years. I think the context today for that story is we are attempting to do a thing right now that is 1 of the hardest high jumps.
Speaker 0 Any great power in history has ever attempted, which is to by democratic means, choose, to become this country alloy of the whole world. Right? A country made of people from every country, every language, to do so without common blood, common heritage, common skin color common religion. Right? And the part that I think is missing from the story if it's told at all, is that we've actually come quite a long way to doing this Like Yeah.
Speaker 0 We... You you go to Europe as I'm sure you do... Like, no there... Those are all white countries with a... Minority population that is kept very neatly in the 10 to 25 percent zone.
Speaker 0 Right? India, China? Great places. Not nations of immigrants. You can't become Chinese.
Speaker 0 Can't really become Indian. Most countries are more like India and China in that regard or Germany, France and the they are us. We are attempting to do an awesome thing. Right?
Speaker 1 Yeah. And but and by the way, the countries that we can look to that do have. Really great social safety nets, pretty white. The idea of having a a good social safety net, and a multi racial democracy all at once. You don't see it a lot of...
Speaker 0 Sharpen your point. They have good safety nets because they are mostly white. Right?
Speaker 1 Yeah.
Speaker 0 And and they... They... In a bunch
Speaker 1 of oil offs off sure.
Speaker 0 And it's the lay up for them. Like, let's give ourselves actually a little credit. We are attempting to build a more perfect union you say but specifically to combine this notion of more mutual, a stronger safety net etcetera, the program of the democratic party, more solidarity, to greater and varying levels depending on where you are on the party, but broadly that is the agenda of everyone in the party. Attempting to do it in the context of what is becoming a majority headed to be a majority minority, country is superpower of color. Broadly speaking, there is a pretty wide consensus even now, on the idea of people being able to become American.
Speaker 0 Hundreds of thousands of people become American every year, they didn't stop under Trump. Right? Even Donald Trump did not stop that. Right? The the the the position you can take is stop border crossings, illegal border crossings.
Speaker 0 Right? Like, Donald Trump did not shut down the natural rationalization of hundreds of thousands people here or that is consensus. That is not consensus in France and Germany, as you know. And when you tell the story of this awesome thing we're doing, that's kind of unprecedented, then having set the table, you say, okay. So now let me explain to you why we got this little interaction over there.
Speaker 0 Right? These people are doing this, because a small faction of Americans, By the way, the same people who, you know, put dogs on people. In the sixties. The same people
Speaker 1 right.
Speaker 0 Who wanted to preserve slavery. It's this it's the same faction. That faction has concluded that they would rather break the country than share it. They're not most of us. There's some of us.
Speaker 0 They've always been here. We've beaten them again and again and again and added more and more people to the circle. Now we gotta beat them again and we can and we will. And here's why... Here's what we're trying to do Here's the beautiful tomorrow we're trying to live in, and here's what we gotta do to beat this revolt against the future.
Speaker 0 So we can go live in it. To me, that feels both more empathetic about what's going on and why those people are flaring up the way they are. And more determined and resolute to not let them get an inch and more clear in what you're offering people, AAA tomorrow, a promised land that they can see themselves in. I don't think anyone on the left is doing all of that. Some people are emphasizing like Americans is great.
Speaker 0 Right? And progressive are talking about maybe some of the sins and and what... Like, I'm talking about doing it all. In a package in a way that feels thrilling, gal, inviting.
Speaker 1 The last question on this... The organizers you spoke to and and and political leaders sort of gave you something of a a playbook that progressive... Should and and pro democracy forces should use going forward. Can you just sort of sum up some strategies that that they have found effective in their work
Speaker 0 Yeah. And I'll give you the 6 that I kind of drawn on for the new york Times op ed that that grew out of the book. First command attention. Right? The the the right is extraordinary at commanding attention, making moments.
Speaker 0 We need a attention strategy, And need to stop being so high minded. It's it's not a a base behavior to command attention. Second is make meaning. We talked about that. That's both politicians.
Speaker 0 I mean, there's no reason Joe Biden should not be doing. Fireside chats on Tiktok, Youtube, whatever Instagram, like, every week? Like, what why is he not talking America through this moment? Easy. Yep.
Speaker 0 Lay. Go do that. Meet people where they are. Right? Like, people telling you they care about gas prices and and inflation and and crime and you're saying as democrats so often do.
Speaker 0 At... Sorry. Sorry.
Speaker 1 For you?
Speaker 0 Alright, Hon. John, you have false consciousness. Those are not in fact issues that you should be scared of. Right? The I...
Speaker 1 Not I'm not who you talk to says this all the time is that you cannot argue people out of their feelings.
Speaker 0 Yeah. Correct. So so so meet people where they are is third. Provide home belonging, like just have a plan for collective experience, transcend experience, like... T shirts, Picnic, clubs, like, actually the the kind of politics of people actually know each other and meet offline.
Speaker 0 Tell the better story about this country. I think it's incredibly important We talked about that. And and And lastly, I would say pick fights you know? You know, with all due respect to to Michelle Obama, I think that when they go low we go high, may not be suited all these years later for the Yeah. The they that we are now up against, I think when it's when it's fascism, it may it may cause a revision in statement, I wouldn't be surprised if she would revise her own statement in the light of what we face now.
Speaker 0 And I think there needs to be more of a comfort and a willingness to to generative scape out to to name names. It's to big fights. And I think when democrats do that, you Gavin news some doing it a little bit, You see others doing it from time to time. People love it. People respond.
Speaker 0 I think there's a way in which Americans feel like they're in a a household where there's a kind of abuser on the loose. And Their leaders, like the parental figures in the house are not protecting them. And that's a very, very dangerous emotion in a family, and I think it's very dangerous emotion in a country. And I think people wanna to feel protected.
Speaker 1 Yeah. It's interesting. I always think that miss the Michelle Obama's line there was ended up being misunderstood. And I say this not to, like, be defensive about it, but only because I think when she talked about low versus high and she's talking about high, She was really talking about sort of the vision that you've been speaking about and writing about in the book of... An asp and Ao talk to you to you about this.
Speaker 1 This aspirational vision that brings people in. I thought 1 of the the best things that Ao said is and and this wasn't a speech that she gave for Bernie Sanders. She said we're not divided, we're disconnected. And if we're disconnected, then the antidote to that is to connect people and to connect people, you have to bring them in. Right?
Speaker 1 Their... What they're trying to do is set us against each other other. That's sort of going... They are trying to set us against each other and have and have us have contempt for each other. What we're trying to do the progressive vision here is this multi racial democracy where we might not always agree all the time, but we can live together in relative peace and prosperity and respect 1 another.
Speaker 0 Yeah. I get that. That that makes a lot more sense to me. I think it was often misunderstood yeah. We always have to keep it classy no matter what's...
Speaker 0 Coming at us.
Speaker 1 No. Yeah. No. Well clearly, that's not that's that's not where we are now.
Speaker 0 Right. And like and the obama, but the obama did that and they were the first black family in White House, and maybe they had no choice but to do that But I think for a lot of people, it it has come to feel like a an impossible standard when... You're dealing with a kind of barbarian politics at on the other...
Speaker 1 Look. And and and to your last book that you wrote. I mean, 1 of... 1 of the things we did in the O 8 campaign and especially the 12 campaign is like, some of the fights that you want to pick are with the billionaire elite class is that is sort of the, you know, causing so many of the fucking structural problems in our country and our world right now. Right?
Speaker 1 It's a good fight to pick.
Speaker 0 It's a very good 1 to pick. And there's many good fights to pick And I hope I hope we get better at picking them. And better doing all the other things about bringing people together and bring them in.
Speaker 1 I I really hope everyone reads this book, picks it up. Persuade. It's a fantastic book. On your data. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 For for joining offline and for writing this book and and doing this work. I appreciate it.
Speaker 0 Thank you for for having me. I really really appreciate this conversation conversation. I feel like we're like... Deeply like minded on on this and really...
Speaker 1 Yeah. No. I I was... It I I was reading the book I was like, yes. Yes.
Speaker 1