Beating Trump With Kindness

If we want to peel away Trump's supporters, we have to start by being kind to them.

(Image credit: Alexander - stock.adobe.com)

"Build your enemy a golden bridge to retreat across"—Sun Tzu (apocryphal)

I sometimes think that the media is in the tank for Trump. That's the only way to explain a lot of what they do.

Okay, I don't actually think that. But I do suspect that, in their effort to defeat Trump by any means necessary, a lot of left- or center-left outlets and journalists are inadvertently fueling his re-election campaign.

It's no secret how prominent leftists in and out of the media talk about Trump supporters. They're racists or sexists or xenophobic. They're white nationalists. They're deluded and out of touch with reality. They're stupid. They're toxic trolls driven by spite. They're theocrats. They're racists. They're racists. They're racists. By no means does every leftist talk like this. But enough do that Trump supporters get the picture.

This insulting and caricaturing rhetoric is fueling Trump's re-election campaign in two ways.

First, it does lead to spite. In a New York Times column laying out the best case that he could make for voting for President Trump, Bret Stephens suggests that part of Trump's appeal is his bellicosity. "If Republican voters think the central problem in America today is obnoxious progressives," he asks, "then how better to spite them than by shoving Trump down their throats for another four years?" He continues: "For many Republicans, the visceral satisfaction of liberal anguish at a Trump restoration more than makes up for his flaws." It's tempting to dunk on Trump supporters for feeling this way, but these supporters' impulses are actually very human. If your political opponents spent a huge chunk of their time attacking you, wouldn't you want to elect someone who was willing to fight fire with fire? To not just protect you, but to give those people who spent years hurting you a taste of their own medicine?

I don't think this motive is particularly healthy. But it's naive to suggest that it's not there, or that the urge to fight back against people who kick us when we're already down is somehow unique to Trump supporters.

The second reason that insulting Trump supporters drives support for him is that group psychology plays a huge role in who we vote for. As humans, we're attracted to people much more than to ideas. In his book How Minds Change, David McRaney documents how everyone from former cult members to former 9/11 Truthers to former committed homophobes saw the light and changed their minds. What was the secret? Kindness. In particular, the kindness of the out-group.

McRaney tells the story of Megan Phelps-Roper, possibly the most famous person to ever leave Westboro Baptist Church. How did she escape? She started talking to people in her out-group and they were kind to her. When she held a sign that said "God Hates Jews" at a protest, a Jewish man came up to her and started talking. They laughed and joked together, and he even offered her a gift of halvah. "He recognized my humanity," Phelps-Roper said. That kindness was crucial; because when Phelps-Roper started to question her church's teachings, it offered her a safe way out. As McRaney puts it, Phelps-Roper and other people stuck in cults "couldn’t leave their worldviews behind until they felt like there was a community on the outside that would welcome them into theirs."

Most Republicans I know don't like Trump. But they're willing to hold their noses and vote for him. Why? I think a lot of them feel backed into a corner. They see Trump's flaws, but they don't feel like they have any other options. It's not just that prominent members of the other party hate them. It's not just that prominent members of the other party actively encourage other Democrats to hate them (remember when Steve Israel, former chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, advised Democrats that when Republicans go low, “you hit them on the head with a two-by-four?"). It's that prominent members of the other party are actively scheming to change the rules of our republic to ensure that Republicans never take power again. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Tina Smith (D-MN) have advanced a bill to expand the Supreme Court so they can pack it with left-leaning nominees. Some Democrats have pushed to slice California into three states, which would give Democrats a likely four more Senate seats. As Damon Linker put it in a column for The Week:

"So much for the Democratic fantasy — the one that seemingly never dies — of unobstructed rule. Democrats didn't just want to win and govern in the name of a deeply divided nation's fractured sense of the common good. No, they wanted to lead a moral revolution, to transform the country — not only enacting a long list of new policies, but making a series of institutional changes that would entrench their power far into the future. Pack the Supreme Court. Add left-leaning states. Break up others to give the left huge margins in the Senate. Get rid of the Electoral College. Abolish the police. Rewrite the nation's history, with white supremacy and racism placed "at the very center." Ensure "equity" not just in opportunity but in outcomes. Hell, maybe they'd even establish a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to teach everyone who voted for or supported the 45th president just how evil they really are."

If you had a choice between someone who you didn't like but who you knew would stand up for you, and someone who said they hated you and wanted to use their power as a cudgel to punish you and keep your side from ever gaining power again, who would you vote for?

The famed military strategist Sun Tzu said that we should build our enemies a golden bridge to retreat across. Too many liberals have spent the last 7 years doing the opposite: they're surrounding Trump supporters and jeering that these supporters have nowhere else to go. Every time they call Trump supporters deplorables or racists or xenophobes or white nationalists or stupid, it sends a message: stick to your own party, because you're sure as Hell not welcome in ours. But in a real war, when you surround enemy soldiers and leave them no retreat, they don't give up. They fight like hell.

I'm a never-Trump conservatarian. I'm economically conservative, socially moderate, and I did not want either a Clinton or a Biden presidency. I spend most of my time in print and on radio criticizing what I see as the excesses of the left. At the same time, I consider Trump to be an existential danger to our great country. His willingness to "flood the zone with shit" and tell lie after whopping lie while condemning anyone who disagrees with him as spreading "fake news" is creating a state of what Jonathan Rauch calls "epistemic helplessness." He isn't the sole cause of our rising affective polarization, but his insults and rhetoric sure are driving it. Most importantly for me, he conducts himself in a fundamentally un-Christian way.

But I think if we want to stop Trump 2024, we have to change our tactics. Rather than simply jeer at them, we have to appeal to the better angels of our Trump supporting friends. We have to make the case that they are better than Trump. We have to make the case that the GOP, the party that gave us Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan and Mitt Romney, is better than Trump. We have to make the case that this great nation, the longest-standing republic in the world and the shining city on a hill, is better than Trump.

And, liberals have to start making the case that, if Trump supporters do defect and vote for Biden, then they will govern wisely and with an eye towards satisfying both sides rather than using their power as a cudgel to beat people who disagree with them.

If those of us who oppose Trump can make our respective cases, we might be surprised by how quickly support for him melts away.

So here's our action item, as a community of practice: sit down with a Trump supporter* and really listen to their concerns. Listen with compassion and empathy, and show them that you care about them as a human being. If you would like help, the organization that I volunteer with, Braver Angels, offers a workshop called the 1:1 Red/Blue Conversation that "provides a structured experience that enables participants to see beyond the stereotypes, to express their views in a structured, respectful manner, and to better understand each other."

And then let us know how it goes.

*This post is obviously geared towards my non-Trump-supporting readers. If you are a Trump supporter, I'm not ignoring you. In fact, the reason I targeted this post to non-Trump-supporters is because I think they're a big part of what needs to change in order to heal our country. That said, if you are a Trump supporter, I would ask you to do the same exercise listed above but sit down with a Biden supporter instead. You might be surprised at the things you have in common.

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