One Question to Overcome Political Resistance

Talking politics can often feel like banging your head against a wall. But it doesn't have to.

Talking politics can often feel like banging our heads against a wall. One particularly frustrating formulation goes like this:

Person 1: "I oppose X because of ABC."

Person 2: *documents in great detail how ABC isn't true.*

Person 1: "I hear you, but I still oppose X."

At this point, Person 2 often shakes their head and gives up. They conclude that Person 1 must be too close-minded to reach. If they've had this conversation a few times, they might even write off Person 1's entire political tribe as too far gone for reasonable discussion. Person 1 is in a cult, they think; or they live in a bubble; or they worship at the altar of MAGA or DEI and nothing can change their minds.

Person 2's frustration is understandable, but their conclusions are wrong. As social psychologist Jonathan Haidt explains in his book The Righteous Mind, all of us are Person 1 in one way or another. We decide what we want to believe, and then we come up with post-hoc justifications to defend our beliefs. Or as Haidt puts it, "Intuitions come first, strategic reasoning second."

Haidt discovered this fascinating insight with a series of experiments. He asked participants to read a story (for example, about a brother and a sister having consensual protected sex) and then asked participants whether they thought the characters in the story were behaving morally or immorally. What he found was that participants didn't need to think it over; instantly, they decided that the brother and sister were behaving immorally. The fascinating part is what came next. Haidt asked the participants to justify their beliefs, and participants duly came up with a list of reasons (for example, what if the brother and sister had a child together?). When Haidt pointed out the flaws in the participants' reasoning (for instance, gently pointing out that in the story, the siblings were using 100% effective protection), participants accepted the correction but didn't change their minds about the immorality of the underlying behavior. As one participant put it after his stated reasons for opposing the siblings' behavior were demolished, "There’s just no way I could change my mind but I just don’t know how to—how to show what I’m feeling, what I feel about it. It’s crazy!"

Haidt explained the results this way: "Reasoning was merely the servant of the passions, and when the servant failed to find any good arguments, the master did not change his mind."

It's tempting to think that only our political opponents are this close-minded, but the truth is that all of us do this. Liberal atheists are as prone to Haidt's "strategic reasoning" as are conservative Christians. In 2018, a study asked 3,000 people across the political spectrum the following question: “If scientific evidence proved that the policies favored by [the other party] improved the economy, lowered crime, and made citizens happier, would you become a [member of that party]?” Eighty-six percent of Democrats and 88% of Republicans said no.

So what can we do about this? Is political argument just pointless, since our interlocutors aren't going to change their minds no matter what we say?

Well, no. One question that I've found very effective when I find out that someone opposes X is, "Let's pull back from whether or not X is a good idea. I'm curious, why is it important to you that we oppose X?"

I like this question for two reasons. First, so many political conversations end up dividing us; but this question can help me to better know my interlocutor. We can use it to shore up our relationship rather than tear it down. Using this question I've learned that a close friend of mine is liberal because she was the only girl in a 1950s family and grew up with a deep empathy for marginalized people as a result; that another friend supports gun regulation because his son was in the Columbine Shootings; that a third friend opposes the COVID-19 vaccine mandates because something terrible almost happened to her mother based on a doctor's advice to take a certain medication many years ago. When I'm asked this question (publicly or privately) I also tell people about the abuse I dealt with when I was younger and how that shaped my politics in my 20s. In a world that too often encourages us to burn bridges over politics and to keep conversations superficial, this question does the opposite: it helps us to go deep with people who don't agree with us and to see more of the human behind the political views.

The second benefit of this question is more practical: it gets the conversation onto more useful territory. If your interlocutor answers openly and honestly, now you're talking directly to the master of the house rather than the servant. You're speaking to the real reason that they oppose X, rather than doing battle with the post-hoc justifications that they've come up with to justify their belief.

Having emotional conversations with the master of the house can be fraught. Your interlocutor is opening up to you about something that matters to them. I can't tell you how to proceed, because the right approach will depend on your personality, your interlocutor's personality, the quality of your relationship, trust established to this point, etc. At this point I often stop trying to convince the other person, because–in spite of doing political commentary for a living–I value a deep friendship far more than I value one more convert to my team.

That said, if you do wish to convince them that X is good, then remember that compassion and empathy go a long way. As humans, we are drawn to people far more than we are drawn to ideas. As David McRaney puts it in his book How Minds Change, "An engaged, curious, and compassionate listener is far more persuasive than any fact or figure."

So here's our action item as a community of practice: next time you're in a conversation about politics with someone and it's not going anywhere, take a step back and ask your interlocutor why it's important to them to oppose/support X. 

And then leave a comment and let us know how it went.

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