You do know that we are all preaching to the same choir out here, don’t you?
Yacky yack.
That’s really what most of us are doing. The same old rant to the same old people. The same arguments, the same outrage, the same memes, the same accusations, the same people agreeing with us and the same people telling us how stupid we are.
And somehow we think we are accomplishing something.
It feels good.
It makes me feel good. It makes you feel good. There is something strangely satisfying about finding somebody who agrees with you and then agreeing with them even harder.
But let’s be honest.
It doesn’t accomplish a darn thing.
Must be the bourbon talking again.
But hey, we all know the score. We know who is who. We know which side we’re supposed to be on. We have already decided who the good guys are and who the bad guys are.
Otherwise, we probably wouldn’t be out here doing this in the first place.
We respond to the bots from the other side like it might actually make a difference.
Think about that for a minute.
You’re arguing with a bot. Somewhere, maybe on the other side of the world, somebody may have written a program designed to irritate you into responding. And here you are, typing away, explaining to it why it is wrong.
Like the bot is going to suddenly say, “You know what? Bill has a point.”
Or like some guy in South Africa running a hundred accounts is going to make Elon Musk another ten cents because you spent twenty minutes arguing with one of his bots.
Does anybody really think that bot gives a flying copulation?
See?
Not that far gone yet.
So here is the plan.
Yes, I have a plan.
A grand plan.
A real plan.
Not a two-week plan. Not a campaign promise. Not a plan that requires a committee, a billion dollars and three years of hearings.
And one of the local proprietors of the local BBQ supply store helped supply it.
Yes, BBQ supplied — from Louisiana to Oregon, with a little mesquite smoke thrown in.
I call it the “Do You Know?” Plan.
It is really very simple.
The next time you are talking to your friend, your neighbor, your co-worker, your co-parishioner or the guy standing next to you at the BBQ supply store and somehow the conversation turns toward Donald Trump, listen for the inevitable:
“I don’t discuss politics.”
Fair enough.
Don’t lose a friend.
Don’t make an enemy.
Don’t turn Thanksgiving into a family civil war.
They may be MAGA. They may be exhausted. They may have decided politics isn’t worth the aggravation anymore. They may be one of those people who has been watching the same news channel for twenty years.
Or they may simply not watch the news at all.
Maybe they have been depressed since Friends and Seinfeld went off the air.
Who knows?
The point is, don’t ask them what they think about Trump.
That’s a political question.
No-no.
Instead, ask them something completely different.
Ask:
“Did you hear about Renee Good, the woman who was shot by an ICE officer in Minneapolis?”
Or:
“Did you hear about the ICE shooting through the door?”
Then shut up.
Seriously.
Listen.
Don’t immediately explain why it proves your side is right.
Don’t tell them they are uninformed.
Don’t tell them Fox News didn’t tell them.
Don’t tell them CNN did.
Don’t mention Democrats.
Don’t mention Republicans.
Don’t mention MAGA.
Don’t mention woke.
Just ask:
“Did you hear about it?”
Because you might be surprised.
They might say, “Yeah, I did. What do you think about it?”
Great.
Now you have a conversation.
Or they might look at you and say:
“No. What happened?”
And that is the moment.
Not the moment to start preaching.
The moment to tell them what you know.
Maybe tell them where you heard it. Maybe give them enough information to go look it up themselves. Maybe they will find a completely different version of the story.
That’s okay.
The point isn’t to win.
The point is that they now know something happened that they didn’t know happened five minutes earlier.
That is more useful than winning an argument with somebody who already agrees with you.
Because I am beginning to think that one of our biggest problems isn’t necessarily that Americans have the wrong opinion.
It may be that a whole lot of Americans don’t have enough information to form an opinion in the first place.
And that’s different.
This next part I hate, because it is in short form and I hate short form, but dammit, it works here.
There are people who are passionately informed.
There are people who are passionately misinformed.
And there are a whole lot of people in the middle who are simply trying to get through the day.
They have jobs.
They have kids.
They have bills.
They have aging parents.
They have a mortgage or rent payment.
They have a car that needs tires.
They have a dog that just threw up on the carpet.
They aren’t sitting around waiting for the next congressional hearing.
Politics is background noise to them until it lands directly in their living room.
And I don’t think we should blame them for that.
Maybe we should just find a better way to get their attention.
Which brings me back to the choir.
We spend an enormous amount of time talking to people who already agree with us.
We congratulate each other for being right.
We share an article.
Somebody comments, “Exactly!”
We respond, “Couldn’t agree more!”
Somebody else says, “Wake up, America!”
We hit the like button.
And then we wonder why nothing changes.
Maybe America doesn’t need another person standing in front of the choir with a microphone.
Maybe we need somebody to walk outside the church.
Maybe we need somebody to walk into the parking lot and ask the people who aren’t inside:
“Hey, did you hear about this?”
That’s a different conversation.
It doesn’t require a political party.
It doesn’t require a candidate.
It doesn’t require you to hate anybody.
And it doesn’t require you to know all the answers.
It requires curiosity.
And maybe a little patience.
Because here’s another thing I’ve learned:
People don’t generally like being told they are stupid.
They don’t like being told they have been brainwashed.
They don’t like being told they get all their news from the wrong place.
And they sure as hell don’t like being told that if they don’t agree with you, they’re part of the problem.
But ask them a question?
That’s different.
“Did you hear about this?”
They can answer that without having to defend themselves.
And if they haven’t heard about it, maybe they will.
Maybe they’ll look it up.
Maybe they’ll tell somebody else.
Maybe five minutes later they will forget about it.
That’s okay too.
We don’t have to change the world in one conversation.
Maybe the first step is simply getting people to look up from whatever side of the political circus they are watching and notice what is happening outside the tent.
Because I don’t think we’re going to fix much by screaming at each other.
I don’t think another thousand posts telling us how stupid the other side is are going to change anybody’s mind.
And I definitely don’t think arguing with a bot is going to save the Republic.
So I’m going to try something different.
The next time I run into somebody who says they don’t discuss politics, I’m going to respect that.
Then I’m going to ask:
“Okay. Did you hear about this?”
No politics.
No red.
No blue.
No preaching.
Just a question.
And then I’m going to listen.
Maybe that’s all we can do.
Maybe it’s not enough.
But it’s a hell of a lot more useful than preaching to the choir.
The Choir
You do know that we are all preaching to the same choir out here, don’t you?
Yacky yack.
That’s really what most of us are doing. The same old rant to the same old people. The same arguments, the same outrage, the same memes, the same accusations, the same people agreeing with us and the same people telling us how stupid we are.
And somehow we think we are accomplishing something.
It feels good.
It makes me feel good. It makes you feel good. There is something strangely satisfying about finding somebody who agrees with you and then agreeing with them even harder.
But let’s be honest.
It doesn’t accomplish a darn thing.
Must be the bourbon talking again.
But hey, we all know the score. We know who is who. We know which side we’re supposed to be on. We have already decided who the good guys are and who the bad guys are.
Otherwise, we probably wouldn’t be out here doing this in the first place.
We respond to the bots from the other side like it might actually make a difference.
Think about that for a minute.
You’re arguing with a bot. Somewhere, maybe on the other side of the world, somebody may have written a program designed to irritate you into responding. And here you are, typing away, explaining to it why it is wrong.
Like the bot is going to suddenly say, “You know what? Bill has a point.”
Or like some guy in South Africa running a hundred accounts is going to make Elon Musk another ten cents because you spent twenty minutes arguing with one of his bots.
Does anybody really think that bot gives a flying copulation?
See?
Not that far gone yet.
So here is the plan.
Yes, I have a plan.
A grand plan.
A real plan.
Not a two-week plan. Not a campaign promise. Not a plan that requires a committee, a billion dollars and three years of hearings.
And one of the local proprietors of the local BBQ supply store helped supply it.
Yes, BBQ supplied — from Louisiana to Oregon, with a little mesquite smoke thrown in.
I call it the “Do You Know?” Plan.
It is really very simple.
The next time you are talking to your friend, your neighbor, your co-worker, your co-parishioner or the guy standing next to you at the BBQ supply store and somehow the conversation turns toward Donald Trump, listen for the inevitable:
“I don’t discuss politics.”
Fair enough.
Don’t lose a friend.
Don’t make an enemy.
Don’t turn Thanksgiving into a family civil war.
They may be MAGA. They may be exhausted. They may have decided politics isn’t worth the aggravation anymore. They may be one of those people who has been watching the same news channel for twenty years.
Or they may simply not watch the news at all.
Maybe they have been depressed since Friends and Seinfeld went off the air.
Who knows?
The point is, don’t ask them what they think about Trump.
That’s a political question.
No-no.
Instead, ask them something completely different.
Ask:
“Did you hear about Renee Good, the woman who was shot by an ICE officer in Minneapolis?”
Or:
“Did you hear about the ICE shooting through the door?”
Then shut up.
Seriously.
Listen.
Don’t immediately explain why it proves your side is right.
Don’t tell them they are uninformed.
Don’t tell them Fox News didn’t tell them.
Don’t tell them CNN did.
Don’t mention Democrats.
Don’t mention Republicans.
Don’t mention MAGA.
Don’t mention woke.
Just ask:
“Did you hear about it?”
Because you might be surprised.
They might say, “Yeah, I did. What do you think about it?”
Great.
Now you have a conversation.
Or they might look at you and say:
“No. What happened?”
And that is the moment.
Not the moment to start preaching.
The moment to tell them what you know.
Maybe tell them where you heard it. Maybe give them enough information to go look it up themselves. Maybe they will find a completely different version of the story.
That’s okay.
The point isn’t to win.
The point is that they now know something happened that they didn’t know happened five minutes earlier.
That is more useful than winning an argument with somebody who already agrees with you.
Because I am beginning to think that one of our biggest problems isn’t necessarily that Americans have the wrong opinion.
It may be that a whole lot of Americans don’t have enough information to form an opinion in the first place.
And that’s different.
This next part I hate, because it is in short form and I hate short form, but dammit, it works here.
There are people who are passionately informed.
There are people who are passionately misinformed.
And there are a whole lot of people in the middle who are simply trying to get through the day.
They have jobs.
They have kids.
They have bills.
They have aging parents.
They have a mortgage or rent payment.
They have a car that needs tires.
They have a dog that just threw up on the carpet.
They aren’t sitting around waiting for the next congressional hearing.
Politics is background noise to them until it lands directly in their living room.
And I don’t think we should blame them for that.
Maybe we should just find a better way to get their attention.
Which brings me back to the choir.
We spend an enormous amount of time talking to people who already agree with us.
We congratulate each other for being right.
We share an article.
Somebody comments, “Exactly!”
We respond, “Couldn’t agree more!”
Somebody else says, “Wake up, America!”
We hit the like button.
And then we wonder why nothing changes.
Maybe America doesn’t need another person standing in front of the choir with a microphone.
Maybe we need somebody to walk outside the church.
Maybe we need somebody to walk into the parking lot and ask the people who aren’t inside:
“Hey, did you hear about this?”
That’s a different conversation.
It doesn’t require a political party.
It doesn’t require a candidate.
It doesn’t require you to hate anybody.
And it doesn’t require you to know all the answers.
It requires curiosity.
And maybe a little patience.
Because here’s another thing I’ve learned:
People don’t generally like being told they are stupid.
They don’t like being told they have been brainwashed.
They don’t like being told they get all their news from the wrong place.
And they sure as hell don’t like being told that if they don’t agree with you, they’re part of the problem.
But ask them a question?
That’s different.
“Did you hear about this?”
They can answer that without having to defend themselves.
And if they haven’t heard about it, maybe they will.
Maybe they’ll look it up.
Maybe they’ll tell somebody else.
Maybe five minutes later they will forget about it.
That’s okay too.
We don’t have to change the world in one conversation.
Maybe the first step is simply getting people to look up from whatever side of the political circus they are watching and notice what is happening outside the tent.
Because I don’t think we’re going to fix much by screaming at each other.
I don’t think another thousand posts telling us how stupid the other side is are going to change anybody’s mind.
And I definitely don’t think arguing with a bot is going to save the Republic.
So I’m going to try something different.
The next time I run into somebody who says they don’t discuss politics, I’m going to respect that.
Then I’m going to ask:
“Okay. Did you hear about this?”
No politics.
No red.
No blue.
No preaching.
Just a question.
And then I’m going to listen.
Maybe that’s all we can do.
Maybe it’s not enough.
But it’s a hell of a lot more useful than preaching to the choir.
Well…
Maybe a touch of Jim Beam.
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