Listen First, Talk Second, Embrace Change
Your Guide to the Resistance — Day 4 of Seven Days of Action
To the average progressive American, the next four years in America look pretty bleak. Even if you have vowed to get more engaged in resisting conservative governance, the (future) President and his gang have done a pretty impressive job racking up a terrifying bench, before even stepping foot in office.
Getting organized, engaging in your community, and committing to become a witness to truth are all vitally important if we’re going to save America from a lot of the ugly stuff that’s still coming down the pike. But the truth is, a lot of Americans believe that government in America is just downright broken. To us, this may seem like a belief divorced from reality. “If we could just explain to you what I know to be right,” we think to ourselves, “then you could come around to understand that you are wrong.” But put the shoe on the other foot. How badly do you want to be lectured by a Republican about the questionable nature of Barack Obama’s birthplace? At a certain point, we have to agree to leave our behinds in the past. We have to start talking about the future.
Building a bridge to a better future is a treacherous path. Lewis and Clark are perhaps our best mascots. It’s not enough to hunker down and resist the tyranny of Republican policy. No. We have to start building our own alternate reality. The one where people actually want to live, where Democratic representatives rule.
Building this utopia means getting ready to face a few cold, hard, truths.
(If you’re already comfortable being uncomfortable, this might be easier for you. If not, feel free to put in a few practice rounds first).
When you hit rock-bottom, which I think we can all agree/hope, is this moment, right now, there’s really only one place to turn. AA and the 12 Steps have helped millions of people out of the depths of despair for more than eight decades. Why not American progressives?
The first step to recovery is recognizing we have a problem.
(At a minimum, I’m hopeful we can all agree on that.)
Steps two and three mandate a belief in a power greater than yourself and the willingness to turn your life and your will over to the power. This can get a little awkward in the context of politics in America, since our Founding Fathers stipulated that you and your relationship (or lack thereof) with God or Dog or G-d or Jesus or Buddha or whatever you believe, is between you and them.
Better said, to get from step one to 12, you’re going to need to believe that you are in this for something bigger than you. There are going to be dark days. And if you are in this only for yourself, it’s going to be easy to quit. For now, let’s say we are ready to recognize that this power greater than ourselves is the great and unlikely providence that is the United States of America. That’s why we’re here, right? To protect our progress, for the sake of the future of our great country!
Steps four and five are where things really get good.
4) Make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves
This one is hard and important, but it’s just the beginning.
5) Admit to the United States of America*, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
* see our revised definition of “God,” above. (See what I did there?)
It’s been more than two months now since our (future) president’s “unlikely” victory, and I have yet to hear a confession from someone who matters. And this is a big problem.
When the world created by President Barack Obama and his eight years in office is your oyster, a change in scenery like the one we are about to experience looks a lot like a horror show. But there are a lot of Americans who have been left behind by a changing world, a disrupted economy, and the lasting effects of the worst economic crisis in three quarters of a century.
If we are really going to fix this thing for good, we have to recognize that many of the progressive policies that have helped many Americans have also let a lot of Americans slip through the cracks. We’ve heard a lot in recent weeks about the plight of the “disenfranchised white middle class voter” who voted for our (future) president, but this demographic ordering of our problems is less than helpful. It matters very little if you think a black or white or Muslim or Mexican or Somali or [name a damn identity] interest group is disenfranchised by the current state of affairs in America. If they feel disenfranchised, then they are. And, while we may debate the relative scale of their suffering, the fact that people are facing hardship across this great country is undeniable. For many, hanging the millstone of responsibility around President Obama’s neck was just the easiest move. Ultimately, it doesn’t really matter who is to blame.
Embracing the fourth and fifth steps means taking responsibility for our wrongdoings as other people experience them, whether we intended them or not.
It’s only by accounting for our proverbial trespasses that we can actually figure out how to correct course in the future. But how can we go about compiling such a list? Enter big, hairy, scary truth number 2.
“We have two ears and one mouth so we can listen twice as much as we speak,” said a famous philosopher, once.
Epictetus (could they have given the most quotable philosopher in history a more pronounceable name?) was a smart guy, or a master of the obvious, depending on which way you look at it. (If human beings were crafted by evolution, it stands to reason the proportional nature of our listening-to-amplification capability was intended.) All joking aside, this is where things really start to head uphill.
Making a searching and fearless moral inventory means being willing to ask really hard questions, to open ourselves up to an assessment of our wrongdoing, to shut the fuck up, and listen.
In the days after the election, I heard a lot of my friends and colleagues remark on how they could not imagine being able to speak to their friends and relatives who voted for our (future) president ever again. But creating a searching inventory of our wrongs means doing just that.
There are some people who voted for our (future) President who may be beyond salvation. Wealthy, white, male, dyed-in-the-red Republicans, and white nationalists, to name a few. As much as we might hope these people will die out and become extinct, it’s unlikely. More importantly, though, these aren’t the people we have to worry about in 2018 and 2020. They are going to vote the R all the way down the ticket, each and every time. This constitutes roughly 20 to 30 percent of America. These aren’t the voters you’re looking for.
The citizens we most desperately need to listen to are the ones who are ignorant, disenfranchised, and embittered. Yes, their hostility may have been fueled in part by propaganda from Fox, Breitbart, and other “fake news” sources. But we are not here to debate the nature of truth. We are on a mission to compile a searching and moral inventory of our wrongdoings to aid us in our mission to build a brighter future for America and humankind. We have to listen to the Americans who voted for our (future) president, and Bernie Sanders, Gary Johnson, and Jill Stein, just as much as we need to seek to understand those who did not vote at all. Whatever these Americans may have been led to believe has been reinforced by some element of truth they experience in their daily lives. We progressives ignore this truth at our own peril.
Today on LinkedIn, I encountered a post by Ian Bremmer by way of Adam Grant. It included the excellent cartoon, pictured below.
If the past 18 months have taught me anything, it’s how easy it is for an unscrupulous human to convince millions of people of simple falsehoods, which aren’t easily countered with complex truth.
Theda Skocpol’s Big Picture analysis on Vox (day-one homework) is a wonky take on this view. Skocpol’s counsel is spot on: bolster local organizations, create new ones to fill the void left by shrinking unions, organize at the local level to resist the tyranny to come.
But most importantly, Skocpol advises that Democrats need a new strategy to win.
When it comes to what people will do in politics, as opposed to what they say they believe, non-polling research tells us that social network ties and feelings about “who we are” versus “who they are” may matter much more than individual demographic characteristics or discrete attitudes. Consequently, the messages that matter most in politics may have to be delivered through social contacts. And they should focus not just on issues and policies but on conveying a sense of respect and connection to specific groups and communities. — Theda Skocpol
Revitalizing our great democracy demands refocusing, not on policy, but on the experience of our citizens. It’s not enough to spin up a new piece of legislation and see if it sticks. Understanding the daily lives of 300 million Americans is the only way we can revitalize our policy positions and reconstitute what the Democratic Party stands for. The future of political progress must be based on every American’s experience of our democracy.
Good or bad, we can only know the hardships and challenges people face if we are willing and ready to listen.
It’s easy to fall prey to the idea that the downfall of the 2016 election was an easy problem to fix (see my earlier list of things to blame as a refresher) but this would be 100 percent wrong. The Clinton campaign was ultimately undone by a 100-pound bag of rocks. We don’t need to stand around arguing about the relative weight of each one. Instead, we should face the outcome with dignity, and recognize that the only reasonable conclusion is that we need to lighten the load. We need to do things differently.
Changing the future of Democratic politics in America is not as simple as fielding a change candidate like Barack Obama, or as accomplished a female candidate as Hillary Clinton. Most Americans are adamantly independent or apathetic, and view both the Democratic and Republican parties as virtually indistinguishable in their rhetoric and behavior, voting in defiance of the status quo more than in support of a platform. And it’s no wonder! The Democratic Platform as currently articulated is a mashup of so many stakeholder groups, layered with so much jargon, it verges on incomprehensible.
We have to re-imagine and solidify what the party stands for, and invite Americans from all walks of life to take part in that process. Most people have simple concerns. But the most important thing is to listen, not to validate our own truth, but to enumerate theirs to understand our wrongdoing.
Rather than an expansive list of 100-some priorities, the Party can simplify its platform and brand to four or five core ideals that every American believes are important, to engage citizens themselves to identify effective solutions to the challenges they experience in their daily lives. This is the fabric that underscores the future of America. It’s up to us to make it happen.
If you haven’t already, don’t forget to go back and read Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, and Day 5!
The (future) president’s inauguration is less than two days away. Are you resolved to lead change? Join my team, here.
Let’s get going. We’ve got work to do.
