.gif)
By Jim Heffernan
I’ve been thinking a lot about how many times I hear a variation of the statement, “We used to friends, now we can’t talk anymore.” Political differences are usually at the core of the dysfunction.
I think I may have accidentally found a bridge that leads to better conversations about politics. I found it while sitting in a chair behind the table at the TillCoDems (Tillamook County Democrats) booth at the Home and Garden show last weekend.
Democrats and Republicans host booths in the hope that they can meet people who can be persuaded to vote for their candidates. There’s usually raffles that have a dual purpose of covering the cost of the booth and drawing people to your table.
Actually engaging people in conversations about politics is a tougher sell. Those of us on either end of the political spectrum are still enthusiastic players in the game of politics. Our excesses have caused the people who fall between the two extremes disgusted with the whole thought of politics. We have created an “exhausted majority”* that hates even thinking about politics. They don’t even think voting is worth the effort.
I wonder if there isn’t a disguised intent in our political theater. If you can suppress the middle, your bloc of voters becomes more powerful. When only a third of voters bother to vote, you only have to sway a little more than 1/6 of them to become a majority at the polls.
I blundered upon a sure-fire way to engage people of all political stripes at the Home and Garden show. I found that no one can resist the lure of a question. I would ask people, “What’s your greatest fear, or most important issue, in the upcoming Presidential election?” It always led to a conversation. More questions like “Why do you think so?” would extend the discussion and almost always I could find some common views. Once the atmosphere of commonality had been achieved, I could gently express a different opinion without making an enemy. Very often we would part with a sense of “Well, we disagree, but that’s OK, that’s what America is all about.”
I’m told that this principle is what trained mediators call “the power of the question.” I’ve seen it and I’m a believer.
Go ahead and use “the power of the question” to re-engage with that cranky uncle or neighbor you’ve lost contact with over political differences. Too often, we feel a baseless need to “win” in a contest of opinions. Meeting in the middle is fine. Just realizing that having a different opinion doesn’t make you a bad person is a big improvement.
We can still be friends and disagree. Segregating ourselves into groups with the same point of view is foolish. It makes us weaker. What truly makes America great is the “One out of many” principle.
Don’t listen to the media voices that want to tell you otherwise. They’re not trying to help you. They mostly want to generate fear because it’s good for advertising revenue.
As always, discussion is welcome at codger817@gmail.com and I welcome sharing and re-using my material.
* The report this term came from is available at https://hiddentribes.us/ If you would prefer the PDF contact me at codger817@gmail.com and I can send it to you.
