“Mr. Trump does not offer voters anything resembling a normal option of Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal, big government or small. He confronts America with a far more fateful choice: between the continuance of the United States as a nation dedicated to “the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity” and a man who has proudly shown open disdain for the law and the protections and ideals of the Constitution.”
With American democracy under threat, diplomat Dr. Richard Haass outlines ten habits to help citizens preserve democracy. Haass also explores real-life examples of Americans who are working towards strengthening democracy and renewing the spirit of a more informed and engaged citizenry. Premiered January 2, 2024 on PBS.
The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen
by David Brooks
Summary
Recommended by Bob
Driven by his trademark sense of curiosity and his determination to grow as a person, David Brooks draws from the fields of psychology and neuroscience and from the worlds of theater, philosophy, history, and education to present a welcoming, hopeful, integrated approach to human connection. How to Know a Person helps readers become more understanding and considerate toward others, and to find the joy that comes from being seen. Along the way it offers a possible remedy for a society that is riven by fragmentation, hostility, and misperception.
At a time when the very foundations of American democracy seem under threat, the lessons of the past offer a road map for navigating a moment of political crisis. In Democracy Awakening, acclaimed historian Heather Cox Richardson delves into the tumultuous journey of American democracy, tracing the roots of Donald Trump’s “authoritarian experiment” to the earliest days of the republic. She examines the historical forces that have led to the current political climate, showing how modern conservatism has preyed upon a disaffected population, weaponizing language and promoting false history to consolidate power.
With remarkable clarity and the same accessible voice that brings millions to her newsletter, Letters from an American, Richardson wrangles a chaotic news feed into a story that pivots effortlessly from the Founders to the abolitionists to Nixon to the January 6 insurrection. An essential read for anyone concerned about the state of America, Democracy Awakening is more than a history book; it’s a call to action. Richardson reminds us that democracy requires constant vigilance and participation from all of us, showing how we, as a nation, can take the lessons of the past to secure a more just and equitable future.
Historians are fond of saying that the past doesn’t repeat itself; it rhymes.
To understand the present, we have to understand how we got here.
That’s where this newsletter comes in.
I’m a professor of American history. This is a chronicle of today’s political landscape, but because you can’t get a grip on today’s politics without an outline of America’s Constitution, and laws, and the economy, and social customs, this newsletter explores what it means, and what it has meant, to be an American.
These were the same questions a famous observer asked in a book of letters he published in 1782, the year before the Treaty of Paris ended the Revolutionary War.
Hector St. John de Crevecoeur called his book “Letters from an American Farmer.”
Like I say, history doesn’t repeat itself, but it sure rhymes.
“What I saw in that room was one of the most troubling things I’ve seen in my time in public service,” Representative Jim Himes (D-CT), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence committee, said.
Republican Matt Van Epps won yesterday’s special election in Tennessee’s seventh congressional district, but Republicans aren’t celebrating triumphantly.
The news of last Friday, November 28, that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told a Joint Special Operations commander overseeing an attack on a small vessel carrying 11 people on September 2 to “kill everybody” is shaping up to be a fight over control of the United States government.
On Friday evening, the Wall Street Journal published an article about the Trump administration’s negotiations with Russia over Ukraine that illuminated the administration’s approach to the world at home, as well as overseas.
In the wake of yesterday’s report from Alex Horton and Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered Special Operations to kill the survivors of a September 2 strike on a small boat off Venezuela, the Senate and the House Armed Services Committees have announced they intend to conduct “vigorous oversight” and “gather a full accounting” of the operation.
As Trump’s popularity continues to drop, the MAGA coalition shows signs of cracking, and Trump’s mental acuity slips, there is a frantic feel to the administration, as if Trump’s people are trying to grab all they can, while they can.
Inspired by her research for the hit podcast Ultra, Rachel Maddow charts the rise of a wild American strain of authoritarianism that has been alive on the far-right edge of our politics for the better part of a century. Before and even after our troops had begun fighting abroad in World War II, a clandestine network flooded the country with disinformation aimed at sapping the strength of the U.S. war effort and persuading Americans that our natural alliance was with the Axis, not against it. It was a sophisticated and shockingly well-funded campaign to undermine democratic institutions, promote antisemitism, and destroy citizens’ confidence in their elected leaders, with the ultimate goal of overthrowing the U.S. government and installing authoritarian rule.
Five Ways My Old Party Is Driving Our Democracy to Autocracy
by Stuart Stevens
Publisher: Hachette Book Group
Former chief Republican strategist, Lincoln Project adviser, and bestselling author ofIt Was All a Lie, Stuart Stevens offers an ominous warning that the GOP is dragging our country toward autocracy—and if we don’t wake up to the crisis in our system, 2024 may well be our last free and fair election.
INTERVIEW: Stuart Stevens talks to Brian Watt (KQED) at the Commonwealth Club
The Divider brings us into the Oval Office for countless scenes both tense and comical, revealing how close we got to nuclear war with North Korea, which cabinet members had a resignation pact, whether Trump asked Japan’s prime minister to nominate him for a Nobel Prize and much more. The book also explores the moral choices confronting those around Trump—how they justified working for a man they considered unfit for office, and where they drew their lines.
SWING LEFT PENINSULA created these engaging videos to help spread the word effectively that things are better when Democrats are in office AND to counter MAGA Republicans’ anti-democracy messages.
To Muffle the MAGAphone:
Avoid amplifying MAGA messages.
Amplify pro-Democracy messages.
Don’t Repeat Disinformation – What’s the best thing to do when encountering MAGA disinformation? NOTHING!
Ignore DogWhistles – Ever wonder why MAGA Republicans repeat certain words and phrases? Hint: Dog whistles
Stay United! – Why do MAGA Republicans spend so much time attacking an ever-growing list of others?
Frame It Our Way! – We need to avoid repeating MAGA GOP frames, even to refute them. Talk about the good stuff – what we need for all Americans to thrive.
Share Effectively – What makes an effective message? Lead with shared values. Identify who stands in the way of those values and why. End with your vision for a better future.
Leeja Miller’s deep dive into how people fall for fake news. (28 min.)
Why do conservatives fall for fake news? Is it just them, or are we all culpable? How did Americans become so susceptible to falling for disinformation? And what can we do about it??
Woodward and Costa interviewed more than 200 people at the center of the turmoil, resulting in more than 6,000 pages of transcripts—and a spellbinding and definitive portrait of a nation on the brink. This classic study of Washington takes readers deep inside the Trump White House, the Biden White House, the 2020 campaign, and the Pentagon and Congress, with vivid, eyewitness accounts of what really happened.
“The Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack has succeeded in bringing clarity and demonstrating with painstaking detail the fragility of our Democracy. Above all, the work of the Select Committee underscores that our democratic institutions are only as strong as the commitment of those who are entrusted with their care.
As the Select Committee concludes its work, their words must be a clarion call to all Americans: to vigilantly guard our Democracy and to give our vote only to those dutiful in their defense of our Constitution.”
Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do about It
by Richard V. Reeves
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
Recommended by: Bob B.
“The problem with men is typically framed as a problem of men,” writes Reeves. “It is men who must be fixed, one man or boy at a time. This individualist approach is wrong.” Instead, he maintains there are structural problems, societal issues, that need to be addressed if men are not to become ever more lost, defeated and angry.
Donald Trump’s Washington and the Price of Submission By Mark Leibovich Publisher: Penguin Press
Recommended by Cindi
“This is a really funny book.” Kara Swisher.
Mark Leibovich’s unflinching account of the moral rout of a major American political party, tracking the transformation of Rubio, Cruz, Graham, and their ilk into the administration’s chief enablers, and the swamp’s lesser lights into frantic chasers of the grift…isn’t another view from the Oval Office: it’s the view from the Trump Hotel.
In a bracingly honest reflection on both his own past work for the Republican Party and the contortions of his former peers in the GOP establishment, Tim Miller draws a straight line between the actions of the 2000s GOP to the Republican political class’s Trumpian takeover, including the horrors of January 6th.
From ruminations on the mental jujitsu that allowed him as a gay man to justify becoming a hitman for homophobes, to astonishingly raw interviews with former colleagues who jumped on the Trump Train, Miller diagrams the flattering and delusional stories GOP operatives tell themselves so they can sleep at night. With a humorous touch he reveals Reince Priebus’ neediness, Sean Spicer’s desperation, Elise Stefanik and Chris Christie’s raw ambition, and his close friends’ submission to a MAGA psychosis.
Why We Did It is a vital, darkly satirical warning that all the narcissistic justifications that got us to this place still thrive within the Republican party, which means they will continue to make the same mistakes and political calculations that got us here, with disastrous consequences for the nation
The rise of Authoritarianism in the world we've made
by Bden Rhodes
Publisher: Random House
At a time when democracy in the United States is endangered as never before, Ben Rhodes spent years traveling the world to understand why. He visited dozens of countries, meeting with politicians and activists confronting the same nationalism and authoritarianism that are tearing America apart. Along the way, he discusses the growing authoritarianism of Vladimir Putin, and his aggression towards Ukraine, with the foremost opposition leader in Russia, who was subsequently poisoned and imprisoned; he profiled Hong Kong protesters who saw their movement snuffed out by China under Xi Jinping; and America itself reached the precipice of losing democracy before giving itself a fragile second chance.
How Republicans Lost Their Party and Got Everything They Ever Wanted
by Jeremy W. Peters
Publisher: Random House Publishing House
NYTimes reporter, Jeremy W. Peters’ epic narrative chronicles the fracturing of the Republican Party. Insurgency is a fantasia-like story of a party establishment that believed it could control the dark energy it helped foment—right up until it suddenly couldn’t. How, Peters asks, did conservative values that Republicans claimed to cherish, like small government, fiscal responsibility, and morality get completely eroded?
Barbara F. Walter, a political science professor at U.C. San Diego, has spent over three decades studying civil conflict. Over the last two decades, the number of active civil wars around the world has almost doubled. Walter reveals the warning signs—where wars tend to start, who initiates them, what triggers them—and why some countries tip over into conflict while others remain stable. Drawing on the latest international research and lessons from over twenty countries, Walter identifies the crucial risk factors, from democratic backsliding to factionalization and the politics of resentment. A civil war today won’t look like America in the 1860s, Russia in the 1920s, or Spain in the 1930s. It will begin with sporadic acts of violence and terror, accelerated by social media. It will sneak up on us and leave us wondering how we could have been so blind.
Trauma, Truth and the Trials of American Democracy
by James Raskin
Publisher: Harper
In this searing memoir, Congressman Jamie Raskin tells the story of the forty-five days at the start of 2021 that permanently changed his life—and his family’s—as he confronted the painful loss of his son to suicide, lived through the violent insurrection in our nation’s Capital, and led the impeachment effort to hold President Trump accountable for inciting the political violence.
Jamie Raskin in conversation at The National Arts Club
A Message from Galvanize Action about a huge block of persuadable voters!
“White women are the largest voting bloc in this country and will be for decades to come. They account for 38% of the national vote share and 43% of the vote share across Galvanize Action’s priority states. Within this voting bloc, we’ve identified 44,093,812 moderate women who are not ideologically entrenched, meaning they are open to new ideas and perspectives and movable on key issues such as reproductive freedom, healthcare, gender equity, climate, and the economy.”
Galvanize Action has a fabulous interactive messaging worksheet we can all use!
Galvanize Action says, “We’ll share with you exactly how to create a message that meets people at their values and how to turn those into an effective ad. Our interactive worksheet will guide you through the process with prompts about your target audience and the issue you want to move them on. You’ll walk away with customized advice!”
This is the explosive look at the aftermath of the 2020 election–and the January 6th uprising–from ABC News’ chief Washington correspondent, Jonathan Karl. Jonathan Karl, the reporter who has known Donald Trump longer than any other White House correspondent, Karl told the story of Trump’s rise in the New York Times bestseller Front Row at the Trump Show. Now he tells the story of Trump’s downfall, complete with riveting behind-the-scenes accounts of some of the darkest days in the history of the American presidency and packed with original reporting and on-the-record interviews with central figures in this drama who are telling their stories for the first time.
Does power corrupt, or are corrupt people drawn to power? Are tyrants made or born? Are entrepreneurs who embezzle and cops who kill the result of poorly designed systems or are they just bad people? If you were suddenly thrust into a position of power, would you be able to resist the temptation to line your pockets or seek revenge against your enemies?
To answer these questions, Corruptible draws on over 500 interviews with some of the world’s top leaders—from the noblest to the dirtiest—including presidents and philanthropists as well as rebels, cultists, and dictators. Some of the fascinating insights include: how facial appearance determines who we pick as leaders, why narcissists make more money, why some people don’t want power at all and others are drawn to it out of a psychopathic impulse, and why being the “beta” (second in command) may actually be the optimal place for health and well-being.
Corruptible also features a wealth of counterintuitive examples from history and social science: you’ll meet the worst bioterrorist in American history, hit the slopes with a ski instructor who once ruled Iraq, and learn why the inability of chimpanzees to play baseball is central to the development of human hierarchies.
The Freedom to Vote Act can halt this growing antidemocratic threat.
by Will Wilder, Derek Tisler, Wendy R. Weiser
Publisher: Brennan Center for Justice
Essentially this article addresses laws and proposed legislation enabling partisan interference in election administration as part of a broader “election sabotage” or “election subversion” campaign, a national push to enable partisans to distort democratic outcomes.
Fascism is a cult of the leader, who promises national restoration in the face of supposed humiliation by immigrants, leftists, liberals, minorities, homosexuals, women, in the face of what the fascist leader says is a takeover of the country’s media, cultural institutions, schools by these forces.
Fascist movements typically, though not invariably, rest on an urban/rural divide. The cities are where there’s decadence, where the elites congregate, where there’s immigrants, and where there’s criminality.
Each of these individuals alone is not in and of itself fascist, but you have to worry when they’re all grouped together, seeing the other as less than. Those moments are the times when societies need to worry about fascism.
David Pepper shows that far more than the high-profile antics of national politicians and Trump himself, it’s anonymous, often corrupt politicians in statehouses across the country who pose the greatest dangers to American democracy. Amid all the chaos, these statehouses are hard at work, every day, hacking away at core principles and protections of our democratic system. And they’re getting more audacious every year.
Because these statehouses no longer operate as functioning democracies, these unknown politicians have all the incentive to keep doing greater damage, and can not be held accountable however extreme they get. This has driven steep declines in states like Ohio and others across the country. And collectively, it’s placed American democracy in its greatest peril since the dawn of the Jim Crow era.
But Pepper doesn’t stop there. He lays out a robust pro-democracy agenda outlining how everyone from elected officials to business leaders to everyday citizens can fight back.
Ruth Ben-Ghiat is the expert on the “strongman” playbook employed by authoritarian demagogues from Mussolini to Putin—enabling her to predict with uncanny accuracy the recent experience in America and Europe. In Strongmen, she lays bare the blueprint these leaders have followed over the past 100 years, and empowers us to recognize, resist, and prevent their disastrous rule in the future.
A celebrated foreign-policy expert and key impeachment witness reveals how declining opportunity has set America on the grim path of modern Russia – and draws on her personal journey out of poverty, and her unique perspectives as a historian and policy maker, to show how we can return hope to our forgotten places.
Fiona Hill grew up in a world of terminal decay. The last of the local mines had closed, businesses were shuttering, and despair was etched in the faces around her. Her father urged her to get out of their blighted corner of northern England: “There is nothing for you here, pet,” he said.
The coal-miner’s daughter managed to go further than he ever could have dreamed. She studied in Moscow and at Harvard, became an American citizen, and served three U.S. Presidents. But in the heartlands of both Russia and the United States, she saw troubling reflections of her hometown and similar populist impulses. By the time she offered her brave testimony in the first impeachment inquiry of President Trump, Hill knew that the desperation of forgotten people was driving American politics over the brink—and that we were running out of time to save ourselves from Russia’s fate. In this powerful, deeply personal account, she shares what she has learned, and shows why expanding opportunity is the only long-term hope for our democracy.
Despotic leaders do not rule alone; they rely on political allies, bureaucrats, and media figures to pave their way and support their rule. The authoritarian and nationalist parties that have arisen within modern democracies offer new paths to wealth or power for their adherents.
The Ongoing Threat of Trump's Followers / Trump and His Followers
by John W. Dean
and Bob Altemeyer
Publisher: Melville House
John Dean, of Watergate fame, joined with Bob Altemeter, an expert on authoritarianism, to look at the entirety of the Trump phenomenon, using psychological and social science studies, as well as polling analyses, to understand Donald Trump’s followers. How did America end up with a leader who acts so crudely and despotically, and counter to our democratic principles? Why do his followers stick with him, even when he acts against their interests?
Deb Lavoy explains how we fall for disinformation and how to train ourselves to avoid falling for it. (11 min.)
Deb Lavoy is on a mission to eradicate disinformation. As a former software engineer and digital marketer, she recognized the established social media marketing techniques that disinformation perpetrators appropriating to manipulate us into believing falsehoods. This talk provides tips on recognizing these tricks and how to counter them. Deb Lavoy is on a mission to eradicate disinformation. Her experience in software engineering and marketing, gave her a unique perspective on the rise of disinformation in 2016: the perpetrators were maliciously appropriating tried and tested digital marketing techniques. Deb founded the nonprofit Reality Team in response.
Reality Team drowns out the lies perpetrated over social media with simply stated truths, and arms people with tools and information to join the fight. The organization builds campaigns that change the ratio of truthful to untruthful information on social media feeds and provides tools and techniques to make it easier to tell the difference.
When we are baffled by the insanity of the “other side”—in our politics, at work, or at home—it’s because we aren’t seeing how the conflict itself has taken over. That’s what “high conflict” does. It’s the invisible hand of our time. And it’s different from the useful friction of “healthy conflict”. That’s good conflict, and it’s a necessary force that pushes us to be better people.
Using Convergent Facilitation to Reach Breakthrough Collaborative Decisions
by Miki Kashtan
Miki introduces a novel decision-making process called Convergent Facilitation that builds trust from the beginning, surfaces concerns and addresses them, and turns conflicts into creative dilemmas that groups feel energized to solve together. This highly effective process has been used successfully around the world to resolve problems and teach people how to collaborate without sacrificing productivity.
how America came together a century ago and how we can do it again
by Robert D. Putnam
and Shaylyn Romney Garrett.
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
“An eminent political scientist’s brilliant synthesis of social and political trends over the past century that shows how we have gone from an individualistic society to a more communitarian society and then back again — and how we can use that experience to overcome once again the individualism that currently weakens our country”
We can’t go back to when things were “good.” But we can learn from when things ware “bad.” In the early 1900’s the Guilded Age of the robber barons, things were really bad for most US citizens; they feared for the end of democracy and the take-over by the oligarchs.
America’s Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation
by David French
Summary
Reestablishing national unity will require the bravery to commit ourselves to embracing qualities of kindness, decency, and grace towards those we disagree with ideologically. David French calls on all of us to demonstrate true tolerance so we can heal the American divide. If we want to remain united, we must learn to stand together again.
A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control
by Steve Hassan
Publisher: Free Press
Mind control and licensed mental health expert Steven Hassan draws parallels between our 45th president and people like Jim Jones, David Koresh, Ron Hubbard, and Sun Myung Moon, arguing that this presidency is in many ways like a destructive cult. He specifically details the ways in which people are influenced through an array of social psychology methods and how they become fiercely loyal and obedient.
Dr. Steven Hassan’s presentation to Commonwealth Club of CA
Written by Republican political consultant Stuart Stevens, this is a tell-all book about how the party he’s stood with for years spiraled out of control and lost the moral and political standpoints that once made it great. Unlike other books about Donald Trump, Stevens presents the 45th president of the United States as the inevitable result of the Republican Party’s failings, not its instigator.
Stuart Stevens spent decades electing Republicans at every level, from presidents to senators to local officials. He knows the GOP as intimately as anyone in America, and in this new book he offers a devastating portrait of a party that has lost its moral and political compass.
This is not a book about how Donald J. Trump hijacked the Republican Party and changed it into something else. Stevens shows how Trump is in fact the natural outcome of five decades of hypocrisy and self-delusion, dating all the way back to the civil rights legislation of the early 1960s. Stevens shows how racism has always lurked in the modern GOP’s DNA, from Goldwater’s opposition to desegregation to Ronald Reagan’s welfare queens and states’ rights rhetoric. He gives an insider’s account of the rank hypocrisy of the party’s claims to embody “family values,” and shows how the party’s vaunted commitment to fiscal responsibility has been a charade since the 1980s. When a party stands for nothing, he argues, it is only natural that it will be taken over by the loudest and angriest voices in the room.
It Was All a Lie is not just an indictment of the Republican Party, but a candid and often lacerating mea culpa. Stevens is not asking for pity or forgiveness; he is simply telling us what he has seen firsthand. He helped to create the modern party that kneels before a morally bankrupt con man and now he wants nothing more than to see what it has become burned to the ground.
Here are some sources of ideas from a podcast by Baratunde Thurston, which began in 2020 and has four seasons of episodes. The overall theme is encouraging thinking about “citizen” as a verb. The four pillars for doing this are:
To participate, not just vote, but to show up for each other and publicly participate by discussing concerns, debating policy choices, advocating, etc.
To invest in relationships, by deepening our interconnections with our community, family, neighbors, etc..
To understand power, by learning about the fluidity of power and the various ways we the people can use it for our collective benefit.
To value the collective, by working towards outcomes that benefit the many, not just the few.
The four seasons of episodes (ranging from 11 to 16 episodes each season) consist of interviews with folks who are thinking about and demonstrating democracy-building activities. It’s a wonderful resource for ideas. They include international, national, statewide, and local leaders.
From politics and religion to workplace negotiations, ace the high-stakes conversations in your life with this indispensable guide from a persuasion expert.
In our current political climate, it seems impossible to have a reasonable conversation with anyone who has a different opinion. Whether you’re online, in a classroom, an office, a town hall—or just hoping to get through a family dinner with a stubborn relative—dialogue shuts down when perspectives clash. Heated debates often lead to insults and shaming, blocking any possibility of productive discourse. Everyone seems to be on a hair trigger.
In How to Have Impossible Conversations, Peter Boghossian and James Lindsay guide you through the straightforward, practical, conversational techniques necessary for every successful conversation—whether the issue is climate change, religious faith, gender identity, race, poverty, immigration, or gun control. Boghossian and Lindsay teach the subtle art of instilling doubts and opening minds. They cover everything from learning the fundamentals for good conversations to achieving expert-level techniques to deal with hardliners and extremists. This book is the manual everyone needs to foster a climate of civility, connection, and empathy.
“This is a self-help book on how to argue effectively, conciliate, and gently persuade. The authors admit to getting it wrong in their own past conversations. One by one, I recognize the same mistakes in me. The world would be a better place if everyone read this book.” —Richard Dawkins, author of Science in the Soul and Outgrowing God
Shoot the Messenger – Delivering “messages” doesn’t work, have a “conversation,” an exchange instead
Intentions – People have better intentions than you may think
Walk Away – Don’t push your conversational partner beyond their conflict zone
Beginner Level: Nine Ways to Start Changing Minds
Modeling – Model the behavior you want to see in others
Words – Define terms up front
Ask Questions – Focus on a specific question with genuine curiosity; avoid generalities, broad conclusions
Acknowledge Extremists – Point out and acknowledge unhelpful things people on your side have done
Navigating Social Media – Do not vent on social media
Don’t Blame, Do Discuss Contributions – Shift from “blaming” terms to “contribution” language, acknowledging things that got us to this unhappy place and emphasizing how to move forward
Focus on Epistemology – Figure out how people “know” what they claim to know, what’s the evidence
Learn – Learn what makes someone close-minded, what personal experiences have led them to a position
What NOT to Do (Reverse Applications) – A list of fundamental and basic conversational mistakes
Intermediate Level: Seven Ways to Improve Your Interventions
Let Friends Be Wrong – It’s okay if someone disagrees with you, even about a cherished conclusion
Build Golden Bridges – Find ways for your conversation partner to avoid social embarrassment if they change their mind
Language – Avoid “you,” switch to third person or collaborative language like “we” and “us”
Stuck? Reframe – Shift the conversation to keep it going smoothly or to get it back on track, use metaphors
Change Your Mind – Change your mind on the spot or be willing to reconsider
Introduce Scales – Use scales to gauge effective interventions, figure out how confident someone is in a belief, seeking places where they might be willing to reconsider, and put issues into perspective
Outsourcing – Turn to outside information to answer the question, “How do you know that?”
Five Advanced Skills for Contentious Conversations
Keep Rapoport’s Rules – Re-express, list points of agreement, mention what you learned, only then rebut
Avoid Facts – Bringing facts into a conversation requires considering timing and what counts as evidence
Seek Disconfirmation – How could that belief be incorrect?
Yes, and … — Eliminate the word “but” from your spoken vocabulary; affirm first, then add
Dealing with Anger – Know thyself; don’t escalate, monitor your emotions and take a pause if necessary
Six Expert Skills to Engage the Close-Minded
Synthesis – Recruit your partner to help refine and synthesize your positions
Help Vent Steam – Talk through emotional roadblocks
Altercasting – Cast your partner in a role that helps her think and behave differently
Hostage Negotiations – Use research-based ideas from hostage negotiations: mini-encouragers, mirroring, etc
Probe the Limits – Engage someone who professes a belief that can’t be lived, unmask disingenuous stmts.
Counter-Intervention Strategies – If someone is trying to intervene in your cognitive processes, go with it…
Master Level: Two Keys to Conversing
How to Converse with an Ideologue – Switch to moral epistemology, talk about values
Moral Reframing – Learn to speak moral dialects, study Jonathan Haidt’s moral foundations
Timothy Snyder provides a stark warning for the future of American democracy. Too easily we are ignoring the ways in which tyranny starts to eat away at democracy. As our political system faces new threats – not unlike those faced by democracies in the 20th century – we must look to the past to safeguard our future.
INTERVIEW: Listen to Professor Snyder discuss his book at Politics and Prose Bookstore
We’re a grassroots movement of thousands of local Indivisible groups with a mission to elect progressive leaders, rebuild our democracy, and defeat the Trump agenda.
How we win
Defeating a multi-decade right-wing takeover of American government ain’t easy. But we’re here to win, and we have a plan. Here’s how we’re doing it:
We Are Indivisible. Our opponents depend on a divide and conquer strategy, so we treat an attack on one like an attack on all. We show up for each other, and particularly for those facing the brunt of rightwing ideologues’ attacks – often immigrants, people of color, and low-income people. We share a vision: a real democracy, of, by, and for everyone.
Strong Leaders, Strong Groups, Strong Movement. We build and sustain our movement’s power by helping individuals take leadership. They grow and lead local Indivisible groups, take independent action, and coordinate with their fellow local leaders. As a movement, our power comes from coordinated national campaigns where we act together, indivisible.
Inside/Outside Strategy. We understand systems of power – like how Congress operates – and we work inside them to get results. That complements our outside strategy of locally-based constituent pressure to demand elected leaders, regardless of political party, work for our democracy.
A Virtuous Cycle of Advocacy and Elections. We show up to advocate for policy wins in off-years and get out the vote in election years. These efforts reinforce each other to ensure our democracy works for all of us and that the people in power do too – or we will replace them with electeds who will.
Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion
by Jonathan Haidt
Drawing on his twenty-five years of groundbreaking research on moral psychology, Jonathan Haidt shows how moral judgments arise not from reason but from gut feelings. He shows why liberals, conservatives, and libertarians have such different intuitions about right and wrong, and he shows why each side is actually right about many of its central concerns.
If you are not interested in reading the book, he has a TED talk that covers his main points. See:
For more than a century, from 1900 to 2006, campaigns of nonviolent resistance were more than twice as effective as their violent counterparts in achieving their stated goals. By attracting impressive support from citizens, whose activism takes the form of protests, boycotts, civil disobedience, and other forms of nonviolent noncooperation, these efforts help separate regimes from their main sources of power and produce remarkable results, even in Iran, Burma, the Philippines, and the Palestinian Territories.
Combining statistical analysis with case studies of specific countries and territories, Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan detail the factors enabling such campaigns to succeed and, sometimes, causing them to fail. They find that nonviolent resistance presents fewer obstacles to moral and physical involvement and commitment, and that higher levels of participation contribute to enhanced resilience, greater opportunities for tactical innovation and civic disruption (and therefore less incentive for a regime to maintain its status quo), and shifts in loyalty among opponents’ erstwhile supporters, including members of the military establishment.
This article is a comprehensive strategic framework for nonviolent revolution, combining historical case studies, practical organizing guidance, and theoretical insights about movement building.
A Strategic Framework Describing The Eight Stages of Successful Social Movements
by Bill Moyer
Publisher: History Is A Weapon
Recommended by: BruceR
Within a few years after achieving the goals of “take-off”, every major social movement of the past twenty years has undergone a significant collapse, in which activists believed that their movements had failed, the power institutions were too powerful, and their own efforts were futile. This has happened even when movements were actually progressing reasonably well along the normal path taken by past successful movements!
The Movement Action Plan (MAP) was first published as the Fall 1986 edition of the Dandelion. Twelve-thousand copies were published and distributed. This is a revised edition of that article. People are invited to participate in the continuing development of MAP and help spread it to local groups.
