What is your motivation when you talk with a Trump voter?
Are you there to win? Or to help them win?
My partner Lyle has a brother who voted for Trump.
I have a former brother-in-law-equivalent who voted for Trump.
Given that 70 million Americans voted for Trump in 2020 alone, many of us know someone who did the same: a family member, friend, co-worker, even someone we love.
Maybe you want to talk with them this year to persuade them not to do that again?
I applaud that idea. But, before you talk with them, please ask yourself:
· If it would work, are you tempted to try to browbeat them into voting differently this time? Or, instead,
· Would it be enough for them to change their vote—no browbeating involved—even if they never acknowledged they had changed their mind at all?
Here’s why these questions matter.
Conflicted Trump voters are persuadable, but only when we bring our most generous self to the conversation
Here’s what happens when we talk with voters like Kate, who voted for Trump in 2016 and then became conflicted once he was in office.
Kate and I first met in April 2018: I knocked on her door as our team was deep canvassing in very conservative suburbs, long-time Republican strongholds that Trump carried handily. Could we help some voters reconsider? Specifically, in the 2018 mid-term elections, did they want to put checks and balances on Trump?
Kate and I had a great conversation where, as you’ll see, she was very much undecided.
Then, after the 2018 Congressional elections came and went, I went back and talked with her again, in March 2019. I wanted to ask Kate how she voted in the mid-terms; and how she was thinking of voting in 2020.
Watch my 2 conversations with Kate
Below is a 6-minute video with excerpts from both conversations. (At the end of this post is a transcript.) In both conversations, Kate gave permission for filming.
Of course, 6 minutes isn’t every bit of the conversation. Kate and I talked for 15 minutes each time. What’s left out? To keep the video short, I’ve omitted the story exchange between Kate and me. (For examples of a full story exchange, you can check out an earlier post on this topic at https://davefleischer.substack.com/p/how-fast-will-a-trump-voter-change).
Quick synopsis of the stories: in our first conversation, I told Kate about my sister Ivy. She told me about a boy in the neighborhood for whom she was a latchkey mom.
The second time, Kate told me about her son. I told a story about my Dad helping a family whose son was gravely injured. They couldn’t take my Dad’s first, best advice, so Dad then offered his second-best guidance and helped them save their son.
Those stories helped Kate and me connect and find important common ground; but the remainders of the two conversations are particularly on point to show you Kate’s thought process as she considered the good and bad of Donald Trump. In each conversation, I helped Kate think out loud about how she wanted to vote this time.
It turned out Kate surprised me in three big ways.
First, I realized that I liked Kate a lot. It was easy to respect her and fun to talk with her. Kate’s smart. She pays attention to politics. She has a great sense of humor. And even though she had only disdain for Hillary Clinton, Kate was fine with me, even though from the get-go I came out as a Hillary Clinton voter.
Second, Kate was very open to dialogue. She enjoyed talking with me about how to make sense of everything she saw in Trump.
Third, Kate particularly surprised me at the end. I had had a picture in my mind of what it would like when a Trump voter changed, and that picture was mistaken. Persuasion looks different in real life than how we think it will happen. It’s not like Suits. It’s not like Twelve Angry Men. It’s not full of drama; instead, it’s undramatic.
Here’s the video; take a look for yourself.
What I learned from talking with Kate and many other Trump voters
1. Trump voters with conflicting feelings are open to changing their mind. But it’s easier for them to change if someone talks with them and leads with kindness.
Kate was already conflicted before I got there. But I helped her focus on her dilemma. The longer we talked, and the more she thought, the more her views slowly changed. She remembered her reasons for voting for Trump, but now had mixed feelings. She didn’t like how he was doing as President.
So even though Kate last voted for a Democrat for President in 1960, and had been steadily voting Republican for 56 consecutive years, in 2018 she was a “5”—right in the middle—when it came to whether she would vote Republican or Democrat. Over the course of our first conversation, she began to consider that she might want checks and balances on Trump instead of continuing to give him the almost-blank-check of a Republican Congress.
2. When Trump voters change their mind—maybe when any of us change our mind—we want to find a face-saving story, one that shaves off the most embarrassing parts of what we’ve done.
Maybe you were shocked when, in our 2nd conversation, Kate rewrote history. Just a year before, she was clear she had voted for Trump. Now she was telling me she never did that.
When I was a younger canvasser, I would have pointed out this discrepancy right away, saying something like, “Whoa, Kate, I have video from a year ago, you not only told me you voted for Trump but you told me the reasons why, have you forgotten all that?”
But if Kate needs to re-write her personal story about how she voted then, so she can change her mind now, why would I want to get in her way?
For let’s face it, when I make a mistake and then change my mind to correct it, I don’t find it easy to recite each of my stupidities that are so apparent in retrospect.
Who am I am to deny Kate the chance to create for herself and others a face-saving re-write of how she voted in 2016?
3. Don’t talk with a Trump voter if you expect gratitude for enlightening them.
One of the things that strikes me hard is that all of us have a picture in our mind what persuasion should and will look like. We think, if we’re doing the persuading, that we’re the director, choreographer and author of the scene. We have a wish about how the other person should respond.
Our wish is often this simple: we want them to say, with contrition, they were wrong and we were right. We would also like a thank-you after the other person’s metamorphosis.
But what if each of these is the wrong wish? What if these wishes make it harder for the other person to change?
What if the right wish is to credit the other person 100% for changing?
Deep canvassing conversations like mine with Kate help people change when we stop making assumptions. Rather than prejudge the other person (they’re a nut!) or ourselves (we’re a saint!), we listen. This listening-without-judgment is so rare that the other person finds it memorable; so much so that when I showed up on Kate’s doorstep the 2nd time, she immediately remembered the pleasure she took in talking with me, the Clinton voter.
So if you want to co-create a memorable conversation that helps someone change, lean into kindness. Give up any preconceived idea that you will emerge a hero. You want Meryl Streep or Harrison Ford to play you in the movie? Too bad.
If you need a pat on the back, sure, you’ve earned it, but give it to yourself. Be grateful that you helped the other person reconsider, not by slapping them with a fact (doesn’t work), not by breaking them down like a liar on the witness stand (doesn’t work), not by being a schmuck (this works the least well of all).
Be your best and kindest self. Be satisfied that you just helped save the country.
The other person—the one who changes—is the hero.
You’re the organizer. And your reward, if you can accept it: you’ve made it less likely we’ll have to live with a re-elected Trump.
Appendix: Transcript of the Kate and Dave video
Dave Fleischer canvassed Kate, a conservative Republican voter, first in April 2018, months before the 2018 midterm elections
Dave: President Trump and the job he’s doing for you and your family, if you had two minutes to talk with him directly, what would you want to tell him—
Kate: Shut up.
[Videographer laughs]
Dave: Shut up?
Kate: Just shut up and stop talking. Go ahead and do it but stop talking.
Dave: Yeah, personally I voted for Hillary Clinton for President, but we’re really interested in talking to everybody who voted for Clinton or Trump or anybody else. It’s so important we’re able to speak with each other. Who did you vote for?
Kate: I voted for Trump.
Dave: Uh huh. [pause] But when you were voting—
Kate: I was thinking [him] being a businessman and everything, I was thinking he would be more dynamic, plus I’m not a big Hillary Clinton fan, I think she and Bill are liars to the Nth degree. But apparently so is this guy, so . . .
Dave: So what do you feel like you’ve learned that surprised you about him?
Kate: Nothing really—
Dave: Oh—
Kate: I used to watch this guy when he had the interns and all that kind of stuff—
Dave: Oh, “The Apprentice”—
Kate: “The Apprentice,” yes. And I used to laugh about it when he would give them a hard time and everything, but then I thought maybe this guy knows what he’s doing, it’d be nice to get away from a politician for a change. Apparently he doesn’t understand politics at all, so he’s not been able to work with either party that much, so . . .
Dave: Yeah.
Kate: He’s kind of a sad guy, really, with all that money . . .
Dave: Have you ever voted for a Democrat for President?
Kate: Yeah, I voted for Kennedy.
Dave: OK.
Kate: Sometimes I think the Republican Party is probably on its way out, so . . .
Dave: Well, I wonder—
Kate: Odd things that I’ve never seen before in all my 77 years.
Dave: What are you going to do [this year, 2018, in the highly competitive election for Congress], where zero would mean you’re totally sure you’re voting Republican, ten is you’re totally sure you’re voting Democrat, and in the middle you have some mixed feelings, where are you?
Kate: I’m in the mixed feelings bag, that’s for sure.
Dave: Like what number would feel right to you?
Kate: I don’t know. To vote the Republican ticket just to say they’re Republicans, that’s not something I’m interested in doing. I just need more information about the individuals and then I’ll decide.
Dave Fleischer then came back to see Kate in March 2019, after the 2018 midterm elections
Dave: And do you vote on everything when you go to [Kate nods Yes], OK. And do you remember if you voted in the election for Congress?
Kate: Yeah.
Dave: Do you remember who you voted for here for Congress?
Kate: Well it wasn’t [the Republican].
Dave: Well then it was [the Democrat] probably. Wow, how did that feel, cause I know you often vote for Republicans? Was it a hard decision for you to—
Kate: Not really.
Dave: What was on your mind?
Kate: I think people were doing some calling here and one lady was pretty convincing about not having [the Republican] return, so . . . I don’t know that much about [the Democrat] but I just thought, well, change the balance of things.
Closer to the end of the conversation, Dave told a story about someone he loves, his Dad, and was just wrapping up the story as they returned to talking about Trump
Dave: I think for me, it’s just the way [my Dad] treated [the others in the story, a patient and his parents]. I mean, [my Dad] never gave me a lecture about it. I just realized, oh, oh, this is how you treat people when they’re in trouble. We depend on each other. We take care of each other. If you’re a good person, you try to figure out what it means to be a good person. Even if somebody can’t do what you’re recommending, you’re trying to help them the way you can help them.
And so this is why when I look at Donald Trump, what I really see is the opposite of my dad.
Kate: Oh my God.
Dave: Right? I mean-
Kate: He needs to be a stand-up comedian because some of the stuff he says is just downright outrageously hilarious, because can anybody really think that? Or is he just kidding around?"
Dave: Right, I don't even know. I mean...
Kate: I'm fascinated by him. I didn't vote for him, wouldn't vote for him. But I just am fascinated by the man. He's got guts, I'm telling you.
Dave: I mean to me, this is the problem with Trump, right? He likes being cruel. Is that how it feels to you also?
Kate: He’s kind of sadistic sometimes.
Dave: I don’t get it. I don’t get it.
Kate: I don’t know about his background or whatever but I feel like he’s just a really insecure person who has done exceptionally well and he doesn’t know how to handle it.
Dave: Yeah.
Kate: So he just is a miserable person so everybody else will be miserable along with him.
Dave: How are you feeling about President Trump?
Kate: I hope he doesn’t get re-elected.
Dave: So on a scale of 0 to 10 where 0 is you anticipate you’re definitely going to be voting for the Republican for President [in 2020], and 10 is you’re definitely going to be voting for a Democrat for President, and in the middle you have mixed feelings—
Kate: That would be me.
Dave: OK. So what number probably would feel the closest at the moment, don’t worry, you’re entitled to change your mind—
Kate: [pointing to the rating scale] I’m low on this end but I’m low on this end, too. Some place in this little margin . . .
Dave: Like a 5 or a 6? [She nods yes]
Dave: If you were going to pick one—you could pick 5½ by the way, whatever you would pick is the right answer.
Kate: Put down a 5, that’s fine.
Dave: 5 is the closest for you.
Kate: Yeah.
Dave: And why does that feel like the right number?
Kate: It feels like I’m open-minded still. There still are choices to be had.
Dave: Mm-hmm. And a lot isn’t known, although it does sound like, you know, if I was going to tell you that Donald Trump is going to be the Republican, which we don’t know, but if that was true it sounds like he’s burned a bridge.
Kate: Mm-hmm. Several.
Dave: Yeah.