A Productive Political Conversation Between People Who Disagree?
When You Find Yourself on Trigger Avenue
Picture this scenario. You’re having a pleasant conversation. You don’t realize you are talking to someone who has a vastly different political view than you do, or the extent to which your opinions differ. Until you do.
Perhaps you’re chatting with a stranger, a friend, co-worker, or even worse, a family member. This person says something that triggers you into attack-, anger-, or response- mode. You feel the heat turning up inside, creeping up your neck, your shoulders tensing, and before you know it, you’re barreling down “Trigger Avenue”.
What do you do next?
Arguing, fighting, namecalling, attack, and violence are not good ways to productively disagree.
We Can Change The World, One Chat at a Time
What you do next can make all the difference. You can continue to have the unpleasant, divisive type of conversation many Republicans and Democrats report struggling with over the past nine years. You can retreat, not wanting to dance that dance again. Or you might begin to sow seeds of change and connection in your own life, and, if enough people do it, in the country as a whole.
This very situation happened to my husband, Ed, and me the other day. A good friend who now lives in Arizona was staying with us. As she and I sat on the living room couch, catching up, Ed in an armchair nearby, she said something that made my temperature rise.
I love her, and she was our guest, and I didn’t want to argue but rather to learn. I’ve been researching and working on how to productively engage in political conversations, after all. I am trying to employ a better approach to discussions than argument, retreat, and division.
That day, (no, I don’t always, but I am trying), I did what research says works. And you know what? It did.
There’s Power in The Pause
I paused before jumping in as I used to do; outraged, ready for an argument nobody would win. Instead, for once, I asked what turned out to be the right questions:
I want to know more. Why do you think this? Where’d you hear it?
How do you get your news?
Do you fact-check what you hear?
My friend had just said casually that she didn’t support the war in Ukraine because the US had started it by inviting Ukraine into NATO, thus provoking Putin. This was an established “fact” to her that I didn’t know. I knew other “facts”, or thought I did. But rather than giving my opinion, I tried to understand her experience and point of view.
I also asked myself how I knew what I thought I knew—that Putin had invaded Ukraine for his own longstanding aims and that Ukraine had not been invited to join NATO before the war or even now, several years into it. That this claim augmented Putin’s false accusations, which came straight out of the Dictator’s Playbook. I’d read about it somewhere, but what did I really know?
A Better Way to Discuss Issues When You Disagree
This is how it went, and it was better:
Me: Why do you think this? Where did you learn this information?
Friend: I don’t know. Probably from a podcast I listen to.
Me: Is that how you get your news?
Friend: Yes. I don’t read newspapers. I don’t trust the media. I just have a couple of podcasts I like.
Me: Which ones?
Friend: I like Ron Paul a lot. I listen to his podcast the most.
Me: I don’t know that one. I remember him though.
Ed: He was a representative from Texas. He’s kind of a conspiracy theory guy.
Friend: I probably am someone who would fall for conspiracy theories.
Different Backgrounds, Different Methods, Still Friends
My friend is from the Pacific Northwest originally. She lived in the DC area for decades, without getting caught up in the Washington blood sport of politics and becoming annoying know-it-alls seeking to one-up each other constantly. I’ve always loved that about her and so much more. Our backgrounds are different, but our personalities are simpatico. She’s a good person and I trust her.
I’m a lawyer and writer, originally from New York. I like to get to the bottom of things and find out what is true. I love to read and research. I have a general distrust of conspiracy theories but am not completely immune (for years, I contended that John Starks had taken a bribe to throw the Knicks’ 1994 NBA Finals Game 7 because he kept throwing up bricks, about one every second, and quite a few agreed with me).
But on this day, I merely appreciated my friend’s honesty and perspective. I tried to understand where she was coming from. In retrospect, this happened partly because I had quelled my initial response to the first trigger and was now finding this chat an interesting experience from which I could learn.
Let’s Check the Facts
Our friend asked, “But didn’t we invite Ukraine into NATO before the war?”
“No,” Ed said.
In a neutral, calm tone, he explained why the claim that the US had invited Ukraine into NATO, prompting Putin to justifiably invade a neighboring country, was false. He briefly gave a history of Ukraine, its relationship with Russia, the so-far unachieved desire of Ukraine to be invited into NATO, the invasion, and a little bit about WWII. Meanwhile, I looked up the issue on-line. Together, our friend and I read NATO’s statements about its relationship with Ukraine, and a comprehensive article from a neutral source that confirmed all that Ed had outlined:
Ukraine has gone through several presidents, revolutions and changes since 2008, but the country’s standing with regard to NATO membership is largely the same now as it was then, experts said. Joining NATO remains a goal for Ukraine, but no consensus has been reached among the member nations in the face of Russia’s continued aggression.
“But why would they say that then?” our friend asked.
“Putin says a lot of things. Some of it is pretext to justify what he does. Propaganda,” Ed said. “Some media sources are amplifying his claims; sometimes they give more opinion and spin than fact, to advance an agenda or party line.”
We made further inquiry, which bore out the fact that Putin had offered false justifications and blamed NATO as well.
Respect Goes Two Ways
Ed earned two masters’ degrees, one in International Relations, and one in War Studies, and is an expert in national security, war, and economic sanctions. He started his career in international relations at a non-partisan think tank run by luminaries from the left, right, and center, focused on scholarship. He’s edited books, written articles, spoken around the world, and taught graduate students about war, national security, and sanctions.
He also proudly served in many roles at the State Department for over twenty years in Washington DC. He visited Iraq and Afghanistan during wartime, staying in a bunker in Afghanistan. He’s worked abroad in the private sector for almost a decade, which has broadened his perspective. All of which is to say that he knows a lot about war, history, and geopolitics around the world.
Some who don’t like government or government experts have viewed Ed as being “Deep State” even though he no longer works for the government.
Briefly, Merriam Webster defines “Deep State” as follows:
(an alleged secret network of especially nonelected government officials and sometimes private entities (as in the financial services and defense industries) operating extralegally to influence and enact government policy.
Some who distrust the government, as our friend does, likely wouldn’t care what he has to say, even if he is diplomatic and gentle in conversation, in a way I am trying to learn. But our friend said she knows he is smart and knowledgeable.
She likes and trusts us so she was willing to listen to my questions and Ed’s calm recitation of facts, and participate with me in factfinding. She said she was enjoying the discussion, the exchange of different perspectives and resources. We were too. It was a relief to talk without escalation.
Find Out If Your News Source or “Facts” Are Slanted and/or Reliable
I suggested we check the podcast for slant and reliability ratings. My friend and I looked at my ThinkPad screen, opened on the coffee table in front of us, together. Adfontes Media Report provided the following analysis of Ron Paul’s Liberty Report podcast:
BIAS- STRONG RIGHT
RELIABILITY- UNRELIABLE, PROBLEMATIC
Our friend raised her eyebrows. She had thought it middle-of-the-road, which it may be where she grew up, where she lives now, and among some of her friends and family. She had just assumed the podcast was accurate and reliable.
She and I then looked up Ron Paul’s Liberty Report on MediaBiasFactCheck and found a similar analysis:
RIGHT BIAS
These media sources are moderately to strongly biased toward conservative causes through story selection and/or political affiliation. They may utilize strong loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by using appeal to emotion or stereotypes), publish misleading reports, and omit information that may damage conservative causes. Some sources in this category may be untrustworthy.
Overall, we rate the Ron Paul Liberty Report Right Biased and borderline Questionable based on promoting right-wing conspiracy theories and pseudoscience regarding Covid-19.
Our friend expressed shock. While this exercise provides an example of a right-wing slant with lack of reliability, biased and slanted sources and unreliable sources exist on the left too. Many of us now live in echo chambers, seeking out sources and friends who, and interpreting information in ways that, reinforce what we already think or feel, (“confirmation bias”), without taking enough time to understand other perspectives or objective facts. This tendency included me, until I started making deliberate efforts to consistently burst out of my information bubble, instead of making occasional forays into watching Fox News.
Get At Least Some News From Neutral, Reliable, Sources
Our friend then asked for the links to the media bias checking sites, and what we thought was more neutral and reliable. I told her I liked AP News for neutral, reliable journalism, and suggestd SNOPES to check out claims. I threw in that I found MSNBC and FOX News to be biased and slanted in their news selection and interpretation, especially so in primetime, which my research had documented. Ed mentioned the BBC website, news and radio channels, and video as a great neutral source, without an American left or right bias.
Our friend said her boyfriend reads AP News and she had seen the BBC a few times. We left it at that, and then moved onto other topics. It wasn’t a kitchen table talk in location, but it definitely was a kitchen table talk. We discussed issues that we, a group of Americans, all cared about. We emerged feeling refreshed and, as always, great friends.
To start healing our divided country, we can try to reach out of our comfort zones and information bubbles.
By Julie Shields
