A Change Is Gonna Come : How to Have Effective Political Conversations in a Divided America

"Get your head out of your @* & . Snowflake. Stupid liberal. Ignorant conservative. There is much discussion today about the decline in civility in American politics. Couple this phenomenon with the fracturing and hardening of political attitudes, and one might wonder how deliberative democracy, much less political civility, can survive if we can't even talk to people with whom we disagree. Insults are thrown, feelings are hurt, and family and friends, at best, decide to avoid political discussions altogether. At worst, arguments cause social groups to break apart. How can deliberative democracy survive if we can't even speak to people with whom we disagree? As this book argues, we need a new way to discuss politics, one that encourages engagement and room for dissent. One way to approach this challenge is to consider how public opinion changes. By and large, public opinion is sticky and change occurs very slowly; one exception to this is the more recent and significant change in public opinion toward LGBTQ rights and marriage equality. The marriage equality movement is considered one of the great success stories of political advocacy, but why was it so successful? Brian F. Harrison argues that one of the most powerful reasons is that a broad range of marriage equality advocates were willing to engage in contentious and sometimes uncomfortable discussion about their opinions on the matter. They started everyday conversations that got people out of their echo chambers and encouraged them to start listening and thinking. But the question remains, if simple conversation can work in one arena, can it work in others? And how and where does one approach such conversation? Drawing from social psychology, communication studies, and political science, as well as personal narratives and examples, A Change is Gonna Come reflects on the last fifteen years of LGBTQ advocacy to propose practical ways to approach informal political conversation on a variety of contentious issues. This book seeks to answer the seemingly simple question: how can we be politically civil to each other again?"--Publisher's description. "Get your head out of your @*&. Snowflake. Stupid liberal. Ignorant conservative. There is much discussion today about the decline in civility in American politics. Couple this phenomenon with the fracturing and hardening of political attitudes, and one might wonder how deliberative democracy, much less political civility, can survive if we can't even talk to people with whom we disagree. Insults are thrown, feelings are hurt, and family and friends, at best, decide to avoid political discussions altogether. At worst, arguments cause social groups to break apart. How can deliberative democracy survive if we can't even speak to people with whom we disagree? As this book argues, we need a new way to discuss politics, one that encourages engagement and room for dissent. One way to approach this challenge is to consider how public opinion changes. By and large, public opinion is sticky and change occurs very slowly; one exception to this is the more recent and significant change in public opinion toward LGBTQ rights and marriage equality. The marriage equality movement is considered one of the great success stories of political advocacy, but why was it so successful? Brian F. Harrison argues that one of the most powerful reasons is that a broad range of marriage equality advocates were willing to engage in contentious and sometimes uncomfortable discussion about their opinions on the matter. They started everyday conversations that got people out of their echo chambers and encouraged them to start listening and thinking. But the question remains, if simple conversation can work in one arena, can it work in others? And how and where does one approach such conversation? Drawing from social psychology, communication studies, and political science, as well as personal narratives and examples, A Change is Gonna Come reflects on the last fifteen years of LGBTQ advocacy to propose practical ways to approach informal political conversation on a variety of contentious issues. This book seeks to answer the seemingly simple question: how can we be politically civil to each other again?"-- Provided by publisher Get your head out of your @\*&. Snowflake. You’re an idiot. Stupid liberal. Ignorant conservative. It can feel good to use a disparaging name and dismiss a divergent belief or opinion but it turns people off from genuine engagement. At best, feelings are hurt and family and friends decide to avoid political discussions altogether. Often social groups break apart. How can deliberative democracy survive if we can’t even speak to people with whom we disagree? The conventional wisdom to avoid talking about politics has to change. We need to talk to each other about American politics more, especially to those with whom we disagree. We just need to do it better. The antecedents of bitter political disagreements are well documented but less attention is paid to ways to improve things. Public opinion doesn’t change quickly on average but it does change: how people think and feel about LGBT rights, for example, saw a meteoric change over the last few decades. Supportive people from many different social and identity groups had conversations in ways that got people out of their echo chambers to see issues in new ways. The unprecedented attitude change toward marriage equality and LGBT rights is a compelling public opinion phenomenon and a roadmap for how to talk about other contentious issues. Relying on research spanning academic disciplines, A Change is Gonna Come identifies and explains where conversations fail and how we can start to dig out of our opinion silos to make reasonable changes in everyday, interpersonal political conversations. As kids we were told to avoid talking about politics in polite company. However, the conventional wisdom no longer applies: we need to find a way to talk to each other about American politics, even with those (and especially those) with whom we disagree. While we've hashed and re-hashed bitter political disagreements, we have paid less attention to concrete, actionable ways to better understand each other. While it's true that, on average, public opinion doesn't change quickly, it does change: a prime example is how people think and feel about LGBTQ rights, which saw a meteoric change over the last few decades. Drawing on diverse areas of social research, this book identifies and explains where conversations fail and how we can start to dig out of our opinion silos to make reasonable changes in everyday, interpersonal political conversations cover half title A Change is Gonna Come Copyright Dedication Contents List of Figures and Table Acknowledgments Notes on Permissions 1. With All Due Respect: The Importance of Disagreement 2. The Virtue of Uncomfortable Conversations 3. How to Alienate Others 4. The Mechanics of Persuasion and the Impact of Information 5. Don’t Know How I Feel About That 6. People Like Us Have Got to Stick Together 7. Change is Hard but Not Impossible Notes Index