“To My Friends on the Other Side of the Aisle…”

I was asked by the smart people at SMART (Social Media Approaches for Resisting Trump) to put in my two cents on how to communicate with the folks who support the Trump “agenda” (if there is one that is not changing dramatically each day), and since I am a “professional communicator” of sorts, I have taken up this daunting challenge.

That was two weeks ago. I am still undaunted, but I must say that speaking to those on the “other side of the aisle” is not for the faint of heart. However, to quote Oprah: “Here is what I know for sure.”

First, know your audience. There are two distinct camps. My guess is you know one of them. I would label them the “Blow it all up!” brigade. They are your relatives, most likely. Your friends, if you still communicate with them, are in the other campsite. More on that in a minute. The “Blow it all up!” tribe follow the Tea Party’s Grover Norquist ideology that government is the enemy of the people, and it should be choked to death in a bathtub, yadda, yadda. Their rallying cry is Reagan’s ironically unpatriotic slogan:"I’m from the government and I’m here to help” (which really was a punchline for a joke he used rather than his political agenda; after all, he was a big spender, a military activist, and not at all popular with the air traffic controllers.)

So these folks, incited by the Rush, Sean, No-Spin/No Job Bill and Alex Jones crowd, are unlikely to listen to you. My advice, if you are brave enough (or have just been caught in a holiday crossfire) is ...just listen. The more you argue, the worst it gets. It will usually end with the ‘friends on the other side of the aisle’ spewing out remarks like these I have heard: “Obama never did a day’s work since all he did was community organizing”; “Obama was a pussy!”; Hillary is the most corrupt politician...ever!”; “All I want is government to give me a military and build my roads”; “Trump is a businessman, and he will bring back jobs taken by the illegals.”And as a topper, Pew research in 2016 reported that only 15% of conservative Republicans believe that the planet is warming, and man made causes are the major culprit.

If you are ready for that vitriol—good luck. But don’t let it escalate to that. Really nobody (on either side of the aisle really wants that discourse to occur. Cooler heads will prevail…hopefully. Best to put your toe in that camp’s waters and discover that the temperature is icy cold. Listen and learn. That’s how I heard each of these virulent words. (That’s right, I’m not writing fiction here.)

So that group probably makes up 30% of the electorate. Those numbers will shrink as the weeks go by (and already are: see Trump’s unpopularity among Republicans). Once they realize coal ain’t coming back because it is not cost effective (what really matters); jobs are being automated or obsolete (the real problem); and Trump has contradicted himself into a corner with Russia, China, and NATO allies (making himself look foolish, ignorant, or lazy)—well, by then, that group will not be so in your face

So that brings us to the Republicans whom you can speak with and have a solid conversation. These are friends who usually have the sense to not discuss politics unless it comes up naturally in conversation. They are not going to threaten their cherished friendship with you over the latest Sean Spicer gaff or Trump ‘whiplash’ change in what he will do on “day one of my administration.” They will diplomatically say things like this: “I can’t stand Trump-he’s an idiot, but I couldn’t possibly vote for Hillary so I voted for McCain”; “I have friends who are legal Mexicans and they don’t favor the illegal Mexicans coming here ignoring our immigration laws”; “I didn’t want to vote for Trump, but I have had enough of the Clintons—we needed change”; “Let’s give him a chance”; “Well, I am very concerned with his climate change policy, but on other things like jobs, he understands business and government over-regulations.” Now these people you can have a conversation with, and hopefully give them food for thought.

Let me give you some advice, first. Tom Friedman’s newest book Thank You for Being Late is quite an eye opener—and I heartily recommend it. Some of his best arguments illustrate how the vast number of Americans really do believe in the idea that ours is the finest government the world has ever seen, regardless of the fact we are still far from a “more perfect union.” Here is an excerpt that I hope he does not sue me over:

“The G.O.P. used to be an incredibly rich polyculture. It gave us ideas as diverse as our national
parks (under Theodore Roosevelt), the Environmental Protection Agency and Clean Air and Water Acts (under Richard Nixon), radial nuclear arms control and the Montreal Protocol to close the ozone layer (under Ronald Reagan), cap-and-trade to curb acid rain (under George H.W. Bush), and market-based health care reform (under Mitt Romney)….And for decades the party itself was a pluralistic amalgam of northern liberal Republicans and southern and western conservatives.” 

Pretty amazing, huh? In other words, President Obama would be one of the gang.

However, in the very next sentence (on pg. 321), Friedman puts the pedal to the political metal.

“But in recent years the Tea Party and other hyperconservative forces, also funded in large part by fossil fuel companies and oil billionaires, have tried to wipe out the Republican Party’s once rich polyculture and turn it into a monoculture that’s enormously susceptible to diseased ideas: climate change is a hoax; evolution never happened; we don’t need immigration reform. All this weakened the G.O.P’s foundation and opened the way for an invasive species such as Donald Trump to make deep inroads into the garden.”

And what is the effect? America has a Republican Party that cannot govern because the two camps cannot agree—and that they cannot agree on, say, Obamacare, is a good thing because the “Blow it all up” gang wants to privatize everything, which means if you can afford it, you are just fine. If not, well, that’s the Natural Law of life. Only the strong survive. They will not be ‘Thy Brother’s Keeper.” Mind you, they espouse Christian values. No Christians I know believe this.

Perhaps sharing Friedman’s history lesson and his understanding of the Tea Party may help in communicating to moderate, fair minded friends “on the other side of the aisle.”

Finally, on immigration, which can be a tough subject to broach, here is something to ask others (or yourself). If we cast a net 11 million people wide, how will we know who is legal or illegal? Should those with brown faces wear a large, scarlet A on their chest to signal that they are ‘aliens’ to our nation? Or are any of us comfortable going up to these people asking them to “show me your papers.”

I don’t know if the gardener, hotel worker, farm worker, child caregiver are legal or not. The construction worker, roofer, or neighbor on my block—I would never ask them to prove to ME that they belong here, legally. Would your moderate friends “on the other side of the aisle” be willing to do that? And if they are illegally here, would they call the police, have them arrested and torn from their families, many of which are blended because some of the family are US citizens. I’ve been with these people. Language seems to be the barrier to legal citizenship, that and the dreadful time table it takes, or the fact that America has one standard for ‘highly educated foreigners’ and a different one for ‘labors.’ Here in California, this is an issue on every block, every town, every part of a state that depends on these workers on a daily basis.

                   *****                                   *****                                   *****                                   

Last week I sat in the gallery of the United States’ Senate and watched the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch. What struck me was that three senators spoke: McCain, Hatch and Durbin, but when they did, not one senator stayed to hear the other’s plea. They just walked out. Oh, there was the obligatory “my friend on the other side of the aisle” opening; then a nod or a smile, depending on party loyalty, and then they turned and left. No one listened that day, just ‘we the people’ of the gallery. Then, one by one, senators came in to vote up or down. Smiles on one side, frowns on the other.

The rules had to be broken because consensus could not be reached. I felt sorry for the one man caught in the political clash of ill will. His name is Merrick Garland. His flaw. He was a centrist. He was President Obama’s choice as The Constitution demands.

Let us not emulate this behavior. Let’s be SMART in our conversations with friends on either side of the aisle.

Robert Pacilio

April 19, 2017