The Smart Politics Way

POSTPONED! No podcast this Thurs, Aug 13

Locke Peterseim — Tue, 11 Aug 2026 13:01:17 GMT

We are very sorry, but we can’t do our podcast this week or next

We hope to be back in two weeks, Thursday, August 27, with our planned next episode, “Staying Sane.”

THIS WEEK POSTPONED, BUT HOPEFULLY WE’LL BE BACK THURSDAY, AUG. 27, 3 PM ET

Staying Sane

Political engagement can be exhausting. Many people feel caught between self-care and responsibility, wondering whether they should keep engaging or step back.

• How do you stay engaged without burning out?
• When is stepping back wise?
• When is it avoidance?
• Why do certain conversations trigger us so strongly?
• What do we owe ourselves in a time of political stress?

We’ll discuss emotional regulation, boundaries, and sustainable engagement.

If you have questions for us in advance, share them in the comments below, and we’ll try to get to them during the live podcast.

The podcast will air live here on Substack usually on Thursdays Recordings will be available afterwards here and on YouTube and other podcast platforms.

Upcoming schedule and topics

(Subject to change)

Thursday, August 13 — No podcast
Thursday, August 20 — No podcast
Thurs, August 27, 3 pm ET: Staying Sane
Thurs, September 3, 3 pm ET: Are You Making a Difference?
After this initial six-episode introductory series, our hope and plan is to continue this podcast going forward into September, the fall, and beyond, usually on Thursdays at 3 pm ET. Stay tuned later this month for the next round of upcoming topics!

Thanks for reading The Smart Politics Way! This post is public so feel free to share it.

What is the Smart Politics Way?

Smart Politics encourages and teaches progressives to have more productive conversations with Trump voters. We believe the most effective actions for achieving short- and long-term progressive goals involve talking one-on-one with and listening compassionately and constructively to folks with different opinions.

Want to learn more about Smart Politics and get involved?

Most Sunday nights we meet on Zoom to teach, share, and support one another. Sign up for email reminders about these weekly “Office Hour” calls
Smart Politics Website

is the Smart Politics Content Manager.

RECORDING: Have Better Political Conversations

Locke Peterseim — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 17:15:45 GMT

Full episode transcript below, including:

Introducing the Persuasion Conversation Cycle
Reviewing the Trust Pyramid
Why We Slow Down Before We Persuade
Step One: Ask with Curiosity, Not Judgment
Step Two: Listen to Understand, Not to Respond
Step Three: Reflect to Show Understanding
Step Four: Validation Is Not Agreement
Step Five: Sharing Without Triggering Defensiveness
Practice the Cycle Until It Becomes Natural
Preview of the Next Episode

Next episode:

Thurs, August 13, 3 pm ET: Staying Sane

Political engagement can be exhausting. Many people feel caught between self-care and responsibility, wondering whether they should keep engaging or step back.

We’ll discuss emotional regulation, boundaries, and sustainable engagement.

Upcoming schedule and topics

(Subject to change)

Thursday, August 20 — NO PODCAST
Thurs, August 27, 3 pm ET: Are You Making a Difference?

Thanks for reading The Smart Politics Way! This post is public so feel free to share it.

Most Sunday nights we meet on Zoom to teach, share, and support one another. Sign up for email reminders about these weekly “Office Hour” calls
The Smart Politics Toolbox
Smart Politics Website

Locke Peterseim is the Smart Politics Content Manager.

FULL TRANSCRIPT — THURSDAY, AUGUST 6, 2026

Introducing the Persuasion Conversation Cycle

Dr. Karin Tamerius: Welcome to The Smart Politics Way, live. I’m Karin Tamerius, here with Locke Peterseim. This is our podcast, which has been on hiatus for way too long, but we are back for Episode Four of our series for progressives on navigating political disagreement in the Trump era.

Today’s episode is really an important, meaty one that I know you’ve all been waiting for, which is how you can actually start having those conversations that we’ve been talking about, that we know are really difficult. In previous weeks, we’ve been talking about why they’re really difficult, and we’ve been talking about how to build trust so you can have a better conversation. Today we’re really going to dig into the tools you need to make those conversations go better.

Locke Peterseim: Yeah. I’m Locke Peterseim. I’m the content director...manager...content manager. It’s been a long summer, folks. It’s been a long summer. A really long summer.

The other night we were doing a webinar, and I said that I’ve been working with you for three years, which I guess was my attempt to divide everything in half. I’m like, “I just turned 60, so no—I just turned 30.” I’ve been working with you six years.

I think that over those six years, my focus has become more on the philosophy of Smart Politics—why we do this, who we talk to, why it’s important, and what we’re trying to do. What’s become routine is what we always describe as the core of Smart Politics, which is the Persuasion Conversation Cycle we’re going to talk about today.

I just said all that so I could tell you, Karin, that I figured out how to share the screen.

Karin: Yay!

Locke: All right. It’s the little technical things. It’s the little achievement. Any win we can get today.

I always describe it this way: years ago—which was actually three or four weeks ago—we talked about the Trust Pyramid. I always describe the Trust Pyramid as the emotional connection we’re trying to build. The pyramid itself is that emotional connection, and the Persuasion Conversation Cycle is the little bicycle you use to try to ride up the side of the pyramid.

That’s my mental metaphor.

Karin: Exactly. Just to put all of this in context, we know a lot of you have been really frustrated. Maybe you have family members who are Trump voters. Maybe you’re a liberal voter who has tried to speak with people who are Trump voters out on the campaign trail, and you’ve found it to be really impossible. Maybe you’ve given up, or maybe you just get into arguments.

We’re here to provide you with the tools you need to keep engaging, because that’s what Smart Politics is all about: providing the kinds of tools you need to do things that a lot of people have given up on.

What we’re going to talk about today is really kind of muscle memory or a routine. It’s a series of very concrete steps that we try to practice and absorb to make the actual minute-by-minute flow of the conversation go more smoothly.

Locke: I’ll add one thing when you were describing who you’re talking to. One of the things I’m hearing a lot from our folks these days—and especially in the national media—is people asking whether there’s some magic answer depending on who you’re talking to.

I always tell them there’s not a magic answer. It’s all the same work. It’s all the same process. It doesn’t matter who you’re talking to or which side they’re on. The work is the work. The process is the process.

Karin: Yeah. And to be clear, these tools are not just about how to talk to people in politics. You can use these tools in any kind of relationship dispute, in any situation where you have a disagreement. They’re good in friendships where there’s a big dispute—any kind of heated topic where there’s conflict. These tools are going to help you.

But because we’re political, and politics is what we care about right now, and because people don’t usually think about using these tools in a political setting, that’s what we’re here to focus on.

Locke: Yep. And I can attest that, in the six years I’ve worked with you, it took me a long time to start having political conversations using these tools. But immediately I found that my general conversations with friends and family—even disagreements about who’s going to do the dishes or something—went a lot smoother.

I will say, too, this kind of falls under what I always hear referred to as the “listen first” approach.

Karin: I should probably say a little bit about who I am in case you’re just encountering us for the first time.

As I said, my name is Karin. I’m a medical doctor, and I’m trained as a psychiatrist. But I’m also trained in political psychology, so I identify as a political psychiatrist.

I have a sophisticated understanding of where voters get their political opinions, why they behave the way they do, how they change their attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs, and why people become defensive. One of the things I’ve brought into the political realm from my psychotherapy work is applying those psychotherapy skills to political conversations.

One of the things that’s really a problem when people sit down to talk about politics is that they make the other person defensive. When the other person gets defensive, the conversation shuts down. Psychotherapists are really good at making people feel at ease so they can talk about things that are really hard to talk about.

Locke: Wow. I’m supposed to follow all that? This is why the local band goes on before the Stones. I don’t have any of those credentials.

My name is Locke. As I said, I’ve worked with Karin for six years on Smart Politics. My biggest credential—the reason I got into this work—is a little different from Karin’s.

I grew up in a small, rural, red Iowa farm town, but I’ve spent the past 30 years living in a pretty blue bubble in Chicago. After the 2016 election, my thinking was, How can I personally reconcile those two worlds?

Especially in recent years, my focus has become more on bridge-building. How do we talk to folks? How do we first lower our own antagonism toward them? Because that’s a real thing. A lot of us have felt, over the past decade, a growing frustration and antagonism that’s sometimes curled into anger against both people in our family and friends, as well as strangers on the internet.

So that’s where I come from. I’ve been working with Karin for six years now, editing, helping run support groups, helping run Zoom webinars, and just keeping all the wheels turning.

Karin: Okay. Well, shall we dive into today’s topic?

Locke: Yes. I’m very excited to see if this share-screen thing actually works.

Reviewing the Trust Pyramid

Karin: So I guess we should start with a quick review of the Trust Pyramid, which we’ve talked about in previous weeks so people can remember.

What we talked about in the past is that you can’t just run into a conversation with someone who disagrees with you politically and then expect them to change their mind without first building trust. There’s really no basis for them to listen to you. There’s no reason why they should change their mind simply because you tell them to, right?

You’re going to have to spend most of the conversation earning their trust. There are really five levels of trust that we identify in Smart Politics. You don’t really build them simultaneously. You build them one on top of the other. If any lower level of trust collapses, then all the levels on top of it collapse too.

The most important level is comfort, and that is establishing safety. If people feel like they’re under threat, like you are attacking them or might attack them because of their political beliefs, then they are not going to listen to anything you have to say.

The second level is connection. This is the sense that you have something in common, that there are similarities between you and them.

The third is comprehension. This has to do with, Does the other person understand where I’m coming from? You need to show them not just that you’re similar to them in some way, but that you actually understand them. That often means understanding their arguments.

The fourth level of trust comes from showing that you have compassion for them. What that means is showing that you really care about them as a person, care about the people they care about, and care about the things they care about. You’re not just concerned with your own personal interests or the interests of your family members or those who belong to your in-group.

Finally, the last level is credibility. This means that you can be trusted to be rational, to be reasonable, and, to the best of your ability, to act in an unbiased way—to not be a crazy person when thinking about things.

Anything to add to that, Locke? Anything I left out, or a way to say that?

Locke: No. I was going to say, I know it’s hard sometimes to see the small words on the screen, but I don’t know if I can share this in the chat.

Karin: No, you can’t. But it’s in our articles on the Substack. You can find it all over the place. But you’ve got the big picture. We call that the Pyramid of Trust. We refer to those as the Five Cs. The one that’s always really the most important is comfort—making people feel safe.

Honestly, that’s 90 percent of it, because that’s where most conversations break down. Most conversations never even make it to the comfort place.

Locke: I always think of the Trust Pyramid as the emotional goals. You can correct me if I’ve got that phrase wrong, but I think of it as the emotional goals.

The Trust Pyramid is not a how-to. You look at it and think, Oh, these things are nice. I wish we had these things. How do we actually do them?

It’s kind of a picture of what needs to happen. We know it has to happen because otherwise people’s defenses go up. Otherwise you’re just going to hit a wall, the conversation isn’t going to move anywhere, and there will be no persuasion.

Karin: So now let’s start diving into how we get there. How do we start climbing that pyramid?

Locke: So this is the Persuasion Conversation Cycle. Karin’s going to walk us through all of it, but at least you can see the actual cycle: Ask, Listen, Reflect, Validate, Share.

Karin: First, let’s just say, for those who maybe can’t see particularly well, there are five steps in the cycle. They go in order. We label number one as Ask, number two as Listen, number three as Reflect, number four as Validate, and number five as Share.

As we see it, you have to go through all of these steps in order to effectively climb the pyramid.

Now, the Share step is the point that most of us want to get to. Where most conversations go wrong is that people go to the Share step first. They skip Ask, they skip Listen, they skip Reflect, they skip Validate, and they immediately go to Share.

They go to Share in the form of an argument, right? We’ve talked about this before. Not only do we not go straight to Share, but when we do go to Share, we don’t go to Share in the form of an argument. We’ll talk about that.

Why We Slow Down Before We Persuade

Locke: Yeah. The whole point of why we go to Share is because that’s where our emotional strings get plucked. We get into a conversation, someone says something—or we start the conversation—and they say something that immediately sets off our own emotional defensiveness.

By way of just cultural history or practice, we go to the first thing we think of, which is, I’m going to argue back. I’m either going to yell at them, or I’m going to argue with them, or I’m going to share something, or I’m going to push back, or I’m going to say, “Hey, that’s not true.”

That’s the whole point of the Persuasion Conversation Cycle. I sometimes describe it as road bumps or speed bumps. It’s putting things in front of that instinct—little hoops you have to jump through before you let yourself get into that sharing.

Karin: Right. Well, for a lot of us, why are we in this conversation in the first place? If you’re interested in politics because you want to make a difference, then you’re probably in this conversation because, at some level, you want to persuade.

It makes a certain amount of intuitive sense that you would move to the persuade part of the conversation as quickly as possible—the overt persuasion part. But that, as we’ve talked about, is counterproductive. We’re actually getting in the way of being persuasive.

This Persuasion Conversation Cycle softens the ground because it slows us down. It allows us to build up that trust instead of rushing to the Share step before the trust is built. If we go through steps one through four first, we build up the trust. By the time we get to step five, enough trust is built that Share can be effective.

If we go to Share without building trust, it can’t be effective.

Locke: Yeah. It’s softening the ground. It’s removing the rocks. It’s getting things ready to be persuasive.

I think sometimes people get confused because they think it’s some sort of secret cheat code for persuasion. It’s really just setting you up for the best opportunity to succeed in persuasion.

Karin: Right. And if you’re wondering, Well, what is it doing? How is it softening the ground or making it ready? Well, it’s doing all of those things that we talked about over in the Pyramid of Trust.

When you go through Ask, Listen, Reflect, and Validate, you are making the other person feel comfortable. You are forming a connection. You are showing people that you comprehend them. You are demonstrating compassion. And you are establishing your credibility.

All of those things are happening simply by going through these steps.

Locke: And the whole reason for the cycle is that we forget these things. In the moment, in the emotion, in the heat of the discussion, we forget.

We can sit there and look at it and say, Okay, Ask, Listen, Reflect, Validate. Then the minute we get into a heated conversation, our brain just hijacks everything and we immediately want to go to Share.

So, the reason we stress the cycle so much and put it at the heart of Smart Politics is that, as you learn this, as you repeat this, as you practice this, as you make this muscle memory, it slows you down so that when you think, Oh, I’ve got to say this, you instead think, No, wait. First I should ask them a question. Second, I should listen to them.

It’s really just trying to put a structure in place to remind us of all the things most of us...some of you maybe already do this, and good for you...but most of us have grown up in a society and a culture that doesn’t do these things. So, we’re trying to train our brains to engage in a different way.

Karin: Right. As I’ve told you many times before, when I first came up with this model, for a long time I still had to keep it posted on my computer because when I would have online conversations with people, I would still get triggered.

I would have to remind myself, Oh, wait. What am I supposed to do again? I’d have to go back and look at the cycle and think, Oh, right. This is where I need to reflect back what I just heard.

Now I’ve done it enough times that I don’t need to do that, for the most part. Every once in a while. But it gets internalized eventually. In the beginning, though, it really does need to be very conscious.

Locke: Yeah. I’ve had this conversation with Karin a million times over the last six years. It felt, at first, very awkward and very artificial to me, and I chafed against that because it’s just not my nature. I’m not a steps, ritual, structure kind of guy.

But the idea is that, as awkward and tricky as it feels at first for some of us, it becomes easier. It becomes absorbed. You aren’t thinking about it as much. It doesn’t feel as awkward anymore. You can make it your own.

Step One: Ask with Curiosity, Not Judgment

Karin: Let’s start at the start.

Ask is really about how you initiate a conversation with someone on a political topic. A lot of times, the way we initiate conversations immediately sets the wrong tone. You have to think in terms of whether you’re setting a tone of comfort or discomfort.

You can ask a question in a way that invites people in and says, No matter what the answer to this question is, it’s okay. Or you can ask a question in a way that says, There is a right answer to this question, and there’s a wrong answer.

The key is asking in a way that says, There’s no right answer. I’m just really curious what you have to say.

Locke: Yeah. Expressing your curiosity.

Again, Karin and I are a little bit different. I prefer doing this stuff in person or on a call. You’re actually really good at doing this online. In person, so much of it is tone of voice.

I always use the example of the difference between, “Why did you vote for Trump?!” said in an antagonistic, accusatory way, versus, “I’m genuinely curious. It would really help me if you could help me understand why you voted the way you did.”

You’re asking them to explain. You’re saying, Help me understand. Just for my understanding. That’s very different from saying, You’re a bad person. Why did you do this bad thing? Which is what they hear, however you ask it.

It’s a little trickier online because it requires a little more choice of words, a little more phrasing, and easing into things a little more. But in person, it’s often just tone of voice.

Karin: Sometimes the way you can do it is by being explicit. You can say, Whatever your answer to this question is, it’s fine, especially if you think there’s going to be some pushback. You can even offer a few different possibilities.

You might say, Were you the kind of person who grudgingly voted for Trump? Or were you someone who really supported him from day one? I’m curious—what was your thought process?

If you frame it that way, both in your words and in your voice, it comes across that you’re not saying any of those answers are bad. You’re offering them in a genuinely nonjudgmental way from the very beginning.

Locke: Some strong words that I always come back to are curiosity, understand, and help me.

People generally like helping other people. Aside from moving furniture or picking someone up at the airport, most people like to help. So if you say, Hey, it would help me. I’m curious. Could you help me understand? that’s a good place to begin.

People also ask us all the time, How do you actually phrase these questions?

Right now—today, August 6, 2026—I might simply say, I’m just curious how you’re feeling about how things are going right now with the country, with the government, or with the elections coming up. You can keep it broad: What are you making of everything that’s going on around us right now?

If you have a specific topic, you just narrow it a little. I’m curious how you feel about...

One thing that came up during our webinar the other night is that there are a couple of ways you get pulled into these conversations. Sometimes somebody simply says something in front of you—online, at a holiday dinner, wherever. Somebody says, “I just can’t believe we’re letting men participate in women’s sports.” Well, they’ve already picked the topic.

Sometimes it’s actually in your best interest to let them pick the topic. It may not be what’s on your mind or in your heart, but it’s what’s bothering them. It might be a fire hose of Fox News misinformation or Republican culture-war talking points, but there are lots of ways you can work with that.

Karin: This is a hard one, I think, especially for those of us on the more progressive side, to wrap our heads around. I think we’ll address this more in the next episode when we talk about managing our emotions.

But it’s worth saying here that once you open the door to these conversations, you should be prepared for a barrage of things you may not be prepared for. They’ve probably never been asked these questions in a genuinely nonjudgmental way before—particularly not by you.

They may be really happy that you’ve asked them without judgment. They may genuinely be touched by it. And they may also say a lot of things that are going to disturb you.

Locke: Yeah. Like you said, we’re going to cover emotional management because that’s a huge part of this.

That’s one reason we stress the cycle. The cycle can feel—I hate to use the word—a little robotic. But at this stage, you almost need to be a little robotic. You need to set your own emotional reactions off to the side.

That’s why the next steps are Listen and Reflect.

Part of listening and reflecting, if you get that Fox News barrage or that fire hose of topics, is trying to understand where they’re coming from and sift through it. You’re asking yourself, Which of these topics are genuinely emotionally important to this person? Which of these are personally important? And which are simply ideas that have been dumped on them because they’ve been consuming media that’s trying to fearmonger?

You’re not going to respond to everything they just said. They might have given you six or twelve Fox News talking points or culture-war topics. Instead, you’re probably going to pick one or two that make the most sense to engage with, or you’re going to respond to the overall theme rather than every individual claim.

Step Two: Listen to Understand, Not to Respond

Karin: When people hear, Okay, now you need to listen, they think, Well, of course I listen. But the reality is that most people don’t.

What most people are actually doing while they think they’re listening is figuring out what they’re going to say next. It’s really important that when the other person is talking, you’re not doing that. Instead, you’re genuinely listening to what they’re are saying and doing your best to take it in.

There are several different things you should be listening for. You should be listening to the actual text—the words they’re saying. You should also be listening to the tone, because that’s going to tell you a lot about the emotional content of what they’re are saying.

Then you should also be listening for the subtext: what isn’t being explicitly verbalized but is implied. What assumptions are they making? What underlying values do you hear? What can you infer from what they’re telling you?

All of those things are going to be important in helping you figure out what to do next.

Locke: Now, if I were brand new to this—and I was, at one point—and you had just told me all that, I’d be freaking out. I’d be thinking, How? How do I keep track of all those things you just mentioned while I’m supposed to be listening?

For me, when I’m doing this online, like in a webinar, it’s easy because I can jot things down on a piece of paper off to the side. I’m a writer. I was a journalist. I can do that without taking myself out of the conversation too much. It gets it out of my head, and I know it’ll be there later when we get to the Reflect or Validate stages.

In person, it’s a little trickier.

Karin: Yeah. But there will be things that pop out to you. You’ll come away from what they said with an overall impression, and that’s okay. That’s what you’ll base your reflection on.

Step Three: Reflect to Show Understanding

Karin: So after you’ve listened to the best of your ability—and you’re just going to do your best, and you’ll get better every time—you simply remind yourself, I’m going to focus on hearing them out, not on what I’m going to say next.

Then, once they’ve finished, you ask yourself, What was the most important thing they wanted to communicate to me?

This is what Locke was saying before. They may have said twenty different things. They may have launched into a large conspiracy theory and given you every Fox News talking point of the day. But maybe what you noticed is that they seemed really angry. Maybe you noticed they kept coming back to Gavin Newsom.

So you might say, You talked about a lot of things, but the impression I got is that right now the thing that’s bothering you most has to do with Gavin Newsom. I’m not totally clear on why, but you seem really angry about something involving him. Am I right?

That’s a reflection. It’s basically a summary of what you understand them to have said on the issue that matters most to them. It shows that you were listening—or at least trying to listen—and it gives them an opportunity to clarify or correct you.

Now they can come back and say, Well, yeah, I am angry. Gavin Newsom went to Michigan and supported this candidate, and I’m really upset about that because I think he wants to turn the country Marxist.

Now you understand much better what’s actually going on.

You can then give a second reflection that’s even more accurate. You can say, Okay, now I get it. Specifically, what you’re upset about is that Gavin Newsom went to Michigan to support this Senate candidate, and you’re concerned that this person is a Marxist. Is that right?

And they’ll say, Yeah, exactly. You finally understand.

Locke: Yeah. And as you get better at this, it depends partly on how aware you are of what’s happening in the political landscape. Maybe you follow everything. Maybe you just catch bits and pieces.

If someone says they’re worried about transgender women playing in women’s sports, Marxist socialists taking over the country, Islamists implementing Sharia law, churches being shut down, Christians being persecuted...

...you can sometimes step back and say, It sounds like you really feel there’s a threat to your way of life and to the things you hold dear. It sounds like you feel assaulted by people who are trying to push changes on you that you find threatening.

Sometimes you can collect all of those issues into one bucket.

A few years ago it was easy because everyone complained about Biden. They’d say Biden did this, Biden did that, Biden did this, and you could simply reflect back, It sounds like you’ve really got a problem with the Biden administration.

Right now it may be more scattered. It might be the deep state. The deep state won’t let Trump do this. The deep state won’t let Trump do that. So you might say, It sounds like you’re really concerned about people in power cheating you out of your self-determination and your democracy.

Karin: And if you don’t hear one clear theme, you can simply turn it back to them and ask, You’ve listed a lot of things. Which one are you most concerned about right now?

Locke: Yeah. And sometimes you’re looking for a connection between the top two or three concerns they mention and the ones that genuinely resonate with you—the ones you’d actually like to have a conversation about.

Maybe they mention gasoline prices or grocery prices, and you think, That’s actually something I’m concerned about too. I’d like to talk more about that.

When in doubt, defer to what they’re upset about. But if there are a few things near the top of their list that you also connect with, pick the one you think you could have the best conversation about. Because it matters to you, too.

Step Four: Validation Is Not Agreement

Locke: Okay. So you’ve done the reflecting.

Karin: We did the reflecting. Now we’re moving on to Validate, which I think is the one most people find the hardest. Do you think that’s true?

Locke: Well, yes. For the sake of argument, I’ll say yes. I want to talk a little bit more about it as we get into it, but I want you to start first.

Karin: Okay. Validate is the point where you really make the other person feel good about themselves. You let them know it’s okay that they believe what they believe, even though you may very much disagree with it.

There are a number of different ways to do this. One of the simplest is to find something you agree on—something factual, even. Finding factual agreement tends to be hard, but if you can find it, more power to you.

Locke: I agree that grocery prices are too high.

Karin: Right. That’s a good one. But often it’s hard to agree on facts, policies, politicians, or parties. It tends to be much easier to agree on values. It’s easier to agree on goals. And it’s fairly easy to agree on emotions.

Let’s go back to the example we were talking about before.

Locke: Which one?

Karin: The one before the groceries.

Locke: Transgender athletes?

Karin: Okay, let’s take transgender athletes.

Let’s assume you’re on opposite sides of that issue. You’re probably in different parties, and you’re probably supporting different politicians. You’re probably not going to find agreement there.

But maybe you can say, You know what? This issue matters to me too. I care about it too.

There’s emotional resonance there.

More likely, though, the thing you’re going to connect around is the underlying value. The value might be fairness or equality. You’re simply thinking about fairness and equality in different ways.

So you can say, You know what? Fairness is really important to me too, no matter where you are on this issue. Equality is really important to me too.

Being able to say that—and then move from that kind of validation into the Share step—is huge.

Locke: Here’s one that’s probably going to come up a lot over the next few months: The election was stolen.

I can always say, Hey, I remember the fall of 2004, after the Bush-Kerry election. The day after the election, in my liberal Democrat circles, there was a lot of chatter about voting machines in Ohio. I understand that.

Or with women’s sports, if someone says they’re really upset about it, or they’re worried about Muslim Democratic Socialist candidates, I can say, I understand that’s upsetting to you. I understand that’s frightening to you. I understand it’s really got you on edge.

I always use your story here, Karin. You talk about being a psychiatrist. If someone says, I believe the CIA has put a recording device in my back molars and they’re using it to control my mind and listen to my thoughts, you don’t respond by saying, That’s crazy. They’re not doing that. That’s impossible.

You say, Wow. If I thought that was happening to me, I’d be incredibly scared and angry and freaked out too.

That’s the key. I understand why you feel the way you do.

Not that you agree the CIA put something in their teeth. You understand why they feel the way they feel if that’s what they believe is happening.

Karin: Then you can show concern. How are you coping with that? How are you handling that?

You’re showing concern for their well-being.

We’re so quick, because we don’t see the world the same way politically, to treat people badly rather than treating them as fellow human beings.

When a mentally ill person doesn’t see the world the way we do, we recognize them as a fellow human being and treat them accordingly.

I think it’s important to recognize that these are our fellow human beings too.

Locke: Show compassion, not coldness.

If someone says, I feel like my way of life is being threatened by an extremist agenda from the other side, I think most of us can honestly say, I feel the same way.

We just happen to feel that way about different sides.

Karin: And we can also say, I’m really sorry you feel that way. That must be awful.

Locke: Yeah. Compassion.

You know, at the heart of this—even with the worst trolls, even the worst online influencers, even the grifters—I try to remind myself that somewhere down in there is some pain. There is human pain and human suffering that’s causing them to act out or say the things they say.

Anyway, we got off on a little bit of a tangent there about human compassion, but it’s a good tangent.

Keep the human compassion part.

Karin: All right. We better move on to Share. We don’t have much time left.

Step Five: Sharing Without Triggering Defensiveness

Karin: All right. So once we’ve moved through Ask, Listen, Reflect, and Validate, we’ve really climbed most of that Pyramid of Trust. Now the next step is to offer our perspective.

Often, this is the point where the other person actually asks, of their own accord, what our perspective is. Sometimes it’s great—they feel sufficiently heard that they naturally become curious about where we’re coming from.

Sometimes, though, you still have to nudge it along a little. One way to do that is to offer a story. We think stories are much more effective than moving forward with an argument, for all the reasons we’ve talked about in the past. An argument triggers all those defenses and basically undoes the Pyramid of Trust. In particular, it undermines comfort, and once comfort collapses, all the layers above it collapse too.

Locke: One thing we should say at this point—we can mention this later too—is that if things feel shaky, this is where you just go back. You just go back and start again with Ask, Listen, and Reflect.

If you get into your Share step and they become defensive, their hackles go up, they start pushing back, or their voice rises a little bit, just say, “Okay, that seemed to upset you. Can you tell me why that got such an emotional reaction?”

Or simply move back into Ask and Listen.

Karin: Yep. You can always go back in the cycle. You just can’t skip forward.

The best stories are true stories—things that happened to you or to someone you know. You can also share stories about something you’ve read in the news.

What you want is a story about an individual, not a story that’s statistics-based. That’s simply because of the way the brain processes information.

For example, let’s say we’re talking about the claim that the election was stolen. If you started telling a story about a bunch of data you’d read, or about all the court cases that had been thrown out because there was no evidence supporting the president’s claims, that would likely be tuned out immediately.

But what can slip past those defenses is a story about a friend of yours who worked at a polling station where there had been accusations of irregularities, and what that experience was actually like for them—what they told you, and how they felt about it.

If you simply describe their experience, that’s actually incredibly powerful. It’s memorable. You have no reason to lie about it. It can’t really be disputed because they can’t offer counter-facts to your personal story. It’s simply your experience, and they don’t have a contrary experience with it.

Stories like that have been shown to be much more effective than stories that are packed with data.

Locke: There’s a lot more we could say about Share. In fact, I think we should probably devote an entire podcast to going deeper into it.

One thing I’ll throw out as something we can explore later is that you also want to match what you’ve learned about the other person, whether they’re someone you’ve just met or someone you’ve known your whole life.

What kinds of things resonate with them? How do they naturally communicate? We always talk about sharing stories, emotions, and experiences, but some people genuinely like facts. They want folders and binders full of research papers. You may need to meet them where they’re coming from.

Practice the Cycle Until It Becomes Natural

Locke: The other thing I want to stress again is that you keep rolling back through the cycle over and over.

We always talk about the 80–20 split. You should spend about 80% of your time listening and 20% talking. Likewise, according to this cycle, you should spend about 80% of your time asking, listening, reflecting, and validating, and only about 20% sharing.

One other thing I’ll throw into Karin’s lap before I run away is this: you always stress that people should follow the cycle in order. I think that’s true. That’s the best way to learn it.

But once you’ve absorbed these ideas, there are moments in a conversation where you suddenly realize, I should validate what they just said, or I should reflect that back.

As you internalize these skills, you start using them in the way that feels most natural to you.

On paper, the best approach is still to follow the five steps in order.

We’ve often talked about how, if you’re just starting out, maybe you don’t try to have an entire five-step conversation. Maybe you simply remind yourself that in your next few conversations—on any topic, with anyone—you are going to ask more questions and listen more.

Maybe you don’t even get to Reflect, Validate, or Share. That’s okay. You’ve practiced one skill.

Then, the following week, you decide, This week I’m really going to work on reflecting back what I hear.

Summers always make me think of baseball, so I compare this to learning muscle memory in the batter’s box.

In any sport, you work on one movement at a time. Maybe you’re learning to keep your elbow up or down. You drill that movement over and over until it becomes automatic.

That’s how I think about this cycle.

Pick one of the five steps you know you don’t do very well, and for the next week just keep it at the front of your mind. Make a conscious effort to practice that one thing.

I really do think we should dedicate an entire episode to Share.

Karin: Yeah. I think that’s a great idea, because we’ve really only scratched the surface.

Locke: I know what people are thinking. They’re hearing that poll worker story and saying, “I don’t know any poll workers. I don’t know anyone who’s had an abortion. I don’t know anyone who’s had a family member detained by ICE.”

Sometimes people get stuck because they think, I don’t have a story for that.

There are ways around that. It’s really more about incorporating the idea and the philosophy behind storytelling than having one perfect personal example for every issue.

Karin: I do want to say one last thing about Share, because people always ask, “Can you never bring facts and figures into the conversation?”

You can, particularly if you ask people first. You can say, “Are you interested in hearing my perspective on this?”

If they say yes, then you can be a little more didactic. But you still have to be very careful.

Locke: Yeah. Dr. Chris always stresses this in his webinars for us: when you get to the Share step, it never hurts to ask for consent.

“Do you mind if I share my perspective with you?”

“Do you mind if I share something I read?”

“Do you mind if I share a story I heard?”

It just continues building comfort and trust because the other person sees that you cared enough to ask whether they wanted to hear it.

Karin: Yeah. Consent is part of comfort, for sure.

Preview of the Next Episode

Locke: Next week is about emotions.

Karin: Yeah. Next time we’re going to be talking about how to do all of this without losing your cool.

Locke: Staying sane is next week’s topic.

Karin: Right. I know that’s an issue for a lot of people. We’ll also talk about how to have these conversations after you’ve had trouble in the past.

Maybe you’ve had conversations with someone that blew up, and now you want to try talking with them again. How do you do that?

Locke: A lot of our work is with people who, after nearly ten years of this, have relationships with family and friends that have become really strained. They just want to figure out how to repair those relationships.

Locke: Let me finish with a few logistical notes.

We’re back here every Thursday, at least through the next week. Then we’ll take a week off before finishing this first six-week series that introduces the core ideas of Smart Politics.

After that, we’ll be back in September with new topics, new ideas, and hopefully some Q&A sessions. Maybe we’ll even spend an entire hour just taking questions.

You can always find us at The Smart Politics Way on Karin’s Substack. That’s where you’ll find more about everything we do.

I also host a Sunday night support group—what we call Office Hours. It’s a place for people who are out there trying to have these conversations and want support. It’s also a great place if you listen to a podcast like this and think, “I understand most of it, but I’m still not quite sure how the Validate step works,” or “I’m not sure how to reflect well.”

We can walk through those skills together, and we can even practice with the AI chatbot Karin created.

If you look at the articles on our website, you’ll usually find a note at the bottom where you can sign up for email reminders about the Sunday night Office Hours.

So we’ll be back next Thursday at 3:00 p.m. Eastern for Staying Sane: Managing Your Emotions, then we’ll take a week off, finish this six-part introductory series, and return in September.

What else am I forgetting?

Karin: I think that covers it.

Locke: All right. If you know someone who would enjoy this conversation, we’ll have the recording posted on The Smart Politics Way Substack later today or tomorrow so they can watch it whenever they’d like.

All right. Thank you very much.

Karin: Thanks, everybody.

Locke: Thank you, everyone.

Karin: Thanks so much. We’ll see you next week, hopefully.

Available for iOS and Android

LIVE This Thurs, Aug 6, 3 pm ET: Have Better Political Conversations

Locke Peterseim — Tue, 04 Aug 2026 15:58:34 GMT

RSVP here for a reminder

or to join the podcast LIVE at 3 pm ET Thurs, Aug 6

Sorry we were waylaid for a few weeks, but we’re back THIS THURSDAY, AUGUST 6, 3 PM ET!

Each week, we tackle some of the biggest challenges facing people who want to defend democracy without sacrificing their relationships, their well-being, or their humanity. Karin and I will discuss the pertinent Smart Politics topics and then open it up to questions from you, the attendees.

THIS WEEK: THURSDAY, Aug. 6, 3 pm ET

Have Better Political Conversations

Once we understand why conversations break down and what actually changes minds, the next question is how to put that knowledge into practice.

• What should happen before persuasion?
• Why is listening so powerful?
• What does validation actually mean?
• How can we disagree without becoming enemies?
• What does a productive political conversation actually look like?

We’ll introduce the Smart Politics Persuasion Conversation Cycle and discuss practical ways to use it in everyday life.

If you have questions for us in advance, share them in the comments below, and we’ll try to get to them during the live podcast.

The podcast will air live here on Substack usually on Thursdays Recordings will be available afterwards here and on YouTube and other podcast platforms.

NEXT WEEK’S EPISODE!

Thurs, August 13, 3 pm ET: Staying Sane

Political engagement can be exhausting. Many people feel caught between self-care and responsibility, wondering whether they should keep engaging or step back.

We’ll discuss emotional regulation, boundaries, and sustainable engagement.

Upcoming schedule and topics

(Subject to change)

Thursday, August 20 — No podcast
Thurs, August 27, 3 pm ET: Are You Making a Difference?
After this initial six-episode introductory series, our hope and plan is to continue this podcast going forward into September, the fall, and beyond, usually on Thursdays at 3 pm ET. Stay tuned later this month for the next round of upcoming topics!

Thanks for reading The Smart Politics Way! This post is public so feel free to share it.

What is the Smart Politics Way?

Want to learn more about Smart Politics and get involved?

Most Sunday nights we meet on Zoom to teach, share, and support one another. Sign up for email reminders about these weekly “Office Hour” calls
Smart Politics Website

is the Smart Politics Content Manager.

THIS SUNDAY! Our FREE Smart Politics Intro Webinar, Aug. 2, 7 pm ET

Locke Peterseim — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 17:01:55 GMT

Sunday, August 2, 2026, 7 pm ET, we’re continuing our 101/Intro webinars!

Sign up now or share this with others!

This 101 webinar will be essentially the same as presented in April and June, but if you were unable to attend those, here’s another chance. Or if you were able to attend before and know of others who might get something from this webinar, please share this with them!

I’ll be helping Smart Politics member Dr. Christopher Hale host a 2-hour intro webinar that will introduce newcomers (and anyone needing a little refresher) to the basic approaches and methods of Smart Politics, including the how’s and why’s it works and an introduction to Smart Politics tools like the Trust Pyramid and the Persuasion Conversation Cycle.

Maybe you’ve been reading the articles here on Substack but crave a concise 2-hour 101 breakdown.
Maybe you’re brand new to Smart Politics (welcome!) and want to hear what we’re all about.
Maybe you’re familiar with the Smart Politics methods, but have questions or need a refresher.
Maybe you know others who’d benefit from learning these methods. Please share!

If so, check it out!

Webinar Description

At this tumultuous time in American history, helping people understand and embrace other points of view has never been more important. But with political polarization, online echo chambers, and billionaire-owned media conglomerates, the task of reaching people has never felt more challenging.

But there is a way to truly persuade people, backed by scientific studies and a wealth of real-world experience.

Whether you’re a seasoned activist trying to persuade a MAGA supporter on the campaign trail, or a political novice speaking to a family member across the dinner table, this session will equip you with the fundamental skills to initiate and navigate conversations that help others change their hearts and minds.

In this introductory session, we’ll explore the core principles of Smart Politics—a form of political advocacy that intertwines psychological insight with political acumen.

You’ll learn:

why our instincts for how to win an argument frequently cause people to dig in their heels.
why using reason and evidence doesn’t change minds.
how to overcome political polarization.
how to get someone to actually listen to and consider your point of view.
the necessary steps to help someone change their mind, and for that change to last!

You’ll leave with concrete tools to make your very next political conversation more persuasive and lower the temperature with loved ones and even online strangers. Plus, you’ll join an active community of persuasion practitioners who are using these powerful skills to make our country and the world a better place.

About Smart Politics

Founded in 2017 by political psychiatrist Dr. Karin Tamerius, Smart Politics teaches progressives, liberals, Democrats, and everyone else on the Left and in the middle how to have more productive and persuasive conversations with folks on the Right, including conservatives, Republicans, Trump voters, and MAGA. The Smart Politics approach works to lower defensiveness and improve communication and persuasion by focusing on concrete steps that can build trust and connection in conversation.

About the instructors

Dr. Christopher Hale is a practicing ER physician who became a volunteer political organizer after the 2016 election of Donald Trump. Like many, he began by phone-banking and door-to-door canvassing for multiple campaigns and organizations. Later, he took on larger organizing responsibilities in groups such as Smart Politics, the Deep Canvassing Institute, and Sister District (now known as States Win).

At a time when political polarization and extremism is on the rise, Dr. Hale has maintained a deep interest in how to change hearts and minds. Building on his own experience in ways to quickly build rapport with patients in the stressful environment of the ER, he continues to explore and teach the most effective and research-supported techniques to communicate with and persuade people on the other side of the political spectrum.

Locke Peterseim is the Smart Politics Content Manager. He’s worked with Dr. Tamerius for the past six years, co-hosting webinars, leading support groups, teaching conversational methods, and writing Substack articles.

Join Us for our next FREE Smart Politics Intro Webinar, Aug. 2, 7 pm ET!

Locke Peterseim — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 14:01:10 GMT

Sunday, August 2, 2026, 7 pm ET, we’re continuing our 101/Intro webinars!

Maybe you’ve been reading the articles here on Substack but crave a concise 2-hour 101 breakdown.
Maybe you’re brand new to Smart Politics (welcome!) and want to hear what we’re all about.
Maybe you’re familiar with the Smart Politics methods, but have questions or need a refresher.
Maybe you know others who’d benefit from learning these methods. Please share!

If so, check it out!

Webinar Description

But there is a way to truly persuade people, backed by scientific studies and a wealth of real-world experience.

In this introductory session, we’ll explore the core principles of Smart Politics—a form of political advocacy that intertwines psychological insight with political acumen.

You’ll learn:

why our instincts for how to win an argument frequently cause people to dig in their heels.
why using reason and evidence doesn’t change minds.
how to overcome political tribalism.
how to get someone to actually listen to and consider your point of view.
the necessary steps to help someone change their mind, and for that change to last!

About Smart Politics

About the instructors

POSTPONED: This Week's Live Podcast

Locke Peterseim — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 20:33:57 GMT

Hi folks, just a heads up that we will not be able to host a live stream podcast this week, as was scheduled for this Thursday, July 16.

We’ll plan to be back next week, the week of July 20, exact date and time TBD.

Next episode:

Week of July 20, date and time TBD: Have Better Political Conversations

Once we understand why conversations break down and what actually changes minds, the next question is how to put that knowledge into practice.

We’ll introduce the Smart Politics Persuasion Conversation Cycle and discuss practical ways to use it in everyday life.

Upcoming schedule and topics

(Subject to change)

Thurs, July 30, TIME TBD, possibly 5 pm ET: Staying Sane
Thurs, August 6, 3 pm ET: Are You Making a Difference?

More about Smart Politics

Most Sunday nights we meet on Zoom to teach, share, and support one another. Sign up for email reminders about these weekly “Office Hour” calls
The Smart Politics Toolbox
Smart Politics Website

Locke Peterseim is the Smart Politics Content Manager.

Smart Politics RECORDING: If Facts Don’t Work, What Does?

Locke Peterseim — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 21:29:11 GMT

Thanks to everyone who attended and asked questions!

Full episode transcript below, including:

Why Facts Don’t Change Minds
The Debate Trap
The Stories We Tell Ourselves
Who You’re Really Talking To (Hint: Probably Not Extremists)
Why Courtroom Logic Fails
Why Defensiveness Stops Facts at the Door
The Elephant Runs the Show: Haidt’s Elephant and Rider:
When Intelligent People Reject Facts and Evidence
Trust Is Faster Than Reason
Political Identity and Party Loyalty: Why People Follow Trusted Leaders and Outsource Political Decision-Making
The Slow Road to Changing Minds
Building the Trust Pyramid
Audience Q&A:
- How and when to share sources and articles
- Is This Manipulation? The Ethics of Persuasion
- Can You Trust Someone You Still Disagree With?
Final Takeaway: Don’t Lead With Facts—Lead With Trust

Next episode:

Thurs, July 16, 3 pm ET: Have Better Political Conversations

Once we understand why conversations break down and what actually changes minds, the next question is how to put that knowledge into practice.

We’ll introduce the Smart Politics Persuasion Conversation Cycle and discuss practical ways to use it in everyday life.

Upcoming schedule and topics

(Subject to change)

TUESDAY, July 2I, 3 pm ET: Staying Sane
Thurs, July 30, TIME TBD, possibly 5 pm ET: Are You Making a Difference?

Thanks for reading The Smart Politics Way! This post is public so feel free to share it.

Most Sunday nights we meet on Zoom to teach, share, and support one another. Sign up for email reminders about these weekly “Office Hour” calls
The Smart Politics Toolbox
Smart Politics Website

Locke Peterseim is the Smart Politics Content Manager.

FULL TRANSCRIPT — MONDAY, JULY 6, 2026

Why Facts Don’t Change Minds

Dr. Karin Tamerius: Hi, everybody. Good morning. Welcome to The Smart Politics Way.

Today we are going to be talking about a totally different question, which is: Why do facts not work in our conversations with people we disagree with?

I know for a lot of people, we get into political dialogues and it feels like we’re hitting up against a wall. A lot of us have been taught, whether in school or in our professional lives, that what we do if we want to persuade someone is come up with a really strong thesis and a bunch of evidence to support it. Then we present our thesis, we present the evidence, the other person presents why they think that evidence is wrong, and then we come up with a rebuttal. This is supposed to be a very effective way of persuading someone.

Today we’re going to talk about why, when we actually do that, it really doesn’t seem to work.

The Debate Trap

Locke Peterseim: My name is Locke. I’m the Content Manager for Smart Politics, and that’s Dr. Karin, the founder of Smart Politics.

One of the things I always think about, because I’m a pop culture guy, is that you always approach it from debate club. You were in debate club, and I was not. But we all ingest courtroom shows. I always think about The West Wing. The West Wing was a wonderful show. We all loved it. But it corrupted our minds in some ways. We think that if you have a really powerful walk-and-talk down a hallway and you make this really strong argument with really strong facts backing it up, that’ll convince somebody and they’ll change their mind.

A lot of it just comes from the nature of pop culture. Everything has to be resolved in fifty minutes, so everything is shorthand. I think we’ve ingested that shorthand into our psyches, where we think, “Oh, I just need to give the right speech, in the right way, with the right facts, and everything will be resolved by the fifty-five-minute mark.”

Karin: Right. But what we’ve actually found is that when we get into these conversations, whether it’s about what’s going on with the environment, January 6th, QAnon, vaccines, the vast number of Trump’s crimes, or his corruption, the actual response is just kind of stonewalling and sometimes anger. Sometimes people seem to dig their heels in. But regardless of what our facts are, they don’t seem to make a difference.

That leads to a tremendous amount of frustration and angst. It causes us, a lot of times, to feel like maybe they’re just kind of stupid. Maybe they don’t want to hear the facts. Maybe they have no interest in doing the right thing. Maybe they’re intentionally making bad decisions. Maybe they don’t care about the good of the nation.

So today we’re really going to dig into what’s actually going on here, maybe a better way to think about what’s going on, and a better way to approach this.

The Stories We Tell Ourselves

Locke: Yeah. I always say we often need to check our bubble biases as we go into this.

I always tell the story about when I started teaching high school back in the early ’90s. I went in assuming that every student I was teaching, out of the hundred students I had every day, was going to be like I was when I was fifteen years old, and that the things that worked for me, that got me interested or controlled my discipline, would work for everybody else.

It’s the same thing here. I love it when someone gives me a stack of binders to read. I love it when someone gives me an article to read. That may or may not describe the majority of the people you’re talking to. They don’t respond that way.

So, we go into it thinking, “Well, these are the things that convinced me to change my mind or believe this thing. If I just repeat that to this other person, it’ll automatically change their mind.” We get caught up in our own biases about what we’re doing.

Karin: This is true, but I will also add, Locke, that we often are not good historians about ourselves. We often aren’t always clear about why we believe what we believe. The reality of how we came to our beliefs might actually be very different from the rational stories we tell ourselves.

It might have a lot more to do, for example, with who our parents were, the neighborhood we grew up in, the university we went to, or who our friends were. Those might be the most important factors in the political beliefs we end up with, even though we tell ourselves it was all because of the rational decisions we made and the facts we reviewed.

Locke: Well, and also, to follow up on what I was saying earlier about pop culture, we’ve edited things into a narrative in our heads that’s a tight, compact story. We think, “Oh, I used to be like this, then someone told me something, and then I changed.” And that was twenty years ago, and we forget that, no, it was actually a year-long process of mulling things over and struggling with them.

So, we edit our memories into a much more concise narrative than what actually happened.

Karin: Very good. Before we dive in any further, let’s do a quick recap of who we are, what this series is, and why we’re here.

As Locke said, I’m Dr. Karin. I’m a political psychiatrist. What that means is I’m trained in political science, with an emphasis in political psychology. Political psychology is the study of how people make their decisions in politics, how they decide how to behave, and why they behave the way they do.

I’m also a medical doctor, specifically in the field of psychiatry, which means I know a lot about psychotherapy and how to talk with people, how to communicate in a way that helps them lower their defenses.

One of the things I really try to do as a political psychiatrist is bring those skills into the political realm so we can communicate in ways that help people lower their defenses, so we can hear each other better.

Locke, would you like to say a tiny bit more about yourself?

Locke: There’s not much. I’m Locke. I’m the Content Manager. I’m in Iowa today. I’ll be in Chicago next week. I bounce back and forth between Iowa and Chicago.

There’s a trend in films lately where they have what they call the “late credits,” where the opening credits come about fifteen minutes into the movie instead of at the beginning. That’s what we just did. We did about ten minutes of content, and then suddenly—bam!—here are the credits.

So…you ready to go?

Who You’re Really Talking To (Hint: Probably Not Extremists)

Karin: Ready to dive into it? Let’s just say a little bit more about Smart Politics.

Smart Politics is an organization dedicated specifically to helping progressives communicate more persuasively, more productively, with people we disagree with. Often that is Republicans. Sometimes it is people at the very far end of the spectrum. It could be Trump voters. It could be white nationalists. But at the same time, it could be someone who’s really right in the middle of the political spectrum. It could be someone who’s completely apolitical and has never voted in their lives.

It’s also here to help you with people you consider to be in your own community, because sometimes the people who make us most angry are our friends. When your friend is disagreeing with you and you expect them to agree with you, that can be really upsetting. It can feel like a major betrayal. So we also help with questions like, How do you communicate when your best leftist friend has a different position than you on a trans issue? No matter what problem you’re dealing with in communicating as a progressive on these issues, we’re here to help.

Locke: Yeah. And I always say there are some folks who come to us because they’ve had specific experiences with relatives. They’ve had a conversation with an uncle, or a brother, or a son, or a daughter, and they’ve had it go badly.

A lot of folks, especially online, are more like—they haven’t necessarily had these conversations, but they have an idea in their head of who they’re talking to. I always hammer on this point that when Karin says white nationalists or neo-Nazis at the far end, most of the people you’re going to talk to are not going to be that. They’re going to be much more apathetic.

You’re going to find someone who’s like, “Well, yeah, I voted for Trump,” and they give you a reason that seems like a pretty shallow, throwaway reason to someone who’s steeped in politics.

I don’t want to scare people off. Sometimes I think people hear, “Oh, you could talk to Klan members. You could talk to white nationalists,” and they’re like, “Oh God, one of those people.” That’s not who you’re going to be talking to most of the time. Most of the time it’s someone who’s just like, “Oh yeah, I voted for Trump because he’s kind of funny.” And that may actually be more frustrating for you than talking to a white nationalist in some ways.

So, I’m just saying it’s a wide spectrum. As Karin said, a lot of folks are just kind of floating in the middle. Especially right now, with the combination of the elections coming up in the fall and the general discouragement and disconnection that a lot of Trump voters are having right now, a lot of them are just sort of backing away from politics. They’re kind of saying, “Look, this didn’t go the way I thought it would. Trump’s there. Okay, what am I going to do about it? Well, I’m not going to do anything. I’m just going to go back to my hobbit hole and not worry about this stuff.” So people are all over the place.

Karin: Right. This is probably a good time to mention that when we’re talking about having these conversations across differences, we’re always talking about peer-to-peer conversations. We are not talking about conversations between people with significant power imbalances. We’re not talking about someone from a historically marginalized community having a conversation with someone who poses a major threat to them. Those conversations should be had by somebody who has a lot more power.

Locke: Yeah. Privilege is really important. It’s a super factor in these conversations.

Why Courtroom Logic Fails

Karin: All right. So back to the question at hand.

Locke: So, you were brought up in a debate environment, as far as possible.

Unidentified Speaker: Hugely.

Locke: Your husband is an attorney.

Karin: My husband is an attorney. I met my husband through high school debate. That is how.

Locke: So, my point is, we always say you don’t want to be a politician, a preacher, or a prosecutor in these conversations, right? So, you kind of came at it from the debate point of view.

Karin: I did, and I had to really unlearn that.

Locke: So, what went wrong? What goes wrong? I see this all the time online, especially with folks who follow us. They’re like, “Why can’t I just…?” They even ask us questions in a kind of debate form. So, what’s wrong with debating? We’ve all been told that’s how you convince people—you debate them.

Karin: Right. I mean, even the first time you’re taught to write—the five-paragraph essay. You’re a high school English teacher, right?

Locke: I can tell you what it is right now.

Karin: You come up with the evidence, you support it, and you write your conclusion. It’s an introduction, three supporting points—and a conclusion. It’s an argument. That is how we are taught is the proper way to communicate. And it is a great way to communicate. It is. But it is very context-specific, and that’s what we’re not taught. We’re not taught that it is contingent.

So, what I’m going to teach you today is the contingency.

Here’s the contingency.

Debate is really great for resolving differences in a situation where there is an impartial judge or jury. In a situation where you have someone who is listening and making a decision based on the evidence, who has no prior disposition about it, who is capable of listening with an open mind because they haven’t already made up their mind in any significant way, then they are able to hear that evidence, take it in, weigh it, and come to a reasoned conclusion.

That’s why we have judges and juries. That is exactly how a courtroom functions. It works. It’s a remarkably robust and powerful system.

Now, when you are in a conversation with someone, particularly a political conversation, what is going on is not that you’re talking with someone who is an impartial judge or jury. You’re talking with someone who already has a very strong prior opinion about the issue at hand.

And not only are they not an impartial judge or jury, it’s more like you’re actually having a conversation with the other prosecutor or defense attorney.

Let’s imagine you were in that courtroom and, instead of speaking to the judge or jury, you’re the prosecutor trying to convince the defendant to plead guilty. You’re the prosecutor. You’re going up to the defendant and saying, “You’re guilty. Just admit it. You’re guilty.”

The defendant is not going to admit that. It doesn’t work. We’ve seen that on cross-examination. It doesn’t happen.

That’s essentially what’s transpiring in a conversation. The defendant would become very defensive by nature, and they’re not going to give you any ground. The prosecutor is going to maintain the position that the defendant did wrong things, so they’re just going to stick by their evidence because that’s their job. No progress will be made, and nothing will be accomplished.

That is exactly what’s transpiring in conversations where we try to engage as if it’s a debate.

Locke: Yeah. And I think, again, we have this sort of idea that we’re arguing or debating in a context and on a landscape that is equal, where everybody’s going to be open-minded and listen. We’ve known this throughout human history, but it’s become increasingly apparent during the social media age, as polarization and algorithms manipulate us, that we’re not in that kind of environment.

A lot of what we’re working on in Smart Politics is just trying to get us back to the point where you might be able to feel like you’re two reasonable people sitting at a table, having a reasonable debate about issues. That would be wonderful if we could actually do that in an imaginary, perfect world. But the fact is, you’re swimming upstream against a lot of emotions and feelings, which I know you’re going to get to next.

Karin: Yeah. There is one place where you might be able to get away with just presenting your thesis, your evidence, and drawing a conclusion, and that’s when the other person doesn’t have a prior opinion on the subject. Then it’s not really a debate. You’re just making your case, and they don’t have any reason to be defensive because they have no position to protect.

If you go to someone and say, “Hey, I have this proposition. I’m in favor of it. Have you heard anything about it?” and they’re like, “No,” and you say, “Well, let me tell you a little bit about it. I think you should vote for it,” and then you make your case, they’re much more likely to hear you out and say, “Yeah, I’m going to vote in favor of that. That sounds like the right position.”

Because that kind of situation works, I think it sometimes gives us the false impression that that’s always how it should work.

Locke: Yeah. It’s like the difference between someone coming up to you and saying, “Hey, I know you like music. I like music too. Could you recommend some music to me?” They’re asking you to share something. They’re asking you for information.

As opposed to them saying, “I love heavy metal. You like country. Let’s fight.”

If someone is coming to you and saying, “Hey, I don’t understand what’s going on with this particular issue. Could you talk to me about it?” that’s wonderful. That’s a chance to share, and even then you want to share in a way that’s not going to make them defensive.

But that’s unlikely in our environment these days. More often, people come into the conversation saying, “I believe this.”

Karin: “…and you’re wrong.”

Why Defensiveness Stops Facts at the Door

Locke: Yeah. So, I think this really gets to the heart of what a lot of folks ask: Why do people reject facts and evidence? I’ve got these articles. I’ve seen these things on MSNBC. I’ve seen things in The New York Times or The Washington Post. I know the facts about, say, the Reflecting Pool. I know what happened there. Let me just share this with you. Let me present these facts, give you these articles and this evidence, and then you’ll see the light.

So why doesn’t that work?

Karin: One thing to keep in mind is what we talked about last time, which is that people are defensive. There’s a little bit of ego involved. I don’t want to hear that my prior position was wrong. There’s a little bit of group identity involved, which is that I don’t want to hear that my group is wrong because I’m very dependent on my group. There’s a little bit of protecting my worldview and protecting my cognitive resources. There are all these kinds of defensive processes that automatically go up.

Locke: And I always say, feelings don’t care about your facts.

The Elephant Runs the Show: Haidt’s Elephant and Rider

Karin: Feelings don’t care about your facts.

One of the really helpful metaphors for thinking about all of this comes from Jonathan Haidt, the author of The Righteous Mind. I will say that The Righteous Mind is one of those books that I recommend to everybody. It’s one of the few books where I say, “Yes, that is a book worth getting if you’re interested in political psychology.” There are very few books out there that I say are worth having and reading.

He has this wonderful metaphor to help us understand this tendency of the mind to reject facts. He says that the mind is divided like a rider on an elephant. The rider is the rational, logical part of the mind. The elephant represents the emotional part of the mind. It’s the gut, instinctive, just-what-you-feel part.

The rider is very conscious, very aware, very linguistically able. The elephant is very groupish, very attuned to identity and the herd. We tend to think the rider is in charge, but when you think about it, the elephant, given its size, actually has a lot more power in this relationship.

The rider may want the elephant to do something, but the reality is, if the elephant wants to go somewhere, the rider has no choice but to go with it.

This is really how our minds work. The emotional elephant is in charge, with the rider kind of going along for the ride.

Now, does that mean reason doesn’t matter or logic doesn’t matter? Absolutely not. Logic and reason get to work at the margins. Logic and reason can gently encourage the elephant to behave in different ways. The rider can communicate with other riders around it, they can coordinate, and they can soothe each other’s elephants.

Another thing the rider can do—and this is really important—is that the rider is super adept at rationalizing anything the elephant does. It often does this after the fact.

The elephant doesn’t care about facts, so it’s going to continue on its path. Then the rider is going to figure out why those facts were rejected and explain them away in whatever way it can, whatever story it can come up with to do that.

Locke: It’s the Pee-wee Herman, “I meant to do that.” The elephant charges ahead, tramples a gate, and you’re like, “Well…okay, I meant to do that.”

We see this play out all the time with people who are still supporting everything Donald Trump does. They’ll say, “Okay, I want Trump to do this,” and then he does the opposite. Within ten minutes they’ve come up with a way of saying, “Well, I wanted him to do that opposite thing too. That’s what I really wanted.”

We’ve seen that with immigration. We saw that with Iran. We saw it with the Reflecting Pool.

When Intelligent People Reject Facts and Evidence

Locke: One of the things I kind of left out of my first question was that we all think, “Really smart people want facts. They want evidence. Really smart people wouldn’t fall for these rationalizations.” But that’s exactly the opposite, right?

Karin: It’s the exact opposite. The more educated a person is, the faster-thinking someone is, the quicker they are on their feet, actually the more adept their rider is at rationalizing the actions of the elephant.

So, it is harder to persuade someone rationally when they are smart.

There’s some really fascinating research on this. They’ve done this with both Democrats and Republicans, so this is not a partisan thing. They’ve looked at people with really good math skills and people with less-good math skills, and they’ve shown them policy proposals and had them make calculations that are contrary to their partisan stances. Suddenly, the people who are good at math get worse at math. They make significantly more mistakes than the other people in order to align themselves with their partisan position.

Locke: Yeah. I won’t go into my whole little list, but there are a lot of folks over the past twenty years who started out on the left—writers and pundits we followed—who, in the past ten years, have turned completely to the right and gone really far, what we feel is really far down the right wing. I could list names, but that’s part of it. They have really sharply attuned critical-thinking skills, and they’ve used those critical-thinking skills to rationalize or justify a particular point. It’s led them off the path in ways that were sometimes shocking.

If you ever want to check this, go to your bookshelf and look at books you loved five or ten years ago, then look at what the authors are up to now. And you’re like, “Oh, wow.” So, again, I won’t name names, but they pop up all the time in my experience.

Do you want to talk a little bit about what actually works? We’ve talked a lot about the defensiveness. We’ve talked about why really smart people are good at defending themselves.

Trust Is Faster Than Reason

Karin: Let me just first say, what that metaphor shows us is that we have to pay a lot more attention to the elephant than to the rider. A lot of us get really distracted by the rider, when the power really rests with the elephant. That’s a lot of what Smart Politics is about.

What the research shows is that there are really two primary routes to persuasion. One is via trust, and that runs directly through the elephant. If the elephant trusts you, it’s going to follow you. It’s basically going to do what you want it to do.

This is something we all understand intuitively because it permeates our lives through marketing and advertising. Somebody we like and trust talks about a product, and suddenly everyone wants it. An entire industry is built upon that pathway of persuasion.

Political Identity and Party Loyalty: Why People Follow Trusted Leaders and Outsource Political Decision-Making

Karin: In politics, what that looks like is your political party nominates a person for public office and you vote for them. Now, a lot of us feel like, “Well, I don’t vote for them just because my political party nominates them.” And that may be true. But for most people, most of the time, the decision about who they’re going to vote for is decided by who their party nominates. That’s because they trust their political party more than they trust themselves, or more than they have the time and energy to go out and collect that information themselves.

Locke: And not even so much that they trust their political party. They just have—that’s their identity. That’s their political identity.

My mom voted for Trump because she was a Republican, and then she backtracked to come up with the reasons why that was okay.

We do the same thing. You could talk to a lot of folks who voted for Hillary Clinton or Kamala Harris. They’d say, “I voted for them because they were the candidate, and they were opposed to Trump.” Maybe we do or don’t have one hundred percent alignment on all the issues with them. Maybe we overlooked flaws. But we voted for our identity.

Karin: Yeah. I think that’s a little tricky to sort out—trust and identity there. I have to think about that a little bit. How much are we using it as a cue versus how much are we doing it as something we’re doing in support of our team? One is something you do for your group. One is something your group is almost doing for you. They’re probably both going on simultaneously.

Locke: So, these are all examples of fast trust—what we would call knee-jerk trust.

Karin: Yeah. And I think this is really helpful for understanding those changes that I think you were referencing earlier that MAGA folks make, where they turn on a dime.

For the longest time, MAGA was very anti-war. Then Trump decides to attack Venezuela. Then Trump attacks Iran. Yes, there were some people who broke with Trump, but the vast majority stayed with him. That was because of trust.

They follow him no matter what he does because they trust him. That is that fast path. They don’t have to analyze it. They don’t have to think about it. It just automatically happens because they inherently trust whatever he does.

Locke: Yeah. And you can correct me if I’m wrong about this, but I always feel like there’s almost a real-time process to this.

If something happens suddenly, or Trump makes an announcement that goes against what a lot of his followers have said they believe, you’ve got to talk to them right then because, in that moment, they’re a little bit lost. They’re a little bit shaken. They’re thinking, “Wait, that’s not what I voted for. That’s not what I thought Trump was about.”

Within twelve or twenty-four hours, either the administration or Fox News will give them talking points to help them rationalize the difference.

The basic thing we keep repeating, ad nauseam, is that most people are just happy to take those talking points.

I’m not a car mechanic. I don’t want to mess around with my car. I want to drop it off with somebody else who will fix it and give it back to me three hours later so I can get on with the rest of my day.

The vast majority of folks we’re talking to are not like us. They’re not going to sit around tinkering with their car or figuring out the political or ethical ramifications of everything. They’re saying, “Please, somebody just tell me what I should be doing so I can get on with my life.”

Fox News, propaganda, or the White House are more than happy to give them those talking points within a few hours of a major cognitive disruption.

Karin: Right. And this kind of brings me to the next point I want to make, which is that a lot of us who are much more politically engaged, and kind of politically obsessed, look down on this tendency in other people.

I think it’s really important to understand that the average American does not have the inclination or the resources to be as politically engaged as we are. Most people have far less time, less energy, and less information. Politics is not something that is inherently interesting to them. They may not have been socialized in a political environment, so they don’t know how to navigate it at all. It feels like a foreign world. They don’t even know how to go about informing themselves politically or how to engage politically.

If you’re in that situation, it actually makes perfect sense to outsource your voting decisions or your political beliefs to others you trust, whether that be a family member, a church, a community, or a political party. If you trust them, then, for some reason, you believe they’ll make a better decision than you. And let’s face it—that’s what unions and political parties are all about: helping people make better decisions.

So I think it’s really important that we don’t look down on this particular method of political decision-making. It’s fundamental for a huge swath of the American public on both the right and the left.

Locke: Yeah. I’ve always thought I was a fairly informed liberal, and even I do this.

When I’m in Chicago before an election, we get those lists from law groups saying, “Here’s the judges you should vote for. Here’s how we rank these judges.” I’m not going to know who most of those judges are, unless they’re personal friends, which has occasionally happened.

So, yeah, we take those shortcuts too. We say, “Okay, I know the politicians I’m going to vote for, but I don’t know anything about these judges.” They give you a list, and we say, “Okay, I trust this law association, so I’m going to follow their recommendations.”

So, are we getting into the slow reasoning part of this now?

The Slow Road to Changing Minds

Karin: Yeah, I think we’re ready now. I think we’ve covered the fast path. The fast path is pretty easy to understand, right? All right. So that was the first route to persuasion.

The second route to persuasion is not fast. It’s surprisingly slow. This is the route that most of us are trying to take when we debate. It is a thinking, reasoning, logical path where we collect information, deliberate about that information, try to integrate it with what we already know, weigh the advantages and disadvantages, and come to some kind of new decision or new understanding about how things are.

In the political realm, a very simple version of this is that there’s a proposition on the ballot and you don’t know anything about it. You go out, you gather information, you read arguments for and against it, maybe you talk to a friend or two to see what they’re thinking about doing, and based on that you decide, “Okay, I think this is a good idea, and I’m going to vote for it.”

That is slow reasoning. You are not doing it on the basis of trust. You are doing it on the basis of evidence, argumentation, and logic, to the best of your ability.

This is not just slow. It is very energy-intensive. It demands attention. It demands cognition. And arguably, there is very little payoff.

What I mean by that is there are political scientists out there who argue that this is a very irrational behavior. There are political scientists who argue that people who do this research are behaving totally irrationally because it’s so unlikely that your vote is actually going to matter that it’s just a waste of your time.

To be fair, those same political scientists also pretty much argue that voting is probably irrational.

Locke: So you took us down a rabbit hole of the kind of extreme outlier.

Karin: But here’s another interesting thing. This kind of reasoning on your own is also highly error-prone. Human beings do not actually do very well reasoning on our own. We make a lot of mistakes. We’re not very good at researching by ourselves. We’re not very good at thinking by ourselves.

We’re much better at reasoning in groups and gathering information in groups. So that’s something to keep in mind.

Locke: And I don’t want to drag us down another rabbit hole, but that’s one of the things we’ve seen with the rise of AI, especially in the past couple of years.

AI is telling us the things we want to hear, and it’s making mistakes because it’s trying to please us. We’re just using AI as an extension of our own minds in that case. We would normally come up with those error-prone rationalizations ourselves, but now we’ve got AI to do it for us.

It’s like it says, “Oh no, you’re right. You’re absolutely right. Here’s why.”

So, yeah, we make mistakes, and then, like we said earlier about smart people, we drive ourselves deeper into those mistakes because we’re good at rationalizing the errors.

Karin: So, these are kind of idealized paths. These are pure, basic paths. They aren’t the only ways that persuasion happens. If these were the only paths, we couldn’t explain a lot of what actually happens in persuasion.

Now that you understand these two paths, what I really want you to think about is what I consider the most important path, which is the way persuasion most often happens: first through a trust path, then a reasoning and thinking path, and then persuasion.

So it’s really a two-step process. It’s not just one of these pathways operating by itself. That’s really important because that’s really what we’re doing in Smart Politics.

Building the Trust Pyramid

Karin: I know we talk a lot about trust. Trust is extremely important in Smart Politics. But we are not just asking people to trust us and then agree with us. That is absolutely contrary to what we want to have happen because one of our most important values is autonomy.

We want people to figure out for themselves what they think and believe about politics. What we’re encouraging them to do is really rethink their beliefs in light of their values, in light of a more thorough understanding of the facts. We want to give them room to do that, a space to do that.

So, we are not trying to build a trust pathway by which our beliefs are simply imposed upon them. So that’s really important.

Maybe this is a good time to introduce the trust pyramid. Just as a reminder, we talked about that in our last episode.

The first step, really, in any Smart Politics conversation is to establish trust with the person we’re talking with. Because if you don’t have trust in a conversation, you’re not going to get anywhere. It’s going to completely fall apart.

We see trust as going through five levels. You start from the bottom of this pyramid and work your way up. If, at any point, a lower level in the pyramid collapses, then everything on top of it falls apart.

So, at the bottom of the pyramid is comfort. That means making people feel safe, like they won’t be judged.

The second level is connection—feeling a sense of bonding, friendship, feeling that you have things in common.

The next level is comprehension—feeling like they’re seen, like you understand them, who they are in some significant way.

The next level is compassion—that you care about them as a person, not just about yourself or people like you.

And then finally, credibility. This is where we try to show that we are at least trying not to be biased, that we are capable of admitting when we’re wrong, and that we are open to learning new things.

That’s the pyramid. In the coming episodes—maybe even the next episode—we’re going to talk about exactly how to do those things.

Locke: Yeah. I always teach it as the pyramid is what we’re trying to climb. We’re trying to climb this pyramid and build these levels. When we get to the Persuasion Conversation Cycle, I always think of that as the bicycle, or the wheel, that we use to climb the pyramid. That’s more the nuts-and-bolts conversation stuff.

Audience Q&A

Locke: Quick little programming question here. We’ve got technically about ten minutes if we keep this at an hour. We’ve got a really active chat room today—a lot of questions. Do you want to take some now, or do you want to kind of wrap this up and then—

Karin: Let’s go ahead. Let’s go to the questions, and then we can come back to these later.

Locke: Yeah. I apologize in advance if I skip over some of you. I’m just going to try to pick out some questions here.

So, we’re talking about debate. Hillel asks, “Isn’t it a matter of disposition or training? I know some people can, in effect, debate an issue in person or online with facts and reasoning without a third, impartial-party judge.”

I think we’re talking here about what we mean by the word debate. You were talking more about debate club, where there’s a moderator, or a courtroom where there’s a judge. But there are people who debate online who don’t have an impartial moderator or decider. That’s a skill, right?

Karin: Yeah. Ultimately, I’m not sure what he means by the word debate here.

Usually, the challenge is that debate is about winning. One person defeats another person. Our goal is not winning in our political conversations. We’re not trying to prove that we are right and the other person is wrong.

In our political conversations, we’re often trying to find common ground and achieve some kind of new synthesis in the areas where there is disagreement—to find a way to move forward together.

Often what that means is identifying a problem that we both agree on and finding some way that both of us can attack the problem together rather than going at each other.

Locke: Yeah. I think debate, in this larger context, just means using an argument to make your point and win that point. The ultimate goal is to win it over.

I’m just moving very quickly here. We’re going to be kind of jumping around, folks.

How and when to share sources and articles

William asks a question that gets back to a really easy one: “Would you generally advise against sending articles to people who disagree with you?”

Initially, yes.

Karin: Right.

One of the things about sending articles is, one, people don’t read them. Two, it makes them defensive. It’s like firing at them over the wall. They experience it as an attack.

However, there is research that shows if you ask someone ahead of time, “Would it be okay if I sent you an article on this topic? Would you be interested in reading more about this?” and they say yes, then go for it.

They’re much more likely to read it. It’s just really important to get their consent before you do it and make sure you’re doing it in a way that is not about proving them wrong.

I would also suggest, in that exchange, saying, “If you have any articles you’d like to send me, please pass them on at the same time.”

Locke: Yeah. Two quick points.

One is that everybody’s wired differently, and there are folks out there who prefer to have articles sent to them.

A lot of times, what we talk about in Smart Politics is advice that’s, one, a generality about the majority of people you’re going to be talking to and, two, corrective.

We have a bad tendency to be a little bit lazy and say, “Well, I’m just going to send you this twenty-page New Yorker article, and then I’m done. You just read that, and I don’t have to worry about this anymore.”

So, part of it is just not using it as a crutch.

I forgot what the other part was. I went down one rabbit hole and forgot the other one. It’ll probably come to me later.

Just a note—this isn’t really a question, but Kelly has been making some really interesting points. She says a lot of people who changed their views did so for financial benefit.

I always address this very quickly. Yes, we live in an attention economy. We have influencers. We see it all the time, especially on Twitter/X—folks who are financially incentivized to take whatever stance pays the bills. You can see that on a small scale with social media influencers. You see it on a large scale with Fox News.

Karin: Yeah. I would add that a lot of people who changed their minds also did it after a narcissistic injury.

Locke: Right. But I’m just saying, you’re not talking to Sean Hannity. You’re not talking to a political influencer.

So yes, there are people who change their minds for political benefit, financial benefit, or power. We see that in Congress all the time—Republicans supporting Trump just to stay in power.

But that’s not usually who you’re talking to. Your uncle didn’t change his mind because someone was paying him. There may have been economic reasons he changed his mind, but he’s not getting paid by somebody.

Can You Trust Someone You Still Disagree With?

William asks another good question: “Does it follow that if you don’t agree with someone, you don’t really trust them?”

Let me read that again to make sure I’ve got it right.

“Does it follow that if you don’t agree with someone, that means you don’t really trust them—or you don’t trust them because you don’t agree with them?”

Karin: No. That’s one of the amazing things about this. You can fully trust someone and still disagree with them.

That’s one of the amazing things you can accomplish in one of these conversations: make someone feel really safe, climb that pyramid to the top, earn their trust completely, and still have some really significant disagreements.

I have people all the time who say to me, “This was an amazing conversation. This was the best political conversation I’ve had in my life.” I’ve had people say, “I can’t believe you’re a progressive. I thought progressives were monsters.” I’ve had them ask me for hugs. They ask for my business card so they can contact me.

It’s clear that they trust me after we have these conversations, and these are complete strangers that I meet.

Locke: Yeah. And to get to the whole point of today, they felt good about those conversations not primarily because you presented facts or arguments that they found convincing. They felt good because you made them feel safe and they trusted you. You created a safe space for them.

And also, William, I think your question gets at exactly what we’re trying to address, which is perfect, because our initial reaction is often not to trust someone we disagree with. What we’re trying to teach people in Smart Politics is to go a little deeper than that. We’re trying to flip it around. We all, on the left and the right, tend to distrust people we don’t agree with politically.

What if we flipped that and built the trust first before we got to arguing about the politics? So, yes, I think your question gets right at the reversal we’re trying to make.

Kelly, you’ve made another point, bringing up the idea of pre-bunking—giving people facts before they encounter misinformation.

People always mention pre-bunking. My quick reaction is that, yes, that can work in some cases, but again, it all comes back to building that trust first.

I think what you’re saying, Kelly—and I don’t mean to put words in your mouth—is that if someone is kind of in that “babe in the woods” place, where they haven’t made a decision about something yet, or they’ve had their assumptions rattled and the rug pulled out from under them, then you can pre-bunk by giving them facts before they get into the propaganda.

But again, it all comes after building that trust and laying that groundwork.

Is This Manipulation? The Ethics of Persuasion

Hillel, I think we addressed one of your questions. Let me keep moving here quickly.

Okay, Hillel asks, “Is it reciprocal? Does Smart Politics encourage liberals to rethink their values and to trust conservatives and their deliberations?”

Karin: Yeah.

Locke: Yes. We won’t have time to get into it today, but I want to mention that a longtime friend of the blog, Seth, asked online—and he’s not here today—if facts don’t matter and trust and identity are key, what’s to stop the wrong side from outcompeting the right side by having better propaganda? I mean, by building deeper trust. Moreover, it seems dubious to think time-intensive and very skilled individual missionary work can effectively counter mass media and professional liars.

I think that dovetails a little bit with what Hillel is asking. Do we encourage the other side to practice these things, or how do we deal with it when the other side uses these kinds of tactics to promote its side?

Karin: I would distinguish this very strongly from propaganda. Having a conversation.

Locke: Distinguish what from propaganda?

Karin: What we do from propaganda.

Having a one-on-one conversation with someone is very different because we don’t even do most of the talking.

One of the things I tell people is that, in a conversation, I probably do about one-fifth of the talking and the other person does about four-fifths of the talking. It’s very hard to engage in propaganda when you’re not the one doing most of the talking.

For me, this gets to one of the questions I receive a lot, which is, “Is this some kind of manipulation? Are you taking advantage of people and trying to use trust to get them to do what you want?”

The simple way I resolve that for myself is to ask: Am I doing anything in these conversations that I wouldn’t be comfortable having someone else do to me?

As long as I’m comfortable with someone engaging with me in this way, then I think it’s ethical.

I’m not doing anything in these conversations—and I wouldn’t want you to do anything in these conversations—that you wouldn’t feel comfortable having a right-wing Republican do in a conversation with you.

Locke: Yeah. And if someone from a different political perspective—whether it’s to the right or to the left—is engaging in this kind of listen-first, bridge-building conversation with us, that’s better. That’s what we want.

We want a calmer, more compassionate, more focused, listening approach on both sides.

I think, too, in the context of Hillel’s question—Does Smart Politics encourage liberals to rethink their values and to trust conservatives? Could we change our minds in a more conservative direction?—where we get hung up is because of the very particular nature of our political landscape right now.

We can look at Trump, what his administration is doing, and what the Republican Party is doing to enable Trump, and we see that as far removed from what we traditionally think of as conservative values. We’re kind of in Wonderland, down the rabbit hole, with some of this stuff.

So, yes, it’s hard when someone says, “Could you ever be convinced of a conservative point of view?” because people’s minds immediately flash to what they see as the most extreme ideas—Stephen Miller, white nationalism, fascism, and all of that.

But think back ten years ago, or twenty years ago, or when I was growing up in the ’80s. You could have conversations about the economy. You could say, “Tell me your thoughts about how we build a stronger economy,” or, “Tell me your thoughts about these social issues,” and genuinely listen. That was a different time.

A lot of this work is trying to get us back to that calmer, more respectful, more open-minded place instead of dealing with what I wouldn’t even call traditional conservatism anymore, but the firehose of things coming from Trump and the current far right.

I don’t even know what I just said. All right… We’re a little over. Hillel, we’ll have to address this later.

I see your comment. “It sounds like a sweeping condemnation of Trump, MAGA, the right wing, and conservatives. It sounds like you’re saying current conservatives cannot be trusted.”

Well…Trump cannot be trusted. Trump’s administration cannot be trusted.

Karin: I think we need to wrap. We’re at the top of the hour.

Final Takeaway: Don’t Lead With Facts—Lead With Trust

Locke: Did you have anything else you wanted to say about the overall subject of facts not changing minds?

Karin: All I want to say, to kind of wrap this up, is that I’m not saying you can never use facts. But you should never lead with facts.

It really is going to get in the way of your ability to persuade. It’s not going to be the quick fix you often intuitively think it’s going to be. Lead with trust.

Once you’ve earned some trust, you’ll be able to naturally get to a place where facts can be introduced into the conversation gently.

In future conversations, we’ll talk about how you’ll know when that moment comes, how you introduce those facts, and how you make them really effective.

Locke: Yeah. So, wrapping up with the technical stuff, where are we at?

Our next podcast will be Thursday, July 16, our usual Thursday at 3:00 p.m. Eastern Time, on How to Have Better Political Conversations. I think we’ll get a little bit into the Persuasion Conversation Cycle.

I’m trying to think if there’s anything else. We have a webinar coming up in early August, but we haven’t nailed down a date yet, so I’m going to save that until we have a date nailed down.

We’re going to be gone for about a week and a half. We won’t be back until Thursday, a week and a half from now.

But yeah, Hillel, to your point, I don’t think there are many true conservatives left anymore who support Trump. I think most of them, at one point or another, became Never Trumpers. So when we talk about the condemnation, we’re talking about Trump and his administration.

Karin: Thank you all for being here for The Smart Politics Way Live. Please share us with your friends. We’re a brand-new podcast, and I don’t know how many people actually know we’re here yet. It would be great if you could spread the word.

Locke: To that point, I still don’t understand exactly what folks see from this chat in terms of connections, but The Smart Politics Way is our Substack page. It also comes up as karintamerius.substack.com.

If you haven’t already checked out The Smart Politics Way, we have a lot of materials there, as well as past podcast episodes and past articles.

So, thank you very much, everyone. We hope to see you in about a week and a half. Have a great week. Bye-bye.

Available for iOS and Android

LIVE Mon, July 6, 11 am ET, (Special Time): If Facts Don’t Work, What Does?

Locke Peterseim — Sun, 05 Jul 2026 18:07:26 GMT

RSVP here for a reminder

or to join the podcast LIVE at 11 am ET Mon, July 6

We’ve got a quick turnaround between live episodes this week as we go live at a special early day and time!

Join us live weekly and bring your questions, your experiences, your frustrations, and your hopes. The conversation will be shaped by the people in the room.

THIS WEEK: MONDAY, July 6, 11 am ET

If Facts Don’t Work, What Does?

Most of us have experienced the frustration of sharing evidence, articles, statistics, or personal experiences only to feel like none of it matters.

What actually changes minds?
Why do smart people reject evidence?
What role do trust and emotion play?
Are some disagreements really about identity rather than information?
Why are some people more persuasive than others?

We’ll introduce the Smart Politics Trust Pyramid and explore why trust often matters more than evidence.

If you have questions for us in advance, share them in the comments below, and we’ll try to get to them during the live podcast.

The podcast will air live here on Substack usually on Thursdays Recordings will be available afterwards here and on YouTube and other podcast platforms.

NEXT WEEK’S EPISODE!

After a longer break, we should be back to our Thursday schedule (for a week) NEXT Thursday, July 16, 3 pm ET.

Thurs, July 16, 3 pm ET: Have Better Political Conversations

Once we understand why conversations break down and what actually changes minds, the next question is how to put that knowledge into practice. We’ll introduce the Smart Politics Persuasion Conversation Cycle and discuss practical ways to use it in everyday life.

Upcoming schedule and topics

(Subject to change)

TUESDAY, July 2I, 3 pm ET: Staying Sane
Thurs, July 30, TIME TBD, possibly 5 pm ET: Are You Making a Difference?
Our hope and plan is to continue this podcast going forward into August, the fall, and beyond, usually on Thursdays at 3 pm ET. Stay tuned later this month for the next round of upcoming topics!

Thanks for reading The Smart Politics Way! This post is public so feel free to share it.

What is the Smart Politics Way?

Want to learn more about Smart Politics and get involved?

Most Sunday nights we meet on Zoom to teach, share, and support one another. Sign up for email reminders about these weekly “Office Hour” calls
Smart Politics Website

is the Smart Politics Content Manager.

Smart Politics Live RECORDING: Feel You Can’t Talk Politics Anymore?

Locke Peterseim — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 16:42:56 GMT

Thanks to everyone who attended and asked questions!

This episode, we talked about:

Why conversations go wrong: Trust breakdowns
Defining safety, audience limits, and privilege
The five C’s of trust—comfort, connection, comprehension, compassion, and credibility
Mechanisms of derailment—defensiveness and physiological response
Repair and success strategies—trust deposits and speed bumps
Defensiveness as necessary protection
Ego defenses and their conversational effects
Group-identity defenses and evolutionary roots
Nervous system, fight-or-flight, and perceived threats
Cognitive defenses (biases) and limits on rapid belief change
Repairing Broken Conversations
Demonstrating Learning and Rebuilding Safety
Managing Emotion and Encouraging Change

Transcript of this episode

Our next episode is bumped up in the schedule and coming around soon!

Note the date and time change

MONDAY, July 6, 11 am ET

If Facts Don’t Work, What Does?

Most of us have experienced the frustration of sharing evidence, articles, statistics, or personal experiences only to feel like none of it matters.

• What actually changes minds?
• Why do smart people reject evidence?
• What role do trust and emotion play?
• Are some disagreements really about identity rather than information?
• Why are some people more persuasive than others?

We’ll introduce the Smart Politics Trust Pyramid and explore why trust often matters more than evidence.

Upcoming schedule and topics

(Subject to change)

Thurs, July 16, 3 pm ET: Have Better Political Conversations
TUESDAY, July 2I, 3 pm ET: Staying Sane
Thurs, July 30, TIME TBD, possibly 5 pm ET: Are You Making a Difference?

Thanks for reading The Smart Politics Way! This post is public so feel free to share it.

What is the Smart Politics Way?

Want to learn more about Smart Politics and get involved?

Most Sunday nights we meet on Zoom to teach, share, and support one another. Sign up for email reminders about these weekly “Office Hour” calls
Smart Politics Website

is the Smart Politics Content Manager.

Available for iOS and Android

LIVE Thurs, 7/2, 3 ET: Feel You Can’t Talk Politics Anymore?

Locke Peterseim — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 19:19:54 GMT

RSVP here for a reminder

or to join the podcast LIVE at 3 pm ET Thurs, July 2

Thank you to everyone who joined us for our inaugural episode last week or watched the recording.

We’re back again this Thursday, July 2 at 3 pm ET!

Join us live weekly and bring your questions, your experiences, your frustrations, and your hopes. The conversation will be shaped by the people in the room.

THIS WEEK: Feel You Can’t Talk Politics Anymore?

Most people don’t start political conversations hoping to fight. Yet somehow conversations that begin with curiosity often end with fighting, frustration, resentment, or withdrawal.

Why do people become defensive?
Why do some conversations spiral while others succeed?
Why do facts sometimes make people dig in?
What role do defense mechanisms play?
Can conflict sometimes strengthen relationships?

We’ll examine the psychological barriers that make political conversations so difficult and explore why people react the way they do.

If you have questions for us in advance, share them in the comments below, and we’ll try to get to them during the live podcast.

The podcast will air live here on Substack usually on Thursdays Recordings will be available afterwards here and on YouTube and other podcast platforms.

NEXT WEEK’S EPISODE!

We’ll have a quick turnaround, as next week’s podcast will air live on MONDAY, July 6, 11 am ET to accommodate our schedules. Note the earlier date and time!

MONDAY, July 6, 11 am ET:

If Facts Don’t Work, What Does?

Most of us have experienced the frustration of sharing evidence, articles, statistics, or personal experiences only to feel like none of it matters.

What actually changes minds?
Why do smart people reject evidence?
What role do trust and emotion play?
Are some disagreements really about identity rather than information?
Why are some people more persuasive than others?
We’ll introduce the Smart Politics Trust Pyramid and explore why trust often matters more than evidence.

Thanks for reading The Smart Politics Way! This post is public so feel free to share it.

What is the Smart Politics Way?

Want to learn more about Smart Politics and get involved?

Most Sunday nights we meet on Zoom to teach, share, and support one another. Sign up for email reminders about these weekly “Office Hour” calls
Smart Politics Website

is the Smart Politics Content Manager.

Smart Politics Live RECORDING -- Talk or Walk Away?

Karin Tamerius — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 22:23:03 GMT

Thank you to everyone who attended the first episode of our new podcast and to those who shared and asked questions!

In this inaugural episode, we and our attendees talked about:

What Smart Politics is and tries to do
Why we should talk instead of walking away or avoiding
How partisan identification is formed
The emotions that often drive us to cut off Trump voters
Why Smart Politics is primarily geared toward teaching Progressives to have better conversations
The power of privilege
Why connection isn’t complicity but instead is a form of resistance
Why maintaining relationships with people who hold harmful views is helpful in the long run, but cutting people off can increase radicalization
Smart Politics tools and the importance of tone
Minds do change — the effectiveness of deep canvassing and similar approaches
The slow incremental power of long-term persuasion
Validating emotions and values, not facts or beliefs
The fear of harm
Combating cruelty
Engaging with people who don’t follow politics

Transcript of this episode

Next episode, Thursday, July 2, 3 pm ET

Can’t Talk Politics Anymore?

Most people don’t start political conversations hoping to fight. Yet somehow conversations that begin with curiosity often end with fighting, frustration, resentment, or withdrawal.

• Why do people become defensive?
• Why do some conversations spiral while others succeed?
• Why do facts sometimes make people dig in?
• What role do defense mechanisms play?
• Can conflict sometimes strengthen relationships?

We’ll examine the psychological barriers that make political conversations so difficult and explore why people react the way they do.

Upcoming schedule and topics

(Subject to change)

MONDAY, July 6, 11 am ET: If Facts Don’t Work, What Does?
Thurs, July 16, 3 pm ET: Have Better Political Conversations
TUESDAY, July 2I, 3 pm ET: Staying Sane
Thurs, July 30, TIME TBD, possibly 5 pm ET: Are You Making a Difference?

Thanks for reading The Smart Politics Way! This post is public so feel free to share it.

What is the Smart Politics Way?

Want to learn more about Smart Politics and get involved?

Most Sunday nights we meet on Zoom to teach, share, and support one another. Sign up for email reminders about these weekly “Office Hour” calls
Smart Politics Website
Get more from Karin Tamerius in the Substack app
Available for iOS and Android

Locke Peterseim is the Smart Politics Content Manager.

Introducing Our New Weekly Podcast!

Locke Peterseim — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 21:11:43 GMT

Many progressives are struggling…

With family members who support Trump.
With friends who seem to inhabit a different reality.
With questions about when to speak up, when to stay connected, when to walk away, and whether any of these conversations make a difference.

This six-week live conversation series is designed to help.

A few years ago, Dr. Tamerius and I did a short run of Smart Politics podcasts that included live chats and questions from listeners. We’ve been trying to get back to it ever since, and this week (we think) we’re ready.

Each week, we’ll tackle one of the biggest challenges facing people who want to defend democracy without sacrificing their relationships, their well-being, or their humanity. Karin and I will discuss the pertinent Smart Politics topics (see the first six below) and then open it up to questions from you, the attendees.

Join us live weekly and bring your questions, your experiences, your frustrations, and your hopes. The conversation will be shaped by the people in the room.

The podcast will air live here on Substack usually on Thursdays (and at least one Monday and one Tuesday), usually at 3 pm ET (though occasionally earlier or later, as we adjust around our summer travel schedules). Recordings of each episode will be available afterwards here and likely on YouTube and other podcast platforms.

Summer Schedule and Topics

This Thurs, June 25, 3 pm ET: Talk or Walk Away?

Many of us have people in our lives whose beliefs, votes, or actions trouble us. Some are wondering whether to keep trying. Some are considering stepping away. Some are struggling with anger, guilt, grief, or confusion.

• Is staying connected a form of complicity or resistance?
• Do we have a moral responsibility to stay connected?
• Are Trump voters bad people or beyond hope?
• What about self-care?
• What role does privilege play?

Thurs, July 2, 3 pm ET: Can’t Talk Politics Anymore?

Most people don’t start political conversations hoping to fight. Yet somehow conversations that begin with curiosity often end with fighting, frustration, resentment, or withdrawal.

We’ll examine the psychological barriers that make political conversations so difficult and explore why people react the way they do.

MONDAY, July 6, 11 am ET (NOTE day of week and earlier time change): If Facts Don’t Work, What Does?

Most of us have experienced the frustration of sharing evidence, articles, statistics, or personal experiences only to feel like none of it matters.

We’ll introduce the Smart Politics Trust Pyramid and explore why trust often matters more than evidence.

Thurs, July 16, 3 pm ET: Have Better Political Conversations

Once we understand why conversations break down and what actually changes minds, the next question is how to put that knowledge into practice.

We’ll introduce the Smart Politics Persuasion Conversation Cycle and discuss practical ways to use it in everyday life.

TUESDAY, July 2I, 3 pm ET (NOTE weekday change): Staying Sane

Political engagement can be exhausting. Many people feel caught between self-care and responsibility, wondering whether they should keep engaging or step back.

We’ll discuss emotional regulation, boundaries, and sustainable engagement.

Thurs, July 30, time TBD, possibly 5 pm ET: Are You Making a Difference?

Many difficult conversations feel unsuccessful because people are measuring success in ways that are unrealistic.

• Is persuasion the right goal?
• Is understanding enough?
• When should we stop trying to change minds?
• What outcomes are actually within our control?
• What makes a conversation successful?

We’ll revisit the major themes of the series and discuss what realistic success looks like in a polarized world.

Thanks for reading The Smart Politics Way! This post is public so feel free to share it.

What is the Smart Politics Way?

Want to learn more about Smart Politics and get involved?

Most Sunday nights we meet on Zoom to teach, share, and support one another. Sign up for email reminders about these weekly “Office Hour” calls
Smart Politics Website

Locke Peterseim is the Smart Politics Content Manager.

REMINDER: THIS SUNDAY, 7pm ET! FREE Intro Webinar!

Locke Peterseim — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 17:03:58 GMT

This Sunday, June 7, 2026, 7 pm ET, we’re continuing our 101/Intro webinars!

We’re bringing back our monthly introductory webinars. This 101 webinar will be essentially the same as presented in late April, but if you were unable to attend that one, here’s another chance. Or if you were able to attend in April and know of others who might get something from this webinar, please share this with them!

Maybe you’ve been reading the articles here on Substack but crave a concise 2-hour 101 breakdown.
Maybe you’re brand new to Smart Politics (welcome!) and want to hear what we’re all about.
Maybe you’re familiar with the Smart Politics methods, but have questions or need a refresher.
Maybe you know others who’d benefit from learning these methods. Please share!

If so, check it out!

Webinar Description

But there is a way to truly persuade people, backed by scientific studies and a wealth of real-world experience.

In this introductory session, we’ll explore the core principles of Smart Politics—a form of political advocacy that intertwines psychological insight with political acumen.

You’ll learn:

why our instincts for how to win an argument frequently cause people to dig in their heels.
why using reason and evidence doesn’t change minds.
how to overcome political tribalism.
how to get someone to actually listen to and consider your point of view.
the necessary steps to help someone change their mind, and for that change to last!

About Smart Politics

About the instructors

Join Us for Another FREE Smart Politics Intro Webinar!

Locke Peterseim — Tue, 19 May 2026 18:46:02 GMT

Sunday, June 7, 2026, 7 pm ET, we’re continuing our 101/Intro webinars!

We’re bringing back our monthly introductory webinars — this 101 webinar will be essentially the same as presented in late April, but if you were unable to attend that one, here’s another chance. Or if you were able to attend in April and know of others who might get something from this webinar, please share this with them!

Maybe you’ve been reading the articles here on Substack but crave a concise 2-hour 101 breakdown.
Maybe you’re brand new to Smart Politics (welcome!) and want to hear what we’re all about.
Maybe you’re familiar with the Smart Politics methods, but have questions or need a refresher.
Maybe you know others who’d benefit from learning these methods. Please share!

If so, check it out!

Webinar Description

But there is a way to truly persuade people, backed by scientific studies and a wealth of real-world experience.

In this introductory session, we’ll explore the core principles of Smart Politics—a form of political advocacy that intertwines psychological insight with political acumen.

You’ll learn:

why our instincts for how to win an argument frequently cause people to dig in their heels.
why using reason and evidence doesn’t change minds.
how to overcome political tribalism.
how to get someone to actually listen to and consider your point of view.
the necessary steps to help someone change their mind, and for that change to last!

About Smart Politics

About the instructors

FREE Intro Webinar TONIGHT, 8:30 pm ET!

Locke Peterseim — Tue, 28 Apr 2026 13:03:37 GMT

There’s still time to sign up for tonight’s 101 webinar!

Tonight I’m helping Smart Politics member Dr. Christopher Hale host a 90-minute/2-hour intro webinar that will introduce newcomers (and anyone needing a little refresher) to the basic approaches and methods of Smart Politics, including the how’s and why’s it works and an introduction to Smart Politics tools like the Trust Pyramid and the Persuasion Conversation Cycle.

Maybe you’ve been reading the articles here on Substack but crave a concise 2-hour 101 breakdown.
Maybe you’re brand new to Smart Politics (welcome!) and want to hear what we’re all about.
Maybe you’re familiar with the Smart Politics methods, but have questions or need a refresher.
Maybe you know others who’d benefit from learning these methods. Please share!

If so, check it out! FREE tickets are still available!

Webinar Description

But there is a way to truly persuade people, backed by scientific studies and a wealth of real-world experience.

In this introductory session, we’ll explore the core principles of Smart Politics—a form of political advocacy that intertwines psychological insight with political acumen.

You’ll learn:

why our instincts for how to win an argument frequently cause people to dig in their heels.
why using reason and evidence doesn’t change minds.
how to overcome political tribalism.
how to get someone to actually listen to and consider your point of view.
the necessary steps to help someone change their mind, and for that change to last!

About Smart Politics

About the instructors

Join Us for a FREE Smart Politics Intro Webinar!

Locke Peterseim — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 20:02:26 GMT

In the past year, so many of you have joined The Smart Politics Way here, and we hope you’ve gotten something from our articles. But since our Substack launch, we haven’t had a chance to host any new live Smart Politics webinars.

Tuesday, April 28, 2026, 8:30 pm ET, we’re bringing back our 101/Intro webinar!

Maybe you’ve been reading the articles here on Substack but crave a concise 2-hour 101 breakdown.
Maybe you’re brand new to Smart Politics (welcome!) and want to hear what we’re all about.
Maybe you’re familiar with the Smart Politics methods, but have questions or need a refresher.
Maybe you know others who’d benefit from learning these methods. Please share!

If so, check it out!

Webinar Description

But there is a way to truly persuade people, backed by scientific studies and a wealth of real-world experience.

In this introductory session, we’ll explore the core principles of Smart Politics—a form of political advocacy that intertwines psychological insight with political acumen.

You’ll learn:

why our instincts for how to win an argument frequently cause people to dig in their heels.
why using reason and evidence doesn’t change minds.
how to overcome political tribalism.
how to get someone to actually listen to and consider your point of view.
the necessary steps to help someone change their mind, and for that change to last!

About Smart Politics

About the instructors

The "How to Talk About..." Collection

Locke Peterseim — Sun, 29 Mar 2026 15:05:09 GMT

This ongoing series takes current hot-button issues and offers tips on how (and how not to) start a conversation on the topic with someone on the Right or a Trump voter.

These articles don’t walk through all the myriad possibilities of a full conversation, but instead focus on getting the conversation going in curious, respectful ways that build connection and trust rather than raise defenses.

For more on the full Smart Politics conversation approach, check out our Toolbox, with links to deeper dives into each step:

HOW TO TALK ABOUT… ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING

After No Kings, I Walked Into a Conservative Bar

Karin Tamerius — Sat, 28 Mar 2026 19:53:30 GMT

Author’s Note:

As another round of No Kings protests spreads across the nation, I’m republishing this piece from October 2025 about what happened when I left an event early and struck up a conversation with someone who saw the world very differently.

Protests matter. Showing up matters. Being in community matters. And for many people, that’s more than enough.

But if you’re willing, there’s a second layer of this work that often gets overlooked: what happens when you step outside that circle and talk to someone who disagrees with you. Not to win. Not to argue. Just to understand, and to be understood.

Because the secret to persuasion isn’t who makes the best argument; it’s who forms the most genuine human connection.

— Karin

He asked to hug us. I hadn’t expected that. Two hours earlier, my husband and I had walked into a conservative dive bar to explain why we were protesting that day—to have a productive and persuasive conversation with someone who didn’t just disagree with us but distrusted us. I never imagined it would end with a hug.

Encounters like that are the heart of what we do at Smart Politics. We teach people how to have conversations that facilitate opinion change—calmly, respectfully, and with genuine curiosity.

Still, many people who want to be persuasive never try our methods because they doubt they could possibly work.

Can one conversation really change anything? How do you reach someone whose worldview feels miles apart from your own—or who’s convinced that secret cabals and shadow governments control everything? And what’s the point of talking to people who believe things that seem impossible to change?

I already know the answer. I’ve seen it happen again and again.

But most people don’t believe me. So I’m sharing what happened last Saturday, after the No Kings protest in Modesto—a small, conservative-leaning city in California’s Central Valley.

The Protest Was the Easy Part

The No Kings protest in Modesto was bigger than I expected, several hundred people gathered in a public park, waving American flags and dressed in creative, eye-catching costumes like those I’d seen at protests in Portland. The energy was joyful, almost celebratory. There was anger, of course—about Trump, about authoritarianism—but it wasn’t a tantrum. It felt grounded and patriotic. Like people were there not to burn something down, but to lift something up.

That contrast mattered—especially in a place like Modesto, where Republican messaging had painted the protest as threatening or extreme. From what I saw, it was anything but.

After spending some time taking in the scene, my husband, Bob, and I left. The protest was important, but it wasn’t the reason we’d driven two hours east from Oakland. It’s easy to feel brave and empowered surrounded by people who agree with you; the hard part is being around those who don’t.

So, we headed to a dive bar a few miles away, a place we’d read might be a conservative watering hole. It was dark and mostly empty. A pool table and juke box sat unused. Two people sat at the bar: a young Latina woman and, a few stools down, a white man with a bushy beard in his late thirties or early forties, wearing a plain black baseball cap and nursing the remnants of a beer.

The moment we walked in, I felt the shift. The sunny day and upbeat feel of the protest gave way to an unsettling quiet. This was what we’d come for—the real work—and it was intimidating.

Bob and I took our seats near the man and ordered a couple of drinks. “Hey,” I asked casually, “do you know what’s up with all the signed one-dollar bills on the walls and ceiling?”

I started with something neutral on purpose. Small talk is how you signal safety—especially when first developing rapport.

He turned to me and smiled. “That’s how you make your mark.”

And just like that, the conversation began.

Building Trust

At first, it was the usual bar talk: Where are you from? What do you do?

These kinds of exchanges may seem insignificant, but they’re essential. When you plan to enter a politically charged conversation, you have to start by showing you’re not a threat—curious, not confrontational. Neutral topics help people’s nervous systems settle so they feel comfortable opening up.

We learned he was originally from San Francisco but had come to Modesto to care for family members, including looking out for his young teenage sister. He was a veteran who’d served in Iraq and Afghanistan, but now worked at a factory nearby.

When he found out we lived in Oakland, he asked if we owned our home. When we said yes, he nodded and said something like, “Ah, so you’re sitting pretty, waiting for the market to take off.”

Bob and I were perplexed—we didn’t expect the housing market to improve any time soon—so we asked what he meant.

As soon as he mentioned tariffs, I knew we’d found our opening. Figuring out when and how to shift from safe topics to politics is a logistical challenge: you don’t want to force it, but you also don’t want to wait forever. You can bring it up yourself if the moment feels right, but it’s easier—and often smoother—when the other person opens that door.

That’s when he launched into an elaborate theory about Trump’s tariffs and how they were going to spark a massive economic upswing. His optimism was intense—and not especially well-grounded in economic data—but instead of challenging him, we asked questions. Lots of them. We let him explain his understanding of how markets and international trade works.

Every so often, I’d reflect back what he said, summarizing his logic without endorsing or correcting it. When he asked what I thought, I didn’t counter. Instead, I identified some common ground, explained how I approach questions about tariffs, and admitted I’m no expert. I said I rely on economists to help make sense of that terrain and that most of them seem fairly critical of Trump’s approach.

Mirroring someone’s reasoning out loud helps them feel heard, even when you disagree. It’s an important way to give them enough psychological security to start rethinking their beliefs.

Bob and I diverged in our approach here. He leaned more debate-style, offering facts and counterpoints. I stayed strictly in Smart Politics mode—focusing on connection, curiosity, and keeping the space emotionally safe. And despite a few moments of tension, it worked. The atmosphere held.

While Bob seemed to actually want to change the man’s mind about tariffs, for me, the whole economic discussion was just trust-building. Interesting, sure, but not the real conversation. Almost no one changes their vote over tariffs. What mattered was that he was feeling heard—and starting to feel comfortable opening up.

That’s when he turned to me and asked, almost sheepishly, “Is this uncomfortable for you? Talking politics like this?”

I laughed lightly. “Nope. Remember, I’m a political psychiatrist. This is my day job.”

The Conspiracy Gauntlet

Once the initial trust was built, the floodgates opened. He started confiding in us—not just about everyday politics, but about the things he really believed. And what he believed, it turned out, was a tangled web of conspiracy theories.

The Freemasons. The Deep State. The New World Order. The Rothschilds. He became more energized and excited with each revelation. Then he said, “You can see it right there on the money!”

He was so eager to show us what he meant that he asked if we had a one- or twenty-dollar bill. When we didn’t, he turned to the bartender to see if she’d loan him one for the demonstration. When she declined, he went straight to the ATM. A few minutes later, bills in hand, he began folding the twenty in a precise, origami-like configuration—first one way, to show what he said looked like the Twin Towers collapsing, then another, to reveal what he claimed were images of COVID masks.

His enthusiasm was disarming—almost childlike. This was his evidence, and he wanted us to see it with our own eyes. He was thrilled, even proud, to let us in on these “secrets.”

In that moment, I reminded myself not to take the bait—to stay grounded, curious, and calm. It’s crucial to respond respectfully without rewarding conspiratorial thinking. Rewarding happens when you act shocked, lean in eagerly, or ask for more evidence—it signals fascination, not neutrality. Even calmly debating the details can be gratifying, because it allows the person to keep talking about their favorite subject. The key is to listen attentively but without special interest, so they feel heard without having their story reinforced.

Research backs this up. People who get caught up in conspiracy theories are usually driven less by ideology than by psychology. Believing they know something others don’t gives them a sense of mastery and importance. The strategy isn’t to take that sense of specialness away, but to redirect it—to help them feel competent and unique in healthier ways.

As with the discussion about tariffs, my goal wasn’t to persuade him that he was wrong. It was to let him say his piece so we could move on to more fruitful territory—the No Kings protest, the reason we’d come to Modesto in the first place.

We didn’t mock him, but we didn’t humor him either. We listened, asked gentle questions, and gave honest responses.

When he pointed to the twenty and asked, “Do you see it?” I shrugged and said, “I see trees.”

I wasn’t trying to be funny—I really did see trees. That simple honesty mattered. It showed that I could disagree without judgment, that I wasn’t pretending to see what he saw just to keep the peace.

Bob pushed back more than I did. He’s a litigator by profession—naturally skeptical, trained to argue and expose weak points in evidence. He made a light joke about the White House being built over a hundred years before 9/11 and how that made for some awfully advanced planning. Then he added that it reminded him of looking up at clouds—you can see whatever you want to see if you stare long enough.

Our friend brightened. “Oh, chemtrails!” he said, suddenly animated.

I couldn’t help laughing—not at him, but at how perfectly that illustrated the challenge. Even a harmless metaphor could feed right back into his conspiratorial worldview. These conversations require constant awareness of what you’re reinforcing, even unintentionally.

When conversations veer into conspiracy territory, it can be hard to get them back into more fruitful ground. I could feel us getting stuck in the weeds. Once you’re lost in the details, it’s tricky to find your way back to shared reality.

So I decided it was time to pivot. My hope was to speed up the reveals—to skip the slow drip of lesser theories and get straight to the heart of it. If we could talk about the most extreme thing he believed, maybe we could stop circling and finally discuss something more productive.

I turned to him and said, “Okay, you’ve shared a lot of wild stuff today. What’s your most radical conspiracy belief—the one that would really shock us?”

He thought for a moment, then said, “Well, first of all, the war in Afghanistan was about opium.” He paused. “And second, the war in Iraq was about oil.”

It did shock us—but not for the reason he or we expected. After everything he’d said, this wasn’t extreme at all. In fact, we totally agreed that the war in Iraq was about oil. And while I’d never thought about the poppy angle regarding the war in Afghanistan, it had the ring of plausibility. Finally, something we could agree on.

That moment gave us an opening—the beginning of shared reality. I nodded and said, “Of all the things you’ve brought up today, those make the most sense to me. Especially the war in Iraq.”

Thanks for reading The Smart Politics Way. If you found this article helpful, please email it to your progressive friends. We’re just getting started, and word of mouth makes all the difference. With gratitude, Karin

The Reveal

That solid moment of agreement didn’t make the conversation lighter—it was already friendly and easy. But finding common ground opened the door to go deeper and brought the conspiracy portion of the conversation to a natural close.

By this point, we’d been talking long enough, I assumed he knew who we were. We’d disagreed with him—gently but consistently—on everything from tariffs to the “Deep State.” We’d mentioned living in Oakland and what we did for a living. My No Kings hat and T-shirt practically shouted our politics.

So when I turned to him and asked, “After talking for a while, do you just think we’re a couple of radical liberals?” I meant it somewhat playfully. I wanted to gauge how extreme he thought we were at this point in the conversation.

He looked baffled. “Liberals? I don’t know what you are.”

That surprised us, and Bob and I both laughed. “Actually,” I said, pointing to my hat and shirt, both emblazoned with the No Kings logo, “we’re here in Modesto for the No Kings protest.”

His eyes widened. He looked at my hat, then my T-shirt, and nearly fell off his stool.

“How did I miss that???” he said, shaking his head.

The irony wasn’t lost on any of us. After an hour of showing us “hidden” symbols on dollar bills, he’d entirely missed the ones printed in bold letters across my clothes.

The fact that he hadn’t realized who we were was interesting. When we connect with someone, we tend to assume they see the world as we do. Psychologists call this the false consensus effect—the tendency to believe that the majority of people, especially those we like, must share our beliefs and attitudes. He’d decided we were good people, so it simply hadn’t occurred to him that we might be on the other side of the aisle politically.

It’s a good reminder of why Smart Politics encourages people to talk about politics with one another. When we forgo those conversations, people tend to assume we agree with them when we actually don’t.

Getting to the Point

We were finally at the stage of the conversation where we could get to the point. We had built up enough trust—he felt safe, liked, and understood. He knew we cared about him as a person, and that we weren’t extremists or dogmatic.

From the beginning, that had been our goal. My biggest concern about the No Kings protests was that the average voter had no idea what they were really about. The name itself was vague, and the administration had been working overtime to paint the events as “hate America” rallies. I wanted to use this conversation to correct that misunderstanding.

So I asked if he knew what No Kings was about.

He shook his head and said he had no idea. His best guess was that it was anti-Trump. He actually sounded a little exasperated and confused, as if he’d been left out of the loop.

So we told him that it was less about Trump himself and more about protecting democracy, about saying no to authoritarianism, no to blind allegiance.

That’s when he asked what the protest itself was like.

I gave him the same description I’ve already shared with you—about the size, the flags, the costumes, the joy, the sense of purpose. I wanted him to picture what I’d seen: not an angry mob, but a community of people celebrating democracy.

He didn’t seem surprised, just interested—listening closely, asking a few clarifying questions. I had expected him to expect chaos or rage, but he didn’t. He just seemed curious about what it had actually been like.

While we talked about the meaning of No Kings, in the back of my mind, I was already thinking about what came next: shifting the conversation to a discussion of the issue that mattered to us most.

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The Key Issue

Saying you support No Kings because you want to defend democracy or oppose authoritarianism doesn’t get you very far in a conversation with a Trump voter. Those are big, abstract concepts that mean almost nothing in the context of people’s daily lives. If you want to move someone, you have to get a lot more concrete—and a lot more emotional.

While we’d built a good rapport, I hadn’t forgotten why we were there. The No Kings protest was about democracy in the broad sense, but for me, the issue that mattered most that day was the treatment of immigrants—the gross human rights violations being carried out every day in cities across the country. I wanted him to know that ICE was what really fueled our protest that day.

So when the conversation found a natural pause, I took a breath and said something like, “The reason Bob and I wanted to participate in No Kings is mostly because of what’s happening with ICE.”

Suddenly, he was fully engaged again. The joking tone from his conspiracy stories vanished, replaced by a firm seriousness that made it clear he cared deeply about what we’d just said.

What follows isn’t word-for-word, but it’s a faithful reconstruction of what we said and how it felt. He also said a lot more that I’m leaving out here for brevity. For the most part, it was all things we’d heard before. He was worried about the flow of illegal drugs into the U.S., undocumented immigrants taking American jobs, and Democrats giving people citizenship so that they could win elections.

But mostly, he was concerned with law and order, saying something along the lines of, “Well, they’re breaking the law by being here. So they need to go. Period.”

That’s when Bob asked how he felt about people being swept off the street by officers in unmarked vans and deported without due process.

He didn’t hesitate. “They aren’t citizens,” he said, “so they’re not entitled to due process.”

That was a hard moment for both of us. Normally, I would have stayed in Smart Politics mode—curious, reflective, focused on connection. But this hit a nerve, and I cracked.

Instead of asking questions, I pushed back, sharing facts I normally wouldn’t—about constitutional protections and about Supreme Court rulings. Bob jumped in too and asked about the moral cost of abandoning due process. We were both more passionate than we intended to be.

It wasn’t our best Smart Politics moment. But because of the trust we’d built—the hours of warmth and curiosity leading up to this point—he didn’t shut down or become more defensive.

If anything, sensing our moral outrage, he backed off a little. It was as if he didn’t like being at odds with us after we’d shared such an open, easy conversation for so long. He said something like, “Honestly, I don’t know a whole lot about this stuff. I probably need to learn more.”

Working to heal the rift from my end as well, I told him that was fine. He didn’t need to know everything. No one does. We’re all still learning about this stuff.

That moment of humility—of softening—gave us an opening, and I took it.

Recalibrating, I got back into Smart Politics mode. I started with validation. I told him that most liberals actually agree with him—that the immigration system is broken and needs serious reform. No one wants chaos or open borders. That we want a system that works and treats people humanely.

He seemed surprised to learn there was so much common ground. He’d assumed everyone on the left just wanted open borders.

Once the tension had eased, I followed with a strategic share—a story to make the issue human and real.

I told him about an elderly grandmother in Berkeley who had lived in the U.S. for thirty years. She’d never broken a law and had always shown up for her immigration court dates. But because the Indian government kept failing to send the paperwork she needed, she spent decades in legal limbo. Immigration officials had always been sympathetic—until now. On her last appearance, she was detained, denied the chance to see her family or collect her medication, and deported alone to a country she no longer knew.

“She followed the rules,” I said. “For thirty years. But they sent her back anyway.”

In Smart Politics, we teach people to tell stories like this because they are powerful without being as threatening as arguments. People are less likely to get defensive when no one is directly telling them they’re wrong. Stories allow people to draw their own conclusions. They help people empathize with the suffering of others. And they’re easier to remember than facts.

But this time, it wasn’t quite enough. Maybe I made the story too pointed—turning it into an argument rather than letting the narrative do its work. Or maybe the time wasn’t right. I don’t know. Regardless, he became more defensive and argumentative.

Slightly agitated, he said, “Some bad things are going to happen. That’s just the way it is.”

Then, to tee up his argument, he asked, “Do you support law enforcement?”

“Sure,” I said. “They’re necessary.”

“But sometimes they do bad things, right?”

“Definitely.”

“So what if… ten percent of the time they mess up—but the rest of the time, they’re doing good work. You’d still support them, right?”

“Sure,” I said, “but I’d also be pushing hard to fix the broken parts.”

To show I was listening, I then reflected his own words back to him: “So you’re saying—even if ICE is doing the wrong thing 10% of the time, the 90% they get right means we should still support them?”

He paused. “Well… when you put it like that, it sounds bad, but yeah.”

Then he shared something personal: that most of his family is from Mexico. That his dad, a naturalized immigrant, is a huge Trump supporter. That his dad’s girlfriend is undocumented. That he does have sympathy for immigrants, he just believes they should follow the rules.

The Line He Wouldn’t Cross

By this point, it was clear he was fairly settled in the GOP worldview on ICE and immigration enforcement. The story about the grandmother in Berkeley hadn’t landed the way I hoped. That happens sometimes.

Stories usually work because they slip past people’s defenses, but sometimes a story hits people so hard they feel the need to justify or rationalize it away. That’s what occurred in this case. He knew what was done to the grandmother in Berkeley was wrong, but he needed to see it as collateral damage—an unfortunate cost of enforcing the law.

At that point I knew no matter how many stories I shared about the horrors of ICE, he was going to continue justifying their behavior. So, I needed to change tactics. I decided to try a more advanced technique: drawing a line in the sand. It’s powerful, but demanding, and I don’t use it often. Still, this felt like the only way to get him to see things from a different perspective.

So I asked, “Is there anything ICE could do that would make you change your mind? Something that would cross a line for you? That would make you feel like you couldn’t support them anymore?”

He got quiet. Thoughtful, but stuck. He shook his head, unable to think of anything.

This happens. It didn’t mean he was really fine with anything ICE did; it was just a failure of imagination.

So Bob stepped in to help. He made the abstract concrete, painting a picture where there was none.

“Let me ask you this,” Bob said. His voice was calm, deliberate. “Imagine ICE didn’t just detain and deport people. Imagine they started shooting undocumented immigrants in the street. Would you still support them?”

The air shifted. He stared at us, serious, his hand resting on his beer. The silence stretched out—long enough that I wondered if he was going to respond at all.

Then, he said, “I’m not sure.”

The feeling between us stayed heavy for a long time after that. None of us spoke. I could see him turning it over in his mind, trying to reconcile what he believed with what he felt.

Then, as if needing to remind himself who he was, he said, “I don’t stand for the abuse of innocent people. I’m committed to protecting the defenseless.”

Bob and I nodded. And quietly sipped our beers.

What was happening in front of us wasn’t just cognitive dissonance—it was moral confounding. It’s what happens when deeply held beliefs and intuitions collide and the mind can’t make them fit together. We saw it in the long pauses, the furrowed brow, the searching for words that don’t quite come. It’s uncomfortable, even painful—but it’s also a necessary part of change.

He couldn’t answer Bob’s question because he was torn between two loyalties: his support for ICE and the administration, and his desire to protect the innocent. Both felt righteous to him, but they couldn’t coexist.

He didn’t—couldn’t—change his mind that moment. But something shifted. You could see it in his posture, in his tone, in the long pause that followed. He wasn’t defending a position anymore; he was wrestling with it.

It wasn’t a dramatic transformation. Just a pause—a long, thoughtful pause. But that’s often where real change begins.

The Conversation Was the Change

From the beginning, he’d been open—more open than we expected. But now, something had shifted. He was no longer just telling us what he believed; he was questioning it.

He told us more about his family. About how his uncle “hates” him because of his politics. How isolating it can feel to be seen only as a bundle of beliefs—how painful it is to be rejected by people you love.

And yet here he was, sitting in a dark bar with two strangers who disagreed with him on almost everything, and the mood wasn’t combative. It was warm.

At some point, he said, “You’ve given me a lot to think about. I hope I’ve given you something to think about, too.”

Then he turned to my husband.

“Bob, can I hug you?”

Bob smiled. “Of course.”

They hugged. Then he asked, “Bob, can I hug your wife?”

It was a little awkward. Bob said, “Don’t ask me, ask her.” But, of course, I didn’t hesitate. I hugged him too.

It felt amazing—not because we had “won” anything or changed his mind in some dramatic way, but because we liked him. He liked us. And for two hours, despite everything that divided us—our education, our economic status, our political views—we saw each other clearly, as human beings.

Yes, one conversation can make a difference.

But not when it’s about facts or reason. Not when it’s about proving someone wrong.

This conversation didn’t end with anyone switching sides or renouncing their beliefs. That’s not what real change looks like—not at first.

Real change begins quietly, with a question. A relationship. An unexpected moment of dissonance. A pause to rethink.

It starts when someone feels safe enough to lower their defenses—and surprised enough to realize they want to.

If you want someone to change their mind, you don’t have to argue better or shout louder. You have to create the kind of space where the person feels respected, not ridiculed. Where their beliefs can be examined without shame.

That’s what we did in Modesto.

And that’s what you can do too.

This work isn’t easy. It takes skill, patience, and emotional discipline. But it is possible. Not just to survive these divided times—but to start healing them, one conversation at a time.

So if you’ve been wondering whether it’s worth it to talk to someone on “the other side,” I hope this story shows you that it is.

And if you’re not sure where to start, know that you’re not alone.

You don’t have to walk into a dive bar in a conservative town and strike up a conversation with a Trump voter—not on your own. At Smart Politics, we teach people how to have these conversations step by step. We’ll hold your hand as you learn. Because this is hard work, and it takes time, practice, and support.

But it is possible. Even for you.

Because the protest was powerful. But our conversation—that was the change.

Author’s Note:

I originally published this piece more than six months ago as a teaching case for the work we do at Smart Politics. The story is real, reconstructed from memory, and written through the lens I use when I train people: paying special attention to how connection is built, how difficult topics can be discussed, and what helps people genuinely rethink their political views.

As this piece has reached readers beyond my regular community, some have experienced it as condescending, manipulative, or overly neat. I take that reaction seriously. Among my core values are honesty, curiosity, transparency, humility, and respect for others’ autonomy. I try to keep those values front and center by applying a simple ethical test: how would I feel if someone approached me this way? If I wouldn’t welcome it, it doesn’t belong in my conversations. In this case, that meant being clear about who we were, listening carefully, being willing to learn and change myself, and accepting that the other person might choose not to change at all.

Others felt the man in this story came across as a stereotype. That was not my intent. Over the years, I’ve spoken with many Trump voters, and no two are exactly alike. What they do share, in their own way, is a belief that by choosing Trump they are doing what’s best for the country.

When I describe what I believed the man we spoke with was thinking or feeling, that is entirely my interpretation. I don’t claim access to his inner life, only to what I observed in the moment. But those observations were not blind guesses; they were informed by close listening and by my training in political psychology and psychotherapy.

The hypothetical about ICE was not intended as a gotcha, but as a simple boundary test: a way of exploring whether any moral line exists beyond allegiance to a political party, figure, or cause. Ideally, a hypothetical does not corner the other person; it liberates them to think about right and wrong outside the box of everyday politics.

The core claim remains: persuasion is a fundamental part of democracy, but adversarial debate often shuts down the very thinking we want to encourage. Relationship doesn’t replace evidence—but it determines whether evidence can be heard. If you experiment with this in your own life, I’d love to hear what you learn.

— Karin

This article is part of The Smart Politics Way, a progressive newsletter about defending democracy through persuasive engagement. Dr. Karin Tamerius is a political psychiatrist and the founder of Smart Politics.

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How to Talk About the ICE Killing with Folks on the Right

Locke Peterseim — Thu, 08 Jan 2026 22:43:34 GMT

I was planning this week to publish “How to Talk About Venezuela with Folks on the Right,” but yesterday’s events in Minneapolis have shoved that topic to the side for now.

I’ve written before about how specifically triggering ICE (and CBP) aggressions and violations are to me, as someone who spent half this past fall in Chicago (where I live most of the time), and as someone who’s deeply triggered by bullying, cruelty, and injustice. It upsets me personally and viscerally more than most any other of the endless, ongoing Trump offenses.

I won’t list all the things horrific and wrong and illegal about what happened to Renee Good yesterday in Minneapolis—everyone everywhere on social media, regular media, alternative media is on full blast about the details and implications. It’s shattering and terrifying and infuriating—both the death itself and the sadly predictable spin reactions and negative-partisan responses from the Administration and extremist social-media rage-engagers.

Nor do I have magic fix-all’s for this. I fully support the peaceful activist efforts forming around it, as well as any legal and oversight efforts by Minnesota and Congress. I also suspect and would understand if there are plenty of progressives who feel that this is no longer the time for talking with Trump voters, that this is a battle and must be fought through protest and activism.

But the guiding force of this Smart Politics work and my dedication to it is that when shocking, upsetting things like this happen it shakes up everyone’s values and beliefs—including those progressives who understandably felt a reactive, defensive rage yesterday, but also Trump voters who are struggling to make this seemingly blatant killing align with their political beliefs.

So, if we’re serious about lowering polarization and even persuading Trump voters to align with us on some issues—for example, how ICE conducts itself—then we need to talk with them, and sadly, tragic moments like this are when we most need to do that. It’s also when we may feel least able to talk about something so upsetting to us.

My work is here in Smart Politics, so that’s going to be my first go-to. In part that’s because this past year I’ve found when I’m freaking out, the best solution is shoving myself back into this work.

I wrote a few months ago about “How to Talk About ICE with Folks on the Right,” and all those main points still apply. If you haven’t read that piece already, I suggest giving it a look, or a reminder refresh.

But I want to add to it how to start—or rather, not start a conversation about this week’s specific atrocity. (With the sinking feeling that this won’t be the last time something like this happens.)

The killing of Renee Good this week feels like an escalation, a new level of horrifying and enraging atrocity. And yet… part of this Smart Politics work is stepping back, processing our own (understandably) extreme emotional and moral reactions, and then thinking about how we do the work around this new outrage.

As always, we start with the “Don’ts” and the usual caveat that this doesn’t mean we can’t eventually discuss some of these things with a Trump voter. They’re just not a good place to start the conversation because they’re likely to put the other person even more on the defensive.

Don’t Start the Conversation With…

“How can anyone deny what we clearly see in the videos?”

In November when I wrote about how to talk about ICE, I suggested that much of the time the Trump voter we’re talking with has not seen the shocking, infuriating ICE videos we have. That may not be the case today—the video of Good’s death is everywhere today. So, the problem becomes not that folks haven’t seen it, but that they’re seeing in it something completely different than we do.

Some have compared the wide-ranging reactions to the shooting to the Black-Blue/White-Gold Dress sensation from the internet 10 years ago. There’s some validity to that. The colors people’s visual brain processors saw in the infamous dress photo were determined by complicated, life-long brain chemistry development—namely how our brains are trained over time to make assumptions that alter our perceptions.

Similarly, what someone emotionally “sees” in the shooting yesterday—deadly ICE incompetence and cruelty against an innocent citizen or law enforcement acting in self-defense against a “terrorist protester”—is shaped by their background, social and political identity, and values.

If there’s one thing we learn from this work, it’s just how powerful and often self-sabotaging our own minds are. We see what we want to see. Yes, political monsters like Trump and Noem and Miller have very specific diabolical and perhaps sociopathic survival instincts that lead them to deny, lie, and gaslight about what happened (including the need to avoid legal accountability). And hardcore social media influencers and partisan edge lords have their own financial and identity-fueling reasons to deliberately and knowingly lie about it in support of their political ecosystems.

But the average person who watches those videos is also still going to see (perhaps after tamping down a bit of cognitive dissonance and confusion) what their background, beliefs, and values want them to see. We progressives may find it impossible to believe that anyone can watch those videos and not see things our way, but the fact is, people do—they may take their cues from the media they consume, but they use those cues to help them see and filter the video in ways that align with their own genuine, sincere, deep, unconscious beliefs.

To varying degrees (everyone is different, that’s why we ask questions in the first place!), how someone on the Right interprets the video is driven by their feelings and values around law and order, law enforcement, and immigration and deportation, but even more so by support for their “in-group” political “team” (Trump and Noem), fear of “Antifa Leftist Terrorism,” and perhaps frustration and disgust with “out-group” progressive protesters. As they watch the video, their brains are often seeking ways to make what they see support their beliefs that, “Leftist protestors are bad and create chaos; law enforcement is good and preserves order.”

That doesn’t mean they don’t initially see the shooting as confusing and maybe wrong or bad, but given enough time and influence from the the leading voices in their in group, folks’ natural inclination is to move towards accepting the explanation that will cause them the least cognitive dissonance and the least risk to their identity. They almost immediately start looking for excuses, rationalizations, and justifications that will allow them to shove this horrific tragedy into a neat little box that fits their beliefs about the world and set it aside so they can move on.

Of course, that initial confusion and cognitive dissonance is also exactly why we should talk with friends and loved ones on the Right about these things right now.

Debating forensic investigation facts:

“Which way were Good’s tires turned?”
“Where was the ICE officer standing when he fired his weapon?”
“Was he ever in physical danger?”
“Is this the correct procedure for law enforcement in this situation?”

What we do not want to do is get trapped in a downward rabbit-hole spiral, both sides bogged down in studying the disturbing video frame by frame as we cosplay being CSI forensic investigation experts. Those things may all come up sooner or later in the conversation as the other person tries to defend what happened, but for the sake of productive conversation, we ourselves shouldn’t start there.

Remember, we’re here to work through feelings first, not facts.

“ICE is evil! Trump is evil! Noem is evil!”

Two standing Smart Politics guidelines come into play here:

1) Try not to make sweeping hyperbolic statements about the issue (calling organizations, actions, or individuals “evil”), no matter how much we may emotionally want to or feel the terms are justified.

2) Whenever possible, at least at first, avoid venting our hatred for specific political individuals, like Trump or Noem or Miller or Vance. Trust me, I get it, I feel it myself, I often say it out loud in angry frustration or vent it to friends. But this work is always about managing our own emotions first before entering a conversation.

Need a new-year refresher on managing our emotions? Check out Dr. Tamerius’ writings last year on Keeping Calm and Carrying On to do the work:

Every time we call a Trump Administration figure a nasty name or rant about how awful they are, we likely forfeit the opportunity to have an effective, persuasive conversation with the other person. They hear that name-calling, the outrage in our voices, and they put up their defenses, roll their eyes ‘cause they’ve heard it all before, and finally simply dismiss our rant and any subsequent points we’re trying to make. It bounces right off.

Yes, if we can continue a productive conversation with someone from the Right about this incident, then we may eventually want to discuss how Trump and his administration’s policies and posture created this terrible situation and how they’ve been responding to it. But only later, once we’ve banked some trust and connection.

“These Fascists want to kill us all!”

As we all struggle through this first year, there are certain words we need to, if not retire from our vocabulary when talking to folks on the Right, as least wrap carefully in bubble wrap to be used only in limited amounts. “Fascists” and “fascism” are some of those. Which is not to say we aren’t seeing terrifying, enraging increases in what most of us would consider fascist thinking and behavior, or that we should not be vigilant and deeply opposed to it. It’s fine and often necessary to use those words when talking to fellow progressives about the dangers of what we’re seeing.

It just means that using those terms or calling those names in conversation with a Trump voter is, once again, gonna shut the other person down. “Fascist” has lost all meaning to many folks on the Right simply because they hear it tossed around so much as a catch-all slur. Justified or not, the word rarely works with them anymore, and instead, of course, it just pushes them further away, preventing any sort of real conversation that could potentially help us prevent and fight fascism.

Remember always to ask ourselves, do we want to be right (let everyone know this is fascist behavior!) or effective (helping others understand why this behavior is fascist and un-American and un-democratic)?

“Pro-Trump, pro-ICE supposed Christians are hateful, fake hypocrites!”

Need we say it again? No one likes having all their layers of self-identity challenged, undermined, or called names. It rarely breaks someone out of that identity – much more often, it just drives them in the opposite direction, deeper into that safe, secure identity. Scream it into a paper bag if you must get it out of your system, but don’t expect it to have any positive or constructive result in a real conversation.

Do Start the Conversation With…

Instead of those kinds of questions, accusations, and assertions, it’s always better for us to start by simply asking the other person what they feel and think about what happened; how they see and frame it.

We shouldn’t be surprised if the other person’s initial take on the shooting is neither what we progressives saw and think nor what we might expect and fear from the worst rage-baiting agitating right-wing influencers in the media and on social media. Always remember, pundits and social-media agitators are probably not who we’re talking with. The people we talk to about the killing of Good are likely average folks who are often just as shocked and confused as we are. They may turn out to agree with us on more than we thought. Or maybe not.

So, as always, we ask them what they think

Did you see the video from Minneapolis of ICE agents engaging with the woman in the car?
Yes, that sort of neutral language can feel like a white-washing betrayal of what we are thinking and want to say, but this is why we practice this work.
How do you feel about it?
Give them time. Their thoughts and feelings may be complicated, confused, even contradictory. Let them sit with their reactions and process them in real time as you gently ask follow ups.
How do you feel ICE and other law enforcement officials should act in these situations?
Do they feel ICE acted appropriately and legally? Or do they feel mistakes were made under extreme, stressful circumstances? Maybe they’re confused and not sure what they’re seeing or what to think of it.
If we don’t want things like this to happen again, what do you feel can be done to prevent it?
Always work to find common ground, shared values, and to position ourselves as potential allies with the other person, working together when possible to think about possible solutions.

Keep the conversation going

As always, those questions are not a hard and fast map – how the other person responds to any of them will determine how we follow up, using the Persuasion Conversation Cycle as our guide:

Once we’ve established a baseline understanding of where the other person is coming from in regard to this week’s shooting, we can pivot to a larger discussion about ICE and their actions, as outlined in my previous piece:

Thanks for reading The Smart Politics Way! This post is public so feel free to share it.

What is the Smart Politics Way?

Want to learn more about Smart Politics and get involved?

Every Sunday night (and some Wednesdays), we meet on Zoom to teach, share, and support one another. Sign up for email recaps and reminders about these weekly calls
Smart Politics Website
Smart Politics Linktree
Resources page

Locke Peterseim is the Smart Politics Content Manager.

A Look Back at Smart Politics in 2025

Locke Peterseim — Wed, 31 Dec 2025 19:57:01 GMT

The benefit of year-end wrap-ups is they remind us where we started the year, the challenges we faced, what we accomplished, and where we ended up. It can be hard to recognize progress from deep in the day-to-day work trenches, so it helps to rise up, look back, and see how far we’ve really come this year.

On a recent Smart Politics support call, I asked attendees to remember back to January of this year—how they felt, what they feared or were anxious or despairing or doom-spiraling about. In case we forgot, it was a lot 12 months ago.

(That’s why you’ll notice Smart Politics spent a lot of the first six months of 2025 talking about how to better manage our own emotions—see Karin’s “Keep Calm and Carry On” pieces and mini e-book below.)

But then on our call, we focused on what went better in 2025 than we expected—what were some of the deeper, darker worst-case scenarios we had at the start of 2025 that by December had not really happened, at least not in the worst ways we anticipated. A lot of terrible, apocalyptic things we feared might happen a year ago have not, often because we stayed aware and got out there and acted and did the work in the many ways we could.

It was a helpful reminder that we must always balance awareness and action against letting doom casting and catastrophizing paralyze or weaken us.

Obviously, things are not magically, suddenly “alright.” So much damage, large and small, obvious and subtle, short- and long-term, is still being done every week, and the most vulnerable of us are still being cruelly made to suffer. But so many of the administration’s worst ideas and efforts are getting stopped or pushed back or thwarted. It sounds weird to use, “things aren’t good, but they aren’t nearly as bad as we feared” as some sort of rallying cry, but here we are…

So, I want to thank you all for a very empowering, inspiring, and effective year!

2026 will continue to bring new challenges, requiring us to stay strong and courageous and focused on the work—and we have so many people to talk with in 2026. We’re far from “out of the woods,” but I feel 2025 showed us how to navigate those woods much better—we now have better maps. Think back to a year ago and how much more we all know today about how to manage our emotions and reactions, and most importantly, what to do and how to do it.

I look forward to continuing to listen, connect, share, and work with you all in the new year!

— Locke Peterseim, Smart Politics Content Manager

Now here’s a handy review of the things we taught and talked about this past year:

The Case for Smart Politics

Karin’s Most Popular Pieces

Keep Calm and Carry On — Managing Our Emotions in Activism

Smart Politics Tools — How to Have a Conversation With a Trump Voter

The Trust Pyramid

The Persuasion Conversation Cycle

How to Talk About…

Practical tips for using Smart Politics methods when talking about current issues

Thanks for reading The Smart Politics Way! This post is public so feel free to share it.

What is the Smart Politics Way?

Want to learn more about Smart Politics and get involved?

Every Sunday night (and some Wednesdays), we meet on Zoom to teach, share, and support one another. Sign up for email recaps and reminders about these weekly calls
Smart Politics Website
Smart Politics Linktree
Resources page

Locke Peterseim is the Smart Politics Content Manager.

The Smart Politics Way

POSTPONED! No podcast this Thurs, Aug 13

We are very sorry, but we can’t do our podcast this week or next

THIS WEEK POSTPONED, BUT HOPEFULLY WE’LL BE BACK THURSDAY, AUG. 27, 3 PM ET

Staying Sane

Upcoming schedule and topics

(Subject to change)

What is the Smart Politics Way?

More on our work:

Want to learn more about Smart Politics and get involved?

RECORDING: Have Better Political Conversations

Full episode transcript below, including:

Next episode:

Thurs, August 13, 3 pm ET: Staying Sane

Upcoming schedule and topics

More about Smart Politics

FULL TRANSCRIPT — THURSDAY, AUGUST 6, 2026

Introducing the Persuasion Conversation Cycle

Reviewing the Trust Pyramid

Why We Slow Down Before We Persuade

Step One: Ask with Curiosity, Not Judgment

Step Two: Listen to Understand, Not to Respond

Step Three: Reflect to Show Understanding

Step Four: Validation Is Not Agreement

Step Five: Sharing Without Triggering Defensiveness

Practice the Cycle Until It Becomes Natural

Preview of the Next Episode

LIVE This Thurs, Aug 6, 3 pm ET: Have Better Political Conversations

Sorry we were waylaid for a few weeks, but we’re back THIS THURSDAY, AUGUST 6, 3 PM ET!

THIS WEEK: THURSDAY, Aug. 6, 3 pm ET

Have Better Political Conversations

NEXT WEEK’S EPISODE!

Thurs, August 13, 3 pm ET: Staying Sane

Upcoming schedule and topics

(Subject to change)

What is the Smart Politics Way?

More on our work:

Want to learn more about Smart Politics and get involved?

THIS SUNDAY! Our FREE Smart Politics Intro Webinar, Aug. 2, 7 pm ET

Sunday, August 2, 2026, 7 pm ET, we’re continuing our 101/Intro webinars!

Sign up now or share this with others!

Webinar Description

About Smart Politics

About the instructors

Join Us for our next FREE Smart Politics Intro Webinar, Aug. 2, 7 pm ET!

Sunday, August 2, 2026, 7 pm ET, we’re continuing our 101/Intro webinars!

Webinar Description

About Smart Politics

About the instructors

POSTPONED: This Week's Live Podcast

Next episode:

Week of July 20, date and time TBD: Have Better Political Conversations

Upcoming schedule and topics

More about Smart Politics

Smart Politics RECORDING: If Facts Don’t Work, What Does?

Thanks to everyone who attended and asked questions!

Full episode transcript below, including:

Next episode:

Thurs, July 16, 3 pm ET: Have Better Political Conversations

Upcoming schedule and topics

More about Smart Politics

FULL TRANSCRIPT — MONDAY, JULY 6, 2026

Why Facts Don’t Change Minds

The Debate Trap

The Stories We Tell Ourselves

Who You’re Really Talking To (Hint: Probably Not Extremists)

Why Courtroom Logic Fails

Why Defensiveness Stops Facts at the Door

The Elephant Runs the Show: Haidt’s Elephant and Rider

When Intelligent People Reject Facts and Evidence

Trust Is Faster Than Reason

Political Identity and Party Loyalty: Why People Follow Trusted Leaders and Outsource Political Decision-Making

The Slow Road to Changing Minds

Building the Trust Pyramid

Audience Q&A

How and when to share sources and articles

Can You Trust Someone You Still Disagree With?

Is This Manipulation? The Ethics of Persuasion

Final Takeaway: Don’t Lead With Facts—Lead With Trust

LIVE Mon, July 6, 11 am ET, (Special Time): If Facts Don’t Work, What Does?