KEY #5: Don't take away my _____!
Last week we said, “Our attitudes come from our identity.” We'll be talking about that every single day from here on out. But what is this thing called “identity”? Part of it is what we looked at on Friday — our animal needs and instincts. That's our most primal level of existence.
Let's move upward from there. Rather than try to give you a psychologically thorough definition of “identity” and “the self” (your intuition about those terms is basically what they are in psychology), I'm just going to focus in on one way in which it’s useful to think about identity the way we encounter it when we talk to real voters.
• What we do is who we are
Consider people simply as the collection of things they do. They get up in the morning, they feed their kids some cereal, they drive their kids to school in an SUV, then they drive to work, they do their jobs, they shop for something, they line up outside the school in their SUV again and then take their daughters to ballet, they watch TV, they go to bed with their opposite-sex spouse.
They want all these things to be okay. They grew up socialized into this way of life and its rules, and they have their lives figured out in a way that they can handle. If somebody makes it harder for them to do things the way they do them, that feels like an attack.
This can be a big problem for the “change” party! People are settled.
People are afraid of gas prices. They're afraid that you'll make them get a smaller car. They're also afraid of being accused of racism when they don't feel like they've done anything racist, or being scolded for their “privilege” when they don't feel like they have any. (I had a great conversation with a moderate Republican who was driven solidly back into the conservative camp by liberals in his college town accusing him of “privilege.” Or so he felt.)
They don't want Michelle Obama telling them they're feeding their kids wrong. They're a little afraid that someday out-of-touch coastal elites will shame them for gender-normatively taking their boys to Little League and girls to ballet. These coastal elites, what’s it going to be next with them?
(I'll tell you what it’s going to be next. AOC and Bernie Sanders are going to take away our hamburgers.)
What all these have in common is that people learn some rules and norms for living, and they’re used to them, and they’ve built lives around them, and when somebody wants to change the rules and norms, that's just kind of hard. They want their comfort zone left alone.
I’m not saying what’s right or wrong — I’m just saying, what you have to work with is your listener’s own internal feeling of self. So when you speak, respect the fact that people have inertia in their way of life.
Takeaway: Don't get into a fight with people’s way of life.
Everything in this newsletter happens to also be the story of Covid. Next time, a word about Covid.
• Okay, so how does this help me?
I have two little experiences to share with you.
1. A few years ago I drove from New Jersey to rural Texas in my Toyota Prius, and I did an interview with a good-hearted, elderly, conservative gentleman out there. He had never seen a hybrid car before, so I told him how it works. Did I tell him I was saving the planet, unlike him in his pickup truck? No! I did not! I opened the hood and showed him that it had two engines. How cool is that — two engines in one car! That's something a real man can drive. He liked it.
2. I posted an article on Facebook about a new kind of solar panel, and had this exchange with a very conservative friend in California who didn't like the idea.
Him: “I would rather use a space heater.”
Me: “You would power your space heater for free with energy from your invisible solar-panel windows.”
Him: “OK, you sold me.”
Hey, that was easy.
We as Democrats are talking about change all the time, and there’s often a line between imposing change as a sacrifice and promoting change as a win. Let's find that line and get on the “win” side of it.
Takeaway: When you talk about change, find the “win.”
If I were a candidate, I would probably not be saying:
“We need to end our dependence on oil and coal, and invest in renewable energy.”
That sounds expensive and requires people to change. I would be saying:
“Our country gets sun, wind and tides for free — let’s grab as much of that as we can, so we can spend our money on other things.”
Takeaway Toteboard
- KEY #1: Republicans are from Mars, Democrats are from Swarthmore (Feb. 23):
• Democrats run an intellectual campaign to voters who are emotional creatures.
• Instead of running an intellectual campaign, we need to use our intellect to create an emotional campaign.
- KEY #2: What does the Democrats’ hat say? (Feb. 26)
• We all know exactly what the Republican hat says. Democrats don’t have one.
- KEY #3: Love isn’t rational. (Feb 28):
• Politics is emotion.
• If you find yourself trying to argue intellectually, stop! Find the emotional argument.
- KEY #4: You’re an animal! (March 1):
• Our attitudes come from our identity.
• You are speaking to the voter's animal brain.
- KEY #5: Don’t take away my _____! (March 4):
• Don't get into a fight with people's way of life.
• When you talk about change, find the “win.”