When is the last time you changed someone’s mind about a political issue? Think hard. Perhaps your uncle at Thanksgiving? Maybe a guy ahead of you in line at the market? A discussion at a meeting? I’ll bet you can’t come up with a single example.
In the December 7 issue of the Nation, Katha Pollitt addressed the idea of showing women who voted for Trump the error of their ways. She writes: “You may think their beliefs are bigoted and ill-informed and illogical–which they are. You may marvel that women who think the polite and scandal-free Barack Obama is the Antichrist can believe that foul-mouthed, abusive Donald Trump is God’s instrument, like King David. What you are not going to do is make them see it differently by reminding them that at least 15 women have accused Trump of a range of sexual offenses.”
Pollitt says, and I agree with her, that you will not change their minds, will not make them see the light, will not convert them into feminist liberals.
She does point out that nearly 40% of eligible voters–many of them young, many of them rural, many of them blacks and Latinos–did not vote in 2016. Those are the people we ought to be targeting.
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