I recently read The Persuaders by Anand Giridharadas
- Prologue - the IRA Russian disinformation campaign in 2016 was intended to divide Americans, to make each side look irredeemable to the other
- 1st chapter starts with a story about Linda Sarsour, related to identity - she pushed to have Bernice King's blessing on naming a women's march in Washington
- Chapter 1 continues with Loretta Ross - key idea is people who agree with you:
- 90% - share your worldview, be careful not to argue over the last 10%
- 75% - these people can work together on common concerns, even if for different reasons
- 50% - likely have shared values but opposite positions
- 25% - outside your bubble - be careful about language
- 0% - bad-faith arguments, fascists. Could also be a contrarian
- identity politics: Combahee River Collective in 1977 (Boston-based black lesbians) - I can compare this to my barber's experience of his father being a professor of Africian literature, he had to teach Hemingway because he was white
- Alicia Garza of Black Lives Matter(BLM) - how to measure progress. Favorite quote: ‘do change language for comprehension, but don't change it merely for comfort'; saw this while changing "black-list" to "deny-list", and "white-list" to "allow-list" in a program
- a definition of racism: a system that ensnares everyone in society, more than individual acts
- Chapter three starts with Bernie Sanders (not me, us) - noted how infrequently he talks about himself
- Chapter 4 - we are not divided, we are disconnected
- dealing with the other side when you win - AOC's response: Not long ago 'Black Lives Matter' was "also" a rallying cry for justice that politicians worried polled too poorly, was too 'divisive' & required 'too much explanation'. Now Mitt Romney is saying it. Progress is progress
- Brand New Congress - push both "vs them" and "us" in this race is about people verses money
- ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) was created in 2003 with the legislation for the Iraq war. Prior to this we had Immigration & Naturalization services which weren't militarized
- shift the Overton window - present an extreme idea to shift discussion towards a less-extreme idea, examples
- AOC mentions a tax rate of 70% for every dollar over $10 million in 2019, for the 2020 democratic debate all candidates support some kind of tax on the wealthy
- Promoting decency when John McCain passed away
- the rebel in collaborative circles is similar to this window shift
- Messaging in chapter 5 - a discussion with Anat Shenker-Osorio
- for a given issue, normal breakdown of supporters is 20% on one side, 20% on the other, and 60% undecided. An example in the book, given a choice between a burger and pizza, 20% would commit to a burger, 20% to pizza, and 60% undecided
- Offering a pizza burger would get 0%
- many of these undecided can be labeled as "good point, but also ... good point" - the burger is hot, but the pizza is from Chicago
- priming has a strong impact on the undecided
- A message people can get behind is the utopia you want to create, not the dystopia you want to prevent
- Shenker-Osorio: sell the brownie, not the recipe
- chapter 6 - in response to the war on terror --Diane Benscoter (former Moonie, expert at extracting cult members): ''tens of thousands of troops cannot stop extremism, it is time we stopped, looking for some vague enemy called "evil" - which we will never find - and start looking for the real cause of extremism and human vulnerability.'' Stopping the people who spread lies may not work as well as inoculating the people who would fall prey to them
- Why presenting facts don't change peoples' minds: To make people feel stupid is to play back to them a version of themselves they don't recognize. But to appeal to them as critical thinkers who deserve to know how they were misled - this has the potential to work
- John Cook - author of "Cranky Uncle vs. Climate Change" - principles of science denial:
- Fake experts
- Logical fallacies
- Impossible expectations
- Cherry picking
- Conspiracy theories