In Orson Scott Card’s great 1985 strategy novel “Ender’s Game,” a boy named Ender enters a training school where students learn skills for outwitting an opponent. They play computer games that become ever more challenging. The stakes in the training are high because their world is threatened by an alien force, and the aliens are winning. Among the trainees young Ender stands out, so his computer is patched into the actual global security system in real time to lead the defense. Spoiler alert: Ender’s world defeats the would-be conquerer.
Why Ender? Some other youngsters are as able as he to choose brilliant tactics and to see vulnerabilities in the aliens’ attack. Ender’s advantage is that he uses his empathy to intuit how the opponent perceives the unfolding struggle in light of its own worldview.
When considering how to undermine Donald Trump and militia groups, we need to use Ender’s advantage. It is not sufficient to be the legendary hammer that, wherever it looks, sees only nails. “Protest” is not the only tool we have. If we take a minute to understand what’s actually going on in the heads of our opponents, and how they understand the unfolding of America’s polarization, we may be glad that we have more options.
Donald Trump’s March 13 rally in Boca Raton, Florida, was revealing. Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank left the press corps and inserted himself into the core of the giant crowd. In that rally protesters had been screened out. Trump brought forth his usual inflammatory rhetoric, saying he might pay the legal fees of someone who sucker-punched a protester. Milbank reports, however, that the rally remained fairly tame. When Trump eventually asked, “Do we have a protester anywhere?” no one responded. Where was the drama?
Milbank noted, “Trump and his advisers seem to delight in the confrontations, which fuel the crowd’s energy.”
We activists might want to ask, “If Trump wants us to provide drama, why would we want to play his game?”
Fear could be making us reflexive here. It helps to remember that Trump has been winning about 40 percent of the voters in the Republican primaries, and Republicans are about 20 percent of the American electorate. That amounts to Trump gaining the vote of about 8 percent of the entire primary electorate. It’s a bit early to panic.
How we can unwittingly empower our opponents
A couple of weeks ago I joined a group of mostly white people concerned for racial justice that gathered because a reportedly militia-affiliated group was demonstrating at the Federal Building in Philadelphia. The demonstration supported Ammon Bundy’s January armed occupation of a wildlife refuge in Oregon and called attention to the killing of one of the group members by federal officials.
Before I joined the progressive group as it gathered around the corner from the Federal Building, I checked out the group we aimed to confront. I found about a dozen people carrying signs, clustering and chatting together, offering handouts to the few pedestrians who passed them. They were from out of town, and looked disoriented and very low-energy.
I rejoined my group and grabbed a sign as we went around the corner to face our opponents from across the street. As we marched toward our spot the other side straightened up, forming a line holding their signs so the passing drivers could actually see them. Their leader with a bullhorn began to speak. It began to look like a real demonstration.
A delegation from our side went across the street to dialogue. Then a few people not of our group came along our sidewalk, one carrying a bullhorn, and began to hurl accusations and insults at the group across the street. I saw body language on the other side go into heightened alert; people placed their feet farther apart and glared. Another set of activists came to our spot and then advanced across the street, blocking traffic in the lane closest to the opposing sidewalk while shouting at the demonstrators, who shouted back with spirit. Police stepped closer to remind all that they were being watched.
I imagined the out-of-town demonstrators’ reports at the dinner table and the bar when they got back home: “Well not much happened at first, but then the crazy political correctness people came and it got really interesting. We really showed them we’re not going to put up with the tyranny of the federal government.”
I joined our side in giving the militia-defenders a gift that day, supporting their empowerment in standing up for their cause.
Of course I believe in the value of polarization in the living revolution — as prescribed by Alice Paul, Gandhi and King — and described by Mark and Paul Engler’s “This is an Uprising.” But there seems to be an art to polarization: We surely don’t want to spend our time empowering our opponents by giving them energy they need to build their movements. Artful polarization uses tactics that reduce the power of the opponent, undermining their commitment and reducing support from their allies. It also brings more light to the situation, as well as the inevitable heat.
Empathy as a national deficit
As Ender discovered, a resource for practicing the art of polarization is empathy, but where is that honored in our culture? When our nation’s leadership asks why terrorism continues to grow despite massive firepower, it rarely tries to get inside the worldviews of either leaders or recruits of terrorist groups. Institutionalized racism, classism and other oppressions flourish with the scarcity of empathy. To my regret I didn’t ask, back in the 1960s, “Where does the violence of the members of the Ku Klux Klan come from?” I would have felt I was somehow letting down my cause if I turned to my empathy. That’s a pity, because I might have discovered how much the experience of capitalism was (and still is) a driver of the Klan.
For decades America’s white working class has been sliding downhill, accelerated by the Great Recession — schools failing, jobs departing, houses foreclosing, insecurity growing. There are even formerly middle-class people now identifying as working class. These increasingly marginalized people have for years felt themselves to be voiceless on the national political stage. Donald Trump offers a voice. When interviewed, his supporters forgive his contradictions because he speaks so loudly and vividly, outside the restrained stylistic norms of the elite.
“The protesters,” I can hear Trump’s supporters thinking to themselves, “want to silence our voice.”
Then the Trump campaign arranges a rally in a spot in Chicago likely to provoke more protesters. The rally is duly cancelled. I can hear the Trump supporters growling: “The protesters are succeeding in silencing our voice!”
Do we want to be seen as trying to silence someone perceived as an advocate by some of the more oppressed people in our country?
Violent escalation
In a culture tilted toward violence, scary scenarios are easy to imagine. Trump has found that his provocations succeed in manipulating leftists into protesting at his events. He has prepped many of his fans by talking violence, enacting bullying tactics and threatening to escalate by sending his people to disrupt Sanders rallies. One scenario is that his own supporters will, in groups or freelance, attack the demonstrations mounted by “elite leftists.”
Just as polarization can be either artful or destructive, escalatory tactics can be thoughtful or mindless. Alice Paul, King and others escalated thoughtfully. Californians watched middle-class environmentalists do the mindless version of escalation at the Children’s Pool beach in San Diego in the decade after 2005. Judging from the recent story on “This American Life,” environmentalists stepped up their angry and aggressive moves against the public when they faced resistance to their demand to reserve the beach for the harbor seals. Both sides went well beyond their better judgment.
Trump has already accused Sanders of directing protesters to disrupt his rallies, seeking to brand the left as the enemy. If anti-Trump protesters choose not to weigh the consequences, they will continue to protest — swallowing his bait — and we’re likely to see escalation at Trump rallies.
Such escalation has at least two consequences: It confirms the perception of the left as the enemy of beleaguered working-class people, whose voice “protesters are trying to silence.” It also invites escalation of the policing power of the state. Police violence has drawn criticism lately, but police will gain in legitimacy when the vast majority approves of police intervention to control the escalating tactics on both sides.
Trump has already threatened “riots” if the Republican establishment manages to avoid nominating him at the Cleveland convention. Where do his working-class supporters go if they find that the electoral arena did not work for them and believe that elitist leftists scorn them? The militias await.
The good news is that nonviolent struggle offers an abundant toolbox plus the invitation to creative thinking. Activists do not need to imitate the hammer that can see only nails. Protest is a tactic. This is a time for strategy.
While I agree with some of the message of this post, I do have some problems with some of this. First of all, the author refers to white, middle-class and working-class voters as “some of the more oppressed people in our country.” Granted, Lakey is talking about their own perception of themselves – that is how the pro-Trump white supremacists see themselves. But those people who enjoy all the benefits of white privilege do not really deserve the coddling that Lakey seems to suggest. I think the language on that could have been clearer.
I agree with Lakey that we need an actual strategy, not merely the tactic of protest; but I disagree with the implication that protest is irrelevant and necessarily counter-productive. If anything, the fact that non-violence protest is in fact resulting in violence (by the pro-Trump side) demonstrates exactly the purity of message that Gandhi and King utilized with their non-violent protest. Those using violence against peaceful protest lose the moral high ground by doing so, losing the fight for the hearts and minds of the American voter beyond the already committed pro-Trump constituency, just as King’s non-violence, met with police dogs, fire hoses, and even outright murder and bombings, convinced the American public that the civil rights fight was just and righteous. The protests will not by themselves solve the problem; but as a tactic they can help to shape the conversation in a positive way. We do need an actual strategy beyond that; but in our divisive environment, how do we have a meaningful conversation with those shouting insults at us? What is the strategy we are missing? Lakey takes us half-way to a solution by pointing out a problem; but then leaves us there with no actual solution in place of the tactic that he criticizes.
Paul R. is right to say that I didn’t propose an alternative to protesting at Trump events. The bad news is that one column can only hold so much, and the good news is that I have lots of ideas for alternatives. The even better news is that a lot of people have ideas for alternatives (including, I’ll bet, Paul R. himself), and a conversation is way better than somebody, like me, taking the role of expert. My main point in this column was to invite the conversation rather than for folks to believe they are a hammer that only knows how to drive in nails/mount protests.
In future columns I will explore alternatives, but I hope in the meantime many activists in many locations will take the challenge seriously and explore alternatives for themselves. We activists like alternatives, right? Gene Sharp in his book Politics of Nonviolent Action lists 198 methods, so there’s a start right there, on the tactical level. You can find the list quickly by going to http://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/browse_methods.
When you get there you’ll see that many of the methods have names that are self-explanatory, but some have the word “More” which, if clicked, will explain the method more and often give examples.
If you want to see a method in the context of a campaign, just click on the name of the method and you’ll get a list of campaigns that used that method. If you click on one or more of those campaigns you’ll see how the campaign used the method and it may give you ideas on how you could use it effectively in both opposing Trump and weakening his hold on his followers.
You’ll see that as you move along the list the methods tend to get more aggressive or in some other way exert more force in particular situations.
Each case usually reports what the response from the opponent was to the method, so we can get more clues about the impact in that situation, and also the response from the opponent’s base, which is really important when we think about Trump and the militias.
If a method strikes you as worth exploring seriously, you might find a variety of situations where it was used and how differently it can be used, depending on what seems to be the strategy of the campaigners.
So we do come back to strategy after all. Tactics are no substitute for strategy but I find when I stimulate my brain by seeing the sheer variety of tactics available I sometimes think more clearly about the “chessboard” aspect of this struggle, and Ender’s Game. “If we make this move, what’s the likely outcome?”
George
Wow. What a resource. Thank you
Paul R — This would have surprised me six months ago, but there is at least one piece of objective evidence to show that below-middle-class whites really are suffering at this particular time: death rates in that group are rising, and so far no specific reason has been found. No other ethnic groups are displaying the same behavior.
Several factors might be contributing to the increased mortality, but even without any explanations,it is a clear sign that something is going wrong.
If people are in trouble and suffering, I see no reason to downplay their problems as a result of some other set of problems. I understand that other projects might very well wind up with higher levels of funding; nevertheless, this one should not be ignored.
with respect to Mr. Lakey, I think that he misapprehends Ender’s Game and that it would have been better if he had chosen another narrative to shape his Trump strategy piece around – like Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, for example … because the plot of the novel (and the movie that followed) is that Ender Wiggin – already a psychopathic killer as a child – is chosen and cultivated to be a sociopath by a global dictatorship determined to wage a genocidal war in response to an alien invasion that is later revealed to have been a mistake (the aliens didn’t initially realize Earth was inhabited) … over the course of the generation since Earth barely managed to repel the accidental invasion, it turns out that the dictatorship that resulted has built a huge space fleet and has already begun to retaliate against the aliens when Ender’s Game begins … while Ender is being trained by the military, the aliens attempt to communicate with him telepathically through a computer game to dissuade him from the path he has been set on, but fail … he then leads Earth’s forces to victory by wiping out all of the aliens’ colony worlds followed by their homeworld – the conceit being that Ender did not know that the battles he was leading were real rather than a training exercise … however, critics have pointed out that since the book goes to great lengths to present Ender and his young leadership team as psychopathic military super-geniuses – incipient Napoleons and Hitlers all – there’s no way they would have been taken in by such a ruse given that they were in real-time communication with their fleets throughout the war … instead, all of them – Ender most of all – wanted to commit genocide, and given the opportunity, did so … the story is presented almost entirely from their perspective – with tantalizing glimpses of reality through occasional nods to the perspectives of less psychopathic characters – so it’s difficult for the audience to remain aware that the logic and rationale of the narrative is the logic and rationale of psychopaths … to the main characters, everything they do can be justified, even their pointless later acts of contrition – which come far too late to matter to their victims … in fact their internal thought processes are very much like that of religious zealots, which turns out to be very close to the mark when one considers the book’s author … regardless, a single representative of the insectlike species leadership is left in a secret bunker at the end of the story, finally succeeds in making contact with Ender after the war is over, puts the remaining infant queen of the species in the genocide’s care – hoping he will help the queen restart her civilization – and expires … all of this makes sense only if one understands that Ender author Orson Scott Card is a reactionary Mormon and virulently anti-abortion Dixiecrat … the entire series of Ender books that follows (and the Shadow series that follow those) could thus be retitled “Save the Fetuses” without a trace of irony – because that’s what the main characters in all the books spend their time doing: saving fetuses … that is when they’re not wiping out entire species, thinking about wiping out entire species, and making excuses for enlightened dictatorship as the best possible form of government …
My response to you, Jason, is ambivalent. On the one hand, I like contexts, so your bringing our awareness to the larger context of the Ender series and the politics of Orson Scott Card broadens our knowledge. On the other hand, I don’t like it if awareness of context reduces our ability to learn something valuable.
As you know, I often refer positively to Alice Paul’s amazing leadership of the militant phase of the woman suffrage movement. However, when I interviewed her I perceived her as seriously off the mark regarding other oppressions that nowadays we are extremely attentive to. The question is, should I discourage people from learning from her positive contributions because she was considerably less than perfect?
This question opens the door to a still larger one: how do we make our experience of the world abundant, rather than scarce? Capitalism wants us to experience the world as scarce, so we’ll grasp and compete and overwork and believe that we never have enough. My dad grew up with a scarcity worldview and my mother grew up with the belief that the world was abundant, and what a difference that made to me! When I realized this, I resolved (understanding that we do to an amazing degree create our own experience of reality) to take the side of abundance whenever I could remember to do so.
Dissing positive insights and capacities because their context includes oppression is one way to make our experience one of scarcity. Many middle class white activist groups do that by supporting anti-oppression policing that keeps their members in a “hold back” posture that suppresses creativity and boldness, both of which oppressed groups want and need from allies. This is a fashionable radical norm yielding scarcity when what we all need is an abundance of power for good!
Strategizing is not at the moment a brilliant feature of activist movements in our country. Help is available. We need all the help we can get. I like the slogan common in a grassroots movement that is flourishing under the radar: “Take the best, and leave the rest.”
George
Thank you. Sometimes this is what I feel is going on in this political game being played out right before my eyes. Thank you very much for putting voice to this.
“Psychopath” and “sociopath” can be oppressive labels in their own right. And by definition Ender is neither, as a lack of empathy is a defining feature of those labels. But it has been observed that all children are psychopaths, in that we are not born empathetic but develop that capacity as we mature. Thus Ender’s self-defense as a child could not be labelled “psychopathic” unless you are unwilling to distinguish between child brains and adult brains. He was six at the beginning of the book, and 11 at the final battle. He was a child soldier. And the book is far more nuanced than you are giving it credit for. He never “wanted” to commit genocide, and he was deeply conflicted during the entire book. Humanity had no way of knowing that the invasion was a mistake–they believed it was their only option to avoid total annihilation. Eventually, Ender rescues the queen, revives their species on a new planet, and writes the book that tells the truth of the war, dooming his own reputation in history. He’s hardly an “incipient Hitler”. Although I do think the author is unrealistic in imagining a child could go through that experience and then become a well-adjusted and thoughtful adult with zero mental health care just cause he’s super smart. Anyway if we are going to throw out novels and literature because of the politics or religion of their authors, we’re going to end up with a very small (and boring) library…
On the other hand, I agree that regardless of intention Ender actually did commit genocide at the behest of the military and that’s not really our goal as peace activists. So maybe it’s not the best comparison to use but I like the article overall.
If anyone is interested, I enjoyed this article – it is a longer treatment of why poor whites support Trump that expanded my empathic resonance, as well as my understanding of the historical roots of the racism that Trump’s campaign is built on:
http://www.stirjournal.com/2016/04/01/i-know-why-poor-whites-chant-trump-trump-trump/
In short, pitting poor whites against poor blacks is a very old game, and it doesn’t benefit poor whites so much as a few elite rich whites. But that misdirection is why so many poor white people are bafflingly conservative and support economic policies at their own expense.
Very much like this approach George. At first I thought that you were the linguist author George P. Lakoff who speaks about “central metaphors” in the framing of values. Both approaches are quite compatible. Maybe a new Enders Game of townhall meetings would be helpful so that all sides can look at common views and motivations. Can you come to Allentown PA?
There’s a lot here to chew on. It seems like the question is how to polarize different groups within Trump’s supporters – whether through confrontational protest, principled nonviolent civil disobedience that respects Trump’s working-class white supporters, or something else. No doubt it is easy for us to fall into unthoughtful patterns of action, to just show up and yell or always seek dialogue or always break out the religious imagery or any other thing that we assume matches the context without really thinking through impact and strategy.
With the action you reference in Philly (which I helped plan), part of our hope was to engage our empathy. The dialogue was strategic – when we were over there talking with them the militia members weren’t using their megaphone, and we learned a lot about how they would engage with us in the future. But it also attempted to make us human to them. I don’t believe that it ended up being the most effective, so clearly just engaging our empathy without deeply thinking through strategy isn’t good enough.
More than one kind of person supports Trump. More than one kind of person supports any political symbol. Where do we attempt to place our wedge? What role does empathy play in action design?
Listening Project: My vision of the most effective protest would be if every protester showed up prepared to listen as deeply and caringly as possible to each person they encountered. Not to argue or give unrequested information, but to listen. To ask questions in order to learn about the other person’s life – not their sound bites, but what’s real for them – their struggles and hopes and fears. Build real relationships. Instead of trying to be scary, try to connect.
I am surprised at how brash Mr. Trump has been during this campaign. His negative comments are not only directed toward our current President and Hillary Clinton, but also, toward anyone who has another take on reality, such as that of Christian pacifists who refuse to take up arms.
If Mr. Trump wins this election, my fear is that we’ll have a very immature president giving an impression to the world that all Americans are like him. That is very frightening.
This is a great article, George, and it sums up a lot of what progressive social movements the world over tend to forget. I’ve shared it through the network I run, the Community of Restorative Researchers. Have you ever come across restorative justice? It is a really effective way of building this kind of empathy and understanding between people who have very different views/narratives, but who ultimately want the same thing!
I’m a fan of restorative justice; heard remarkable stories from as far away as Indonesia where it is still retained among some indigenous peoples and am very glad for its growth in the U.S. and Canada.
The new Michael Moore film includes a close-up of the Norwegian approach to criminal justice that is consistent with what you’re doing, as I understand it. Norway has the lowest crime repeat rate in Europe. I share some about that in my Viking Economics book coming out in July.
Thanks for doing what you’re doing. Would your people be available to coach activists concerned to undermine the power of Trump and the militias?
I would hope so! We are based in the UK, but there are a number of US organisations involved in RJ, including International Institute for Restorative Practices, Restorative Justice International, National Association of Community and Restorative Justice, Eastern Mennonite University’s Zehr Institute, The Peace Alliance – the list goes on!
Vaughn’s, John’s, and Flip’s comments have in common the emphasis on our listening to what’s really going on among those on “the other side.” John’s group sending people across the street to dialogue, Vaughn setting up town halls in Allentown and elsewhere, and Flip’s listening project proposal suggest a possible win/win: done persistently such efforts will not only teach us the various threads that tie people to Trump or rightwing extremism, but also would win some of them over in the process.
You might have seen my column not long ago in WagingNonviolence referencing my brother and so many other people who are equally attracted to Trump and Sanders. Some of their reasoning is based on a radical critique of the 1 percent’s control of the two major parties.
One reason why people might go for Trump instead of Sanders is because of decades of 1 percent-financed brain-washing about how socialism is evil, and/or how professional tycoons automatically know more than professional politicians (which is what Sanders is), and/or how small government is always better than big government.
Some of it might be based on stylistic class affinities; I was brought up working class and I know a lot of people who instinctively trust more a plain-spoken, emotionally spontaneous style that doesn’t care much about norms of politeness than the style cultivated among professional and upper class people. (Think of the voting patterns that reflected a preference for George W. Bush, who you’d rather have a beer with instead of John Kerry with whom you’d be at a loss for words; that’s just one example of many.)
So I agree with John that lots is going on over there, and I’m confident that our effectiveness depends on knowing what we’re doing instead of counting on the protest habit to somehow win the day.
I’m remembering a group of high schoolers I mentored during the Vietnam war who twice a week regularly did street speaking on the same corner, attacking the war. We fiercely opposed the war and at the same time made a point of being respectful toward the hecklers we attracted. I learned that our biggest antagonist was a leader of the right-wing Young Americans for Freedom, and his heckles were the most biting. Over time he toned down his accusations, then shifted into acute questions, then came over to our side, bringing his leadership skills with him.
Who doesn’t want that?
George
I recently had a long conversation with a beloved family member who is planning to vote for Trump. It was so painful to listen to! I didn’t have a good response, and I’m struggling to find the resources within myself to have a real dialog with him. But George Lakey’s comment about the instinctive trust for a more plain-spoken, emotionally spontaneous style was right on target. This is what resonates with my relative, and for him it feels more trustworthy, than the style of the politicians I find more palatable.
I know that shutting down Trump supporters won’t shift their opinions. For many, like my relative, it will just harden his position, and make him feel more victimized. There are many factors in why people chose Trump, but a feeling of being betrayed by those in power is very strong.
I talked about this column with a friend who emigrated from Germany. She is very frightened of Trump, because he brings up memories of how Hitler manipulated her people. Her first response was to vehemently state that Trump has to be stopped immediately. But as we talked, she observed that voting for Trump is probably a desperate gesture by people who feel angry and worried, and don’t know what to do.
Finding the inner resources to connect with Trump supporters is a big challenge! I think it’s a good idea, but I think it will be hard. My inner voice is saying, “I’m so right, and you’re so wrong!” However, I’m sure that acting morally superior isn’t going to work. I’m re-reading George Lakey’s column, and re-considering my style of talking to Trump supporters.
I appreciate this invitation to think about different approaches. Reminds me of another article re the instrumental value of empathy in the medical field: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/03/how-to-teach-doctors-empathy/387784/. Of course, it’s likely easier in the medical context because there is a higher initial degree of trust & care between the parties.
In developing alternatives, I would be very interested in practices that help cultivate empathy independent of their value in political campaigns (such as non-violent communication or the kind of training mentioned for doctors in article linked above). As always, thanks George!
I protested at two recent Trump rallies. Much of this article doesn’t ring true for me, unfortunately.
Is it fair to ask if the author of this article is actively engaged in efforts to defeat Trump and right-wing extremism?
I’d also like to ask if I missed the part of this article where the author goes beyond criticizing Trump protesters to offer his specific recommendations for what concerned people should be doing instead. Did I?
Hi Loren,
You didn’t miss it — it wasn’t there. Waging Nonviolence columns have a certain defined length. As I responded to an earlier request for alternatives, I will weigh in with a bunch of ideas I have. However, even better than my sharing ideas is a collective process in which people around the country are generating and sharing alternative ways of opposing Trump and the militia movement. Even for folks who are content with going to protests, having options to choose from seems wise. Nobody really wants to be a knee-jerk responder to someone who is expert in manipulation, as Trump is. And besides, when we generate options collectively, we get more creative because we bounce ideas off each other. There’s even a theory of empowerment that holds that a large part of personal power is knowing that we have options, and that we can find them (as described above in the comments) or create them.
Hope you’ll accept the challenge!
George
P.S. And stay tuned, because in over half a century of struggle in social movements I’ve been finding new and/or different ways of doing things.
you don’t seem to have a very high regard for either of these groups of actors, as well as lumping participants into groups or labels that are not supported by your piece or reality.
while your fears and the suggested tactics they lead you to may work in some instances, I see no evidence that they are in any way universal in the way you hope for.
John
Thanks for this great insight. Right on! We need more of this kind of clear-eyed realism in the midst of all the drama. Violence and violent rhetoric may sell news papers and fill evening news shows, but they don’t allow Democracy and respectful dialog to flourish.
Thanks for this.
My sense is that a key value of protest is confronting power, showing the powerful that they have limits, and forcing them to back off or use ugly forms of their power that let more people understand them. This is completely counter-productive when protesting people who feel powerless. The only answer for Trump is to provide a movement that welcomes his current followers, not confronting them. (If they express power-over, then countering that expression might make sense, but them going to hear a speech cannot be the thing we protest.)
hi George
Here is our resource on empathy.
Center for Building a Culture of Empathy
http://cultureofempathy.com
It seems to me we need an empathy team at these rallies to listen to and dialog with all sides as well as bring them together and support dialog between them.
Would you be up for an recorded dialog to discuss the relationship of nonviolence and empathy?
Edwin Rutsch
Director
Center for Building a Culture of Empathy
Please do organize such teams — it would make empathy immediately applicable at a time when our country is in a tough spot. There are a lot of connections between empathy and that broad term “nonviolence,” but right now I don’t have time for a dialogue. Your point of entry for the application of empathy is “both sides,” which is splendid but different from my focus right now, which is on the strategic use of confrontation. My activist group is right now engaged in a direct action campaign that promotes racial justice, economic justice, and climate justice all at the same time, and confrontation is a major strategy we use. (Earth Quaker Action Team — EQAT.org) There’s a time and place for a variety of approaches, and the polarization around Trump’s role doesn’t seem to be helped at all by confrontation (see Kate Aronoff’s blog post and the study she cites), whereas your work may be of help. Keep us posted!
(And I will write more specifically about strategy and Trump.)
George
A friend that vigils for peace weekly was just saying that her new bucket list item was to be arrested at a Trump rally. I thought it was funny. After reading George’s thoughtful article its got me thinking differently. We have to be smarter about the nonviolent strategies we use and as George suggests, we have to get into the heads of our opponents, try to know where they are coming from, and as Gandhi did, try to speak to them and their concerns.
A very insightful article. I just wish George might have suggested what things in the “abundant toolbox” might be useful in dealing with Trump and his supporters.
While you all are busy defeating Trump and right-wing extremism, you might consider that fact that the government, the ruling class, and the most probable next president, are corrupt, authoritarian plutocrats and war criminals by the standards of the Nuremberg war crimes trials. Trump looks like a circus sideshow to me, designed to frighten and distract the public while the same-old same-old preserve their power by whatever chicanery is necessary. Protest all you like; the war criminals will laugh their way back to the White House while you’re doing it. I suggest protesting something besides Trump, but suit yourselves.
Professor Lakey, were you calling for the anti-Trump left to stop their in-person protest, yet advocating their vocal but distance protesting? Do you advocate protest on a case by case basis? You have protested with success against the coal mining industry, but do you now regret that as an un-empathetic aggression? What do you see as the most effective strategy the anti-Trump left can take against his policies and practices during his admin?
Correct me if I am wrong about the this recent history: Trump and his enforcement squad expelled anyone they suspected of being opposed or unsupportive of his agenda. As a result, you risked expulsion no matter how incognito your demeanor. In fact some reports about the ironic and paranoid expulsion of pro-Trump supporters surfaced in the media.
When the gears, chains and whips of power deny our right to be in public political attendance, we must defy and protest that. Rousseau wrote about it calling it… “the pleasure of our attendance.” Translated and modernized that means–we all have the right to be here, unless and until we violate the rules/laws, which in fact Trump and company violated via their forcible expulsions of tacit observers. We know that the Trump crowd was exclusive then as a prelude to their elitist purge of the non-white and/or poor.