How to De-escalate Red Voters with Cooling Conversations
Session Type(s): Training
Training Tag(s): Grassroots Organizing/Campaigns
Starts: Friday, Aug. 19 4:30 PM (Eastern)
Ends: Friday, Aug. 19 5:30 PM (Eastern)
Deep canvassing and relational organizing are increasingly recognized as powerful tools for mobilizing supporters and persuading the undecided. Less well-recognized is their usefulness for demobilizing and moderating opponents. This workshop will show you how to have cooling conversations with people who strongly disagree with you to help them process their negative emotions and reduce their hostility. The purpose of these dialogues isn’t to persuade red voters to vote blue, but to reduce their activism on behalf of extreme right-wing candidates and causes.
Moderator
Karin Tamerius
Karin Tamerius, MD is a political psychiatrist and founder of Smart Politics, a nonprofit that teaches progressives how to communicate persuasively with people they disagree with. She’s trained thousands of activists individually and on behalf of progressive organizations, including MoveOn, Women’s March, and Indivisible. Dr. Tamerius has published three political chatbots for The New York Times and she’s been featured in The Guardian, NPR, and Business Insider.