The political is personal: week 6 of the COVID-19 social isolation, 2020, random day’s log

Yesterday between other political, domestic, family, and minimal self-care tasks* I was on two really good zoom calls. One was essentially about the importance of data-driven political organizing and education and the critical youth vote and one was about pretty much the same thing, and how to help good candidates get their message out and win hearts, minds, and votes.

And I’ll try to write more later, but the money quote from Rep. Katie Porter was that it was so time-consuming and resource-intensive to speak to a 50-y-old in a MAGA hat, and she would probably not succeed. With much less time and money spent, she could engage and educate a young voter (4-yr-college student, community college student; still looking for good ways to reach young people who don’t attend college). And essentially, it is not a good use of time to try to persuade older voters to change their votes and minds—they are pretty much the way they are going to be. I’m not sure she said “waste of time,” but someone I was on the zoom with yesterday definitely said “waste of time.”
Engagement and education includes any attempt by a candidate or organization to reach out to potential voters—including what day the election is, how to register to vote by mail, what the candidate stands for, being the source of valuable information (like COVID-19 help, how to get medical and financial assistance; healthcare).

Speaking of “waste of time,” the moment that’s been rolling around in my noggin all week occurred on Heather Cox Richardson’s Tuesday Facebook Live history/current events talk. She answers viewer questions as part of her talk. One question from a (probably young) man was “why do people not believe the evidence in front of their eyes?” He was asking why, despite repeated attempts, his beloved father was still taking the non-scientific stuff that the Fox News Network was broadcasting about the COVID-19 pandemic as fact. HCR responded, with a pained look, that he’d asked a good question. She then compared this holding fast to a dangerous, false ideology to trying to extricate another person from an abusive relationship. She noted that research says that it takes an average of 7 attempts for a person who leaves an abusive relationship to actually break free. The more the well-meaning friend insists that the abused person *must* leave, the more that person digs in; he or she has everything invested in this life that s/he has bought into. We all want to believe that we are in healthy relationships, have made good choices. The best way to help another person have a healthy relationship is to model healthy relationships. And HCR said that one thing that gives her hope is that in all of the talking about politics and history that so many of us are doing is that we are developing and modeling a healthy relationship with civics and government.

The other really worthwhile thing I heard was that effective ways to reach younger voters involve a combination of social media and peer-to-peer (in-person, calling, texting) conversations.

* included 30-minute frenetic exercise, having two too-strong drinks, and falling asleep in my youngest kid’s tent before putting that kid to bed and answering emails, so people remember that I am a grownup who tries to be reliable