Humanizing Trump Supporters
AVC on CNN
A new documentary on CNN sought to understand why supporters of former President Donald Trump believe so many things that aren't true.
"MisinfoNation: The Trump Faithful" aired Sunday night on "The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper." You can watch it online if you have access to CNN. The documentary shows clips of AVC's Jan. 29 pastor conference in Phoenix and an interview with AVC board member Pastor Caleb Campbell.
AVC's mission is to grow a community of Americans empowered to lead with truth, reject extremism and misinformation, and defend democracy. We do that primarily through relationships, by empowering those with friends or relatives who believe misinformation, and who are becoming more politically extreme as a result, to have those difficult conversations, and to help their loved ones step back from a dangerous path.
I'm recommending MisinfoNation to you, not simply because I'm in it (though that's very cool), but because the reporter, Donie O'Sullivan, does a good job modeling how to have those conversations. (Tip: If you don't have access to CNN, YouTube TV offers a 7-day free trial to new subscribers.)
O'Sullivan did two important things during his interviews:
1) He never shied away from stating what is true. He clearly and concisely told the truth, but never in a condescending way. In some cases, his interviewees expressed appreciation after being corrected.
2) He demonstrated empathy for those he interviewed. He listened intently and sought to genuinely understand where his interviewees were coming from.
Your own conversations may not be exactly the same. People behave different when they know they're on camera. Nonetheless, practicing empathy and defending the truth are two principles to keep in mind in every conversation.
Some on the left side aren't happy with CNN's report. One critic complained on Threads that O'Sullivan was "trying to humanize Trump supporters."
"Such an ignorant take I see too much on the left. ‘Humanizing’ Trump supporters? … They are humans, you know," O'Sullivan replied. "Dehumanization is a big problem in this country."
Most of the responses to O'Sullivan basically confirmed that indeed, there is too much dehumanization on the left.
On a similar topic, research published in the Journal of Social Psychology found that personal biases against ideological opponents were three times stronger among liberals than conservatives. A summary and interview in PsyPost notes,
However, contrary to the expectations of the ideological asymmetry hypothesis, this difference in evaluations was much more pronounced in liberal participants, compared to conservatives. The difference between assessments given to liberal and conservative applicants based on their alleged Facebook pages was three times higher on average when liberals were doing the assessments compared to assessments made by conservatives.
“I was very surprised that the level of liberal bias against conservatives was nearly three times greater than was conservative bias toward liberals,” Ridge said. “This is directly the opposite of what ideological asymmetry would predict. I was also surprised that given this result, liberal participants claimed that conservatives were much more prejudiced than liberals, whereas conservatives did not attribute any more prejudice to liberals than to conservatives. This is contrary to much popular opinion about liberals and conservatives in popular media and in the empirical literature.”
For a positive example of how to treat ideological opponents, check out this video of what happened when Nancy French reached out to one of her husband's biggest online trolls.
Trump's second term?
Time magazine interviewed Trump and several of his closest confidants to answer the question, what would a second Trump term look like? The results confirm many of my worst fears.
But his policy preoccupations are clear and consistent. If Trump is able to carry out a fraction of his goals, the impact could prove as transformative as any presidency in more than a century. “He’s in full war mode,” says his former adviser and occasional confidant Stephen Bannon. Trump’s sense of the state of the country is “quite apocalyptic,” Bannon says. “That’s where Trump’s heart is. That’s where his obsession is.”
These obsessions could once again push the nation to the brink of crisis. Trump does not dismiss the possibility of political violence around the election. “If we don’t win, you know, it depends,” he tells TIME. “It always depends on the fairness of the election.” When I ask what he meant when he baselessly claimed on Truth Social that a stolen election “allows for the termination of all rules, regulations and articles, even those found in the Constitution,” Trump responded by denying he had said it. He then complained about the “Biden-inspired” court case he faces in New York and suggested that the “fascists” in America’s government were its greatest threat. “I think the enemy from within, in many cases, is much more dangerous for our country than the outside enemies of China, Russia, and various others,” he tells me.
Join Us Tomorrow Night!
Is Christian Nationalism a paper tiger whose threats are overblown by left-wing media and political operatives, or is it a serious danger to our democracy? Please join us tomorrow night for our webinar, “Christian Nationalism: How Dangerous Is It Really?” with Professors Mark Hall and Paul Miller.
Hall, professor of political science at Regent University, addresses this issue in his new book, Who’s Afraid of Christian Nationalism: Why Christian Nationalism Is Not an Existential Threat to America or the Church. For more of Hall’s views on this topic, check out “Towards a More Reasonable Account of American Christian Nationalism” and “God & Country: A Review.”
Miller, professor of political science at Georgetown University, also wrote a book on Christian Nationalism, The Religion of American Greatness: What's Wrong With Christian Nationalism. For more of Miller’s writings on this topic, check out “What Is Christian Nationalism?” and “The Problem with Anti-Anti-Christian Nationalism.”
Join us online May 2, 8-9pm eastern.
MDA is Half-Off for May!
Have you watched your church become divided in recent years? Friends and family torn apart by culture wars, politics, or pandemic policies? You're not alone. We've heard similar stories over and over again. This is why American Values Coalition has created a resource to help churches with some of the major drivers of division.
Mending Division Academy (MDA) is a set of six courses for church small groups. They are titled:
When Polarization Divides Us: Confronting the Perception Gap
When Conspiracies Divide Us: Confronting Misinformation
When Social Media Divides Us: Confronting Our Internet Habits
When Journalism Divides Us: Confronting Our Media Consumption Habits
When Politics Divides Us: Confronting Political Idolatry
When Crises of Faith Divide Us: Confronting Deconstruction
Each course offers 3-5 sessions. For each session a small group will watch a 30-40 minute video together and process the information together with provided discussion questions.
Use the code MAY50 to get half-off each course for the month of May.
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