In Defense Of Friendly and Agreeable Interactions With Your Political Opponents

You catch more flies with honey than vinegar

Recently, among his fellows on the left, Cenk Uygur has been getting into some trouble. Uygur appeared at TPUSA and had a friendly chat with Charlie Kirk—a staunch conservative—about the things they agreed about. Many on the left have been criticizing Uygur, suggesting that having been given the opportunity to speak with the right-wing, he should have taken the time to criticize Kirk, rather than bond over their shared hatred of Mitch McConnell.

Now, I feel weird defending Cenk, as I find him to be consistently one of the least insightful commentators on the planet, resorting to yelling and theatrics rather than anything in the same universe as reasoned argument. But nonetheless, I think Cenk was right to have a friendly chat with Kirk. Having ordinary friendly interactions with those on the other side is good both for persuasion and healing deep divisions.

Political changes are like John Green’s description of falling in love (and falling asleep): they occur slowly and then all at once. They come when you come to see, to a greater and greater extent, that the side you previously reviled has some good ideas. The more small nuggets of wisdom you perceive from the other side, the likelier it is that your mind will be changed. The more you see the other side get stuff right, the more you say to yourself “well, those guys aren’t all crazy,” and the likelier you are to defect and join the other side.

For instance, Trent Horn, a Catholic apologist, has no doubt converted many Protestants to Catholicism. In part, this is because he spends loads of time arguing for Catholicism. But in part, this is because Trent and Protestants are ostensibly on the same side: opposed to atheism, Mormonism, Islam, and the like. Protestants see Trent as a friend and ally. For this reason, they’re more open to hearing his criticisms of Protestantism. They see him as a fellow traveler, someone with genuinely good points, rather than an enemy.

Similarly, I imagine I’m taken more seriously by a lot of effective altruists when I argue for God’s existence, because I’m ostensibly on their team. They hear and agree with the things I say about effective altruism, and think “this is very reasonable.” Then, when I criticize their religious views, having built up my credibility, I’m more persuasive. I found Dustin Crummett especially convincing in his arguments for God’s existence because I agreed with him on so many other issues.

I remember when had my first major political conversion—moving to the left—David Pakman was quite influential in my shift. Part of why I was so amenable to being persuaded by him was that I found myself in agreement with him on many other subjects. He was willing to call out Reza Aslan’s bullshit, for instance, in a way few others on the left were. Had he only made videos about issues on which he thought the left was correct, I’d have been less likely to take him seriously.

This is a defect. Ideally, we wouldn’t ignore arguments just because they’re propounded by the outgroup. But we do not live in an ideal world. For this reason, having even fairly banal and innocuous action to reach out to the other side seems ideal for persuasion.

People who disagree about politics talk a decent amount in public life. But much of the time, it’s in the form of debates. Both sides are trying to tear the other one down and demonstrate that the other person is a credulous fool. This makes good entertainment, and occasionally changes minds, but it doesn’t enable common ground. Neither side really bonds over the course of these debates. Insofar as common bonding is, as I’ve suggested, absolutely indispensable for changing minds, probably the best thing you can do to change minds is simply to have a friendly chat with the people you disagree with.

A while ago, Tucker Carlson had on a vegan named Gene Baur. Baur was friendly in the conversation, rather than mean-spirited or combative. By the end, Tucker was complimenting Baur on his reasonableness. I submit that Baur did more to convince people of the correctness of veganism than almost any other activist on TV.

Baur didn’t present forceful arguments for veganism, though he did discuss some of the ways animals were mistreated. But he humanized vegans in front of an anti-vegan crowd. He made veganism seem like the sort of reasonable position that a Tucker viewer might adopt, the sort of position that even Tucker found reasonable. By being friendly and agreeable, Baur came off more favorably than well above 99% of Tucker’s guests.

Even aside from persuasion, having friendly conversations with your political opponents is good from a moral standpoint. America is quite a divided nation. We are divided by politics in a way that is exceptionally rare in our history. This kind of division results in many refusing to date or to marry based on politics and in widespread political hatred. Hundreds of millions of people think the other side is wicked for their beliefs. Division also breeds extremism—if you don’t think that the other side might have good points, inevitably you’ll fall deeper into an echo chamber, and become more certain of the points of your own side.

In such a polarized atmosphere, friendly conversations are ideal. They help humanize the other side. They make it easier to see the other side as composed of people, rather than mindless machines who believe only wickedness and absurdity. Famously, people are more tolerant of gay people when they know someone who is gay. Similarly, people are likely to be more tolerant of those they disagree with politically when they know people that they disagree with politically.

It’s harder to maintain that Republicans are demons motivated solely by a desire to control women’s bodies when your uncle is a Republican—and he’s a nice guy! In a similar way, if you come to see Republicans as broadly on your team—if your favorite political commenters treat them as misguided friends, rather than enemies—you’re less likely to see Republicans as the enemy. You may continue to see them as mistaken, you may even continue to hate their agenda, but you will hate the individuals far less.

In our time of extreme division, friendly political chats are exactly what we need. Not heated debates—though those can be valuable—but real, genuine, interactions. The more we come to see the other side as broadly on our team, the more harmonious and reasonable we will be.