Today, our favorite pro-democracy podcasters should get a B+
To get an A+, they should start teaching us about persuasion
Like many lifelong political junkies, my daily news fix is composed of numerous podcasters who consider themselves part of what political strategist Simon Rosenberg calls “the majority pro-democracy coalition”. These podcasters include people on the right (like Nicole Wallace, Joe Walsh, and Tim Miller) as well as on the left (like Pod Save America, Ari Melber, and Allison Gill).
Many of these pro-democracy influencers (PDIs) are journalists and/or former political operatives who essentially are messaging specialists, I give these folks high marks for their efficiency in cranking out facts and ideas that I might share as I try to influence people around me. In addition, these PDIs repeatedly highlight the fact that it is the undecided voters in swing states who will likely decide the election. My current stock of useful messages is updated frequently — the Presidential debate was only a few days ago, and I already have heard a lot about the messages I should post or directly say to the undecided voters who might be in my circle.
But here is the problem: these PDIs are giving advice to high-information voters that is useful for influencing some people we should talk to, but actually is counter-productive to some other people we need to persuade.
Although most messaging specialists don’t know it, there is a consensus among people who study interpersonal influence that people who want to successfully persuade others should NOT bombard them with facts or pointed messages. Experts in influence know that the most effective way to persuade someone is not about stronger and more pointed messaging, but rather is about a very different approach to conversation that involves listening, compassion and vulnerability.
The good news is that there are many experts on persuasion out there; the bad news is that the PDIs and the messaging specialists who run them are not yet putting these experts on their shows.
But they could easily do so. There are actually multiple varieties of people who are experts on best practices in person-to-person persuasion. For instance, there are experts in the science interpersonal influence — examples include Robert Cialdini, David McRaney, Jonah Berger). There are people who have written books about the keys to having mutually respectful conversations in a politically polarized time — examples include Amanda Ripley, Monica Guzman, Celeste Headlee. There are organizations that specialize in mobilizing large-scale campaigns focused on person-to-person conversation, such as Changing The Conversation for Progress, The Deep Canvass Institute, or The New Conversation Initiative; further, there are people who have written books about deep canvassers, such as Eitan Hersh and Anand Giridharadas. Pro-democracy voters need to hear these folks’ thoughts about how we should talk about the election to people in our circles of influence.
If the pro-democracy influencers start including persuasion experts in their rotation of guests, they would find that a small portion of their listeners would want to commit to the hard work of learning, using, and reflecting on these methods. Becoming skilled in best practice persuasion methods is undoubtedly difficult; it requires patience, self-regulation, and other conversational skills which are arguably counter-cultural. But some people can learn and become good at it.
For any one podcaster, finding, equipping and supporting a sliver of listeners who want to learn these challenging skills might create a marginal bump in their web engagement metrics, but probably not enough to significantly boost their ad rates. But imagine if the influencers across the PDI community joined forces. They might be able to create a small army of aspiring persuaders, each focused on engaging a few friends in swing states. It is not inconceivable that such an effort might become electorally relevant, since the election could very well come down to several hundred people in a few states.
Because of the importance of the election, influencers who would normally fight about their divergent policy opinions are seeing each other as allies — so much so that they are promoting each other’s podcasts. As the election gets closer, let’s hope that the PDIs extend this collaborative spirit and work even more strategically together. They should work in loose connection to point pro-democracy voters like me toward the ideas, skills, and peer support I need to do what we all think is important — having better conversations with other Americans about what is at stake in November.
Dr. David Campt, President of The Dialogue Company, spends too much time listening to podcasts, and is a specialist in equipping people in the skills of dialogue that foster collaboration.
