In some ways, this is the most important page on this website. This is because the crux of our problem is that, on Election Day 2024, more people were persuaded to vote for Donald Trump than Kamala Harris.
If we hope to thwart the dangerous/damaging parts of Trump’s agenda and restore competent and compassionate government in the elections of 2026 and 2028, we will have to persuade 2024 Trump votes to switch their support to someone else.
Obviously it’s a tall order but there are millions of us and if each of us is able to move a 2024 Trump voter a step closer to our side in 2026 and 2028, we can reverse the 2024 trend and come away with a victory! Similarly, if each of us is able to convince a progressive-leaning non-voter to come to the polls in 2026 and 2028, we can overcome Trump’s lead and, again, come away with a victory!
One thing that we would like to caution against, however, is thinking that exchanging political memes and sardonic comments with a group of like-minded friends counts as persuasion. We have such a group and we enjoy participating in it quite a bit but the fact of the matter is, everyone in that group is already motivated to vote against Trump in 2026 and 2028. Our participation in that group supports the morale of our friends but it doesn’t do a single thing to move Trump voters to our side. And, again, that’s the crux of our problem – we need to bring some Trump voters to our side (as well as encourage our non-participating allies to go vote) in order to triumph in upcoming elections.
A second thing we would like to caution against is using a broad brush to tar all of Trump’s supporters as “idiots” or “racists/Nazis”. It’s certainly fair to say that some of Trump’s supporters are idiots or racists – after all, the evidence for that is right there on public social media for all of us to see!
The truth, however, is that most of his supporters are neither idiots nor racists. If you think carefully about your circle of acquaintances, you will find a number of people who are decent, caring people and still voted for Trump. We may think that it’s self-evident that our side is right and Trump’s side is wrong but when you think about these people, you realize that this is not at all self-evident to some people… and we need the votes of those people if we’re going to turn things around!
Now, part of the reason these decent people are voting for an indecent man is because of the right wing media echo chamber (e.g. Fox News) which doesn’t permit any criticism of Trump or his allies and runs 24/7 criticism of Democrats and Republican Never Trumpers.
Another part of the reason is that our efforts to reach these folks have fallen flat – we aren’t using tactics that reach them or addressing the themes that they truly find persuasive. Experimentation by all of us will be required to figure out how we can reach and persuade them.
Therefore, this page is all about interacting with folks on the other side with a view towards bringing them to our side. That’s terribly important so we’ll restate it, this time in bold: The key to defeating the dangerous/damaging parts of Trump’s agenda AND the path to winning the elections of 2026 and 2028 lies in persuading some of Trump’s current supporters to switch their allegiances to us.
That means seeking out and interacting with those supporters. This could be in person if you are comfortable enough with someone to do so but, more likely, will be online in forums/bulletin boards and on social media. Take a moment to peruse the links below and then sit back and think about what sort of persuasion campaign you’d like to run!
- [[Persuading Others|How to Persuade Others]]
- [[Commenting on Accounts|Commenting in Forums and On Social Media]]
- [[Running a Social Media Account]]
- [[Meme Circulation|Circulating Persuasive Memes]]
- [[Meme Creation|Creating Persuasive (and Viral!) Memes]]
- [[Creating Songs|The Ancient Art of Creating Politically Aware Songs]]