What Can Change a Politician's Mind
“I had a constituent tell me this incredible story,” a fellow Congressional staffer told me over coffee. “She had been stuck in...”
The actual story is less important. What’s important is that this story stuck with the staffer, to the point where they shared it with another staffer.
That’s gold. Our thinking is shaped by what we remember, and what we remember tends to have an emotional hook. I can tell you what I wore to Senior Prom, but I sure can’t tell you what I wore last Friday.
When it comes to what can change a politician’s mind, there are no hard and fast rules. But there are a few approaches I found compelling when I was a Hill staffer.
In Congress, staffers are the conduit to the politician; good staffers know what will and won’t fly for a politician. If we can get a staffer on board, they can help get the politician on board.
A Good Story
When talking to politicians, there’s a natural tendency to want to sound like an expert, throw around some data and stats. But numbers just aren't very sticky or emotive.
I once testified before a state legislative committee on a suicide prevention bill. I had stats 27 ways to Tuesday, but I wanted to say something that would stick with them, keep the bill in their minds.
So I told them about someone I lost to suicide: how he taught me to love the Pet Shop Boys, the bike he bought me and showed me how to ride, how he was that rare combination of very cool and very kind.
That vividness, that humanness can lodge itself in people’s hearts and hands, perhaps open the aperture wider on how they think about an issue.
Clear Ask
The clearer the ask, the clearer the answer.
If my ask is, “Increase funding for peace,” what counts as peace? Is that a request to fund conflict mitigation domestically? Internationally? Does peace also mean not spending money on defense?
What we’ve done is create an opportunity for the politician to repackage something they’re already doing as “increase funding for peace.”
“Yes! We agree. The Congresswoman is a longtime supporter of domestic violence prevention funding,” the staffer could say.
But if I say, “Please cosponsor the Peace For All Act,” or “Please increase funding for INSERT SPECIFIC PROGRAM," then I can get a more useful answer.
Respect
You don’t hear the words “respect” and “politics” in the same sentence that much. But not only are respect, kindness, graciousness the right thing to do, they also make us stand out because they're rare as four-leaf clovers in policymaking.
Though the evidence might suggest otherwise, policymaking is not reality TV.
Especially if we don’t see eye-to-eye with a politician, being able to skillfully disagree can set the table for a future conversation. Comparatively, disrespect flips the table and slams the door. Respect is the clearest, simplest way to communicate that people who care about this issue are decent, kind, worth listening to.
There are no guarantees that we can change a politician’s mind, just as there are no guarantees that we can change anyone’s mind.
But we can position ourselves to be better listened to. And since one of the core promises of American democracy is that we get to have a say in how we’re governed, why not speak so that we can be heard?