De-Constructing the Narrative

I was responding to something my grandson (Liberal, soon to be married to another - I love them both!) had posted on Facebook.

My response:

""Trump had a scheduled lunch today with Vladimir Putin, but the French President scuttled it the last minute by separating their seating arrangements" - this is FACT. The rest that follows is THEIR interpretation.

Could Trump have had a legitimate reason for wanting to meet with Putin - OTHER than to plot the destruction of America?
Sure - world leaders meet when they have the opportunity, all the time.
Note that the story does NOT say, what is evidently true:
The EU leaders are threatened by alliances that bypass their little Union. What happens if Trump and Putin meet, and come to some agreements mutually beneficial?
Could this diminish the EU influence?
Could this accelerate the end of their Union?
Could they be feeling quite threatened about their loss of influence and power, and respond by these CATTY media leaks - of course, not totally made up, but DEFINITELY reported with a LOT of BIAS.
Note the bias:
Trump is not walking alone, perhaps absorbed in his own thoughts of that horrible time in history, and perhaps needing some time away from others to process this historical event.
No, according to the "story" - he is SULKING! It MUST be a bad thing if he does it.
Hell, they didn't even get on Obama for taking selfies and laughing with pretty blondes at Mandela's funeral as much as the media and the associated elite have WORKED to make Trump look bad.
Watch.
Soon, this will be "accepted FACT" - that Trump stormed around by himself and sulked.
Not a biased statement, which it is.
"FACT"."

I've been thinking about the process of persuading people that their opinions, beliefs, and prejudices are wrong.

It's hard, damned hard. The stronger your argument, the tighter they cling to their bias. Worse, they often take any logical questioning you make of them as a personal insult, and will lash back with viciously harmful slurs - Racist, homophobic, hater.

I've been thinking, we may have been approaching this wrongly. We might need to think about how to communicate our thinking on public issues in a way that the PERSUADABLE might be able to hear what we're saying.

Logic does NOT work. Emotional appeals are somewhat more effective. We might aim for an approach that is more warm & fuzzy, but with an underlying purpose of teaching people about what the Constitution actually does contain, as well as an understanding of the reach - and limits - of the law. And, a whole lot about culture - for me, that's the basis of a lot of our failures as non-Leftists. We lost the Culture War, and have not mounted an effective counter-attack.

I'm saying, let's reach for the Mushy Middle - those whose beliefs are not Hard Left, who tend to go along with the crowd, who MIGHT listen, if they didn't anticipate that their willingness to hear would leave them alone, without allies.

I'm going to be mulling over this for a while, over the next few months. I'm going to explore the possibility that I might be able to write the Rules for Getting the Mushy Middle on Board.

I'll update, as I am able.