“Just The Facts Ma’am?” and Deep Canvassing
On Why Deep Canvassing Fosters Connection and Shifts Political Attitudes When Logic and Argument Fails
As progressive political observers, volunteers, and operatives, we like to think Joe Friday was on to something with his signature catchphrase of “just the facts, ma’am”. Progressives, as a whole, would like to believe that logic and arguments win political battles. No more is this so than with this author, a PhD in International Studies and Political Philosophy. Sadly for him and for all of us, the dream of winning over skeptics to progressive positions by logic alone is precisely that: a dream. So, if not logic, what tools do we have at our disposal to diffuse anger and fear and rewrite the mental narratives we all compose that come with them? The answer is Deep Canvassing.
As my trainers at People’s Action and the New Conversation Initiative who developed Deep Canvassing in the wake of the passage of Proposition 8 in California put it, Deep Canvassing is a way to combine active listening with compassionate curiosity to delve beyond identifying what we feel and how it guides us to a place of deeply understanding “why” we feel the way we do and how that affects the stories we tell ourselves about the world. Does it work? Studies show that it does. While logic and facts, as we noted before, have no persuasive impact, and a canvasser sharing a story with a voter has a few weeks of impact, the vulnerable exchange of stories creates 30-100 times more impact and can last for many months, if not years.
So, what does compassionate curiosity look like? Even when we ask questions in traditional canvassing, we tend to shotgun questions to voters. How do you feel about choice? How does climate change impact you? What do you think about charter school education? And more. Deep Canvassing teaches another technique. Imagine that a shift in voter attitudes is a chest of gold buried seven feet deep on a beach. Instead of digging seven one-foot holes, we need to dig one seven-foot hole instead. How do we do that. During interactions and the exchange of stories, people may often not think they have a worthwhile story or, if they do, they’ll just tease at its true value. It’s our job as canvassers and organizers to uncover those full stories with statements like “tell me more” or questions like “what?” “when was that?” “who did that happen to?” and “where did that happen?” Ultimately, however, the most important questions are “how did that make you feel?” and “why?”. Individuals are often conflicted in their beliefs and values and asking questions like these reaches the emotional core of that conflict. Once there, personalization of the inner conflict de-abstracts our beliefs and shifts them from ideas to emotional connections. “Do we support same-sex marriage?” and all of the social concerns that come with that question, becomes “do I want my best friend Sarah to be able to marry her girlfriend?” And that seems to be a much easier to question to answer and a much clearer motivator.
If learning how to Deep Canvass is appealing to you, reach out to People’s Action at https://ppls.ac or inquire about the Horizons Project in Congressional District 8 by reaching out to Attorney General Phil Weiser and Democratic Party Chair Shad Murib.
