Ezra Klein Interview with Barack Obama
Excerpts:
EK: Something I noticed again and again in the book is this very particular approach to persuasion that you have. I think the normal way most of us think about persuasion is you are trying to win an argument with someone. You seem to approach it with this first step of making yourself a person that the other person will feel able to listen to, which means sympathizing with their argument, sanding off some of the edges of your own. Tell me a bit about how you think about that.
BO: Now, that’s interesting. I forget whether it was Clarence Darrow, or Abraham Lincoln, or some apocryphal figure in the past who said the best way to win an argument is to first be able to make the other person’s argument better than they can. For me, what that meant was that I had to understand their worldview.
And I couldn’t expect them to understand mine if I wasn’t extending myself to understand theirs...
It presumes that none of us have a monopoly on truth. It admits doubt, in terms of our own perspectives. But if you practice it long enough, at least for me, it actually allows you to not always persuade others, but at least have some solid ground that you can stand on — you can, with confidence say, I know what I think. I know what I believe. It actually gives me more conviction, rather than less, if I’d listened to somebody else’s argument rather than just shutting it off....
Well, now you’re describing something a little bit different, which is how do you move large segments of the population politically towards an outcome you want? Versus, how I might persuade somebody one on one?
...But when you’re dealing with 300 million people, with enormous regional, and racial, and religious, and cultural differences, then now you are having to make some calculations.
...There were times where calling it out would have given me great satisfaction personally. But it wouldn’t have necessarily won the political day in terms of me getting a bill passed....
Or is it more important for me to get a bill passed that provides a lot of people with health care that didn’t have it before?...
it does seem to be sort of in the nature of things that any significant movement of social progress, particularly those aspects of social progress that relate to identity, race, gender — all the stuff that is not just dollars and cents, and transactional — that invariably will release some energy on the other side by folks who feel threatened by change....
EK: How do we actually reform police departments?
BO: Now we’re back in the world of politics. And as soon as we get back into the world of politics, now it’s a numbers game. You have to persuade and you have to create coalitions
...Maybe 30 percent of the population potentially controls the majority of Senate seats. And so if you say that 30 percent of the country is irreconcilably wrong, then it’s going to be hard to govern.
...We don’t have the luxury of just consigning a group of people to say you’re not real Americans. We can’t do that. But it does make our job harder when it comes to just trying to get a bill passed, or trying to win an election.
... I think maybe the reason I was successful campaigning in downstate Illinois, or Iowa, or places like that is they never felt as if I was condemning them.
...It’s not that the people in these communities have changed. It’s that if that’s what you are being fed, day in and day out, then you’re going to come to every conversation with a certain set of predispositions that are really hard to break through. And that is one of the biggest challenges I think we face.
...Most folks actually are persuadable in the sense of they kind of want the same things. They want a good job. They want to be able to support a family. They want safe neighborhoods. ... What they are concerned about is not being taken advantage of, or is their way of life and traditions slipping away from them? Is their status being undermined by changes in society?
... I think people’s identities have become far more invested as a result in which side are you on politically. It spills over into everyday life, and even small issues that previously were not considered, even political issues.
So if you’re a soccer coach now, there might be a conversation about why are all the refs white?
...I don’t think anybody would accuse me of just creating controversy, just for the sake of it. The excitement I brought was trying to tell a story about America where we might all start working together and overcome some of our tragic past. And move forward and build a broader sense of community. And it turns out that those virtues actually did excite people.
So I don’t agree that that’s the only way that you can get people to read newspapers or click on a site.
EK: ...Do you think, given how intense political identities are now, that policy can persuade people to vote differently? Or is partisanship now almost immune to the material consequences of governance?
BO: I think over time it does. I think it’s not as immediate.
...If they’re successful over the next four years, as I think they will be, I think that will have an impact. Does it override that sort of identity politics that has come to dominate Twitter, and the media, and that has seeped into how people think about politics? Probably not completely. But at the margins, if you’re changing 5 percent of the electorate, that makes a difference.
...I think a fair critique of us when I look back is the fact that I was sometimes too stubborn about, no, we’re going to just play it straight. And let’s not worry about how the policy sells if it works.