As Donald Trump’s poll ratings plunge (see Monday’s Times/Siena Poll), hopes perk up for pro-democracy wins in the midterms this year and general elections beyond. “The fish rots from the head down,” hopes the anti-fascist who’s focused on toppling a cult of personality.
Yet dating back to Donald Trump’s first run for president, his supporters were never all of one mind in their beliefs and preferences. “The Five Types of Trump Voters: Who They Are and What They Believe” (Emily Ekins, Democracy Fund, June 2017) and “Beyond MAGA: The Four Types of Trump Voters” (More in Common, January 2026), respectively from the earliest and latest years of Trump in power, can give us hints about the minds who will continue to vote alongside of us regardless of this president’s limited future.
Supposing that poll numbers move at least partly due to changing minds and not just gas prices, what are your thoughts on engaging with the MAGA crowd? To borrow church metaphors, do you consider it as important or as worthwhile to spread the word as it is to preach to the choir?
What approaches, focuses, and/or attitudes do you recommend or not recommend for doing this (or, if you prefer, avoiding this)?
Shar Walbaum
Indivisible Lincoln City, Oregon Coast Indivisible Alliance / Lincoln City
I am really glad to have this to discuss. Those insights about the pro-Trump coalition have been on my mind. It was a well-done survey and well-reasoned More in Common piece.
Today, someone suggested to me that we shift our attention from our “blue” state to states that really need our help. I said that we need to both pay attention to the big fire across the street and the one in our own house.
First, the potential for “cracks” in the coalition is in two segments of the coalition. Our work can focus on persuading/influencing folks in both the Mainline Republicans and Reluctant Right. The former feels more important, but the latter may be easier.
I have two relevant conversations in the last two weeks. Both were with people who starting with “I am a Republican, but…” I didn’t seek them out. They reached out to me. We need to make it clear that we are open for these conversations.
One strategy to reach both is to sponsor events that they can get behind. For example, a pro-environment event (eg., beach cleanup) or a Salty Dog Parade would associate us with something they embrace.
Bottom line: this analysis of Trump voters provides a strategic pathway.
Justin Lloyd Ludwig
Florence Indivisible, City Club of Florence, Florence Young Professionals, Florence ORganizes / Florence
Solidarity with our like-minded communities is essential, but I always want to be listening to other viewpoints, as well, especially neighbors. Face to face conversations sometimes take courage, but I believe it’s where the most growth occurs. When we stop engaging and listening to others, we limit our own perspective and, more importantly, our ability to respond to whatever the next moment in politics brings.
Knowing how others view a situation, whether it be local or national, and the thinking process they use to make their judgments are critical to our future communication strategies. Why do people believe what they believe? People are paid a lot of money to answer that question.
One way to approach conversations is by asking open-ended questions that don’t immediately provoke a “yes” or “no” answer. Think of reframing questions to start with “how” or “what” instead of “do you support X, Y, or Z”. If we can give others space to thoughtfully consider topics without immediately resorting to defensive postures and prepackaged responses, people might take the chance to be a little more open-minded, and perhaps even self-reflective. We’d all be in a much better place if they did.
The algorithmic echo-chambers of social media are one of the reasons why we’re in the situation that we’re in now. What people already believe is reinforced, and new viewpoints are suppressed; automatically, every day behind the scenes in social media apps.
Focusing on swing-states can have the same effect, creating echo-chambers within media markets that purposefully leave out large swaths of the country and make us more easily divisible. Yes, it might save a national campaign some money, but I would much rather lose a state by 10 points than 20 points, even if the result is the same candidate. In the long-term, it might mean the difference between a population that’s following a cult and one that’s still reachable with facts and common sense.
Susan Williams
Dunes City Indivisible, COIN Leadership Team / Florence
Again, such a good question. I’m definitely NOT in the camp of “preaching” to any one or any group. I learned that lesson by having children and cultivating good friends. Nobody seriously listens to a “know it all.” At least for long they don’t.
As one of my friends shared, she has been approached by both friends and relative strangers, starting out a conversation with some variation of “I’m registered Republican, but….” Then listening and reflecting back what is being said helps keep the conversation on track and not driving anyone into the corner of feeling the need to be defensive.
On a personal level, I have, what I consider to be, a good friend who lives with a full on MAGA supporter. This has been a challenge as many of us in my friend circle like this person, but their significant other cannot seem to help themselves when it comes to “sharing the good political word.” So they are often left out of gatherings.
I have had more than one conversation with my friend about the idea that labels such as “democrat/liberal” and “republican/conservative” really don’t fully describe who people are or their belief systems. We agreed that we actually have the same moral compass, that we strive to be honest, kind people who look after others and our families. Ultimately this friend came to the conclusion that they are, in fact, more comfortable in being described as a “progressive” and a free thinker. They also acknowledged that the current regime does not reflect what she wants for her family or their country. Baby steps.
How will they vote? That remains to be seen and at end of the day, it is their right in a free country. I remain hopeful that they continue to acknowledge that the authoritarian regime is NOT the answer and I will continue to engage them in good conversation, not alienating them when a shift is underway.
Bobby Sample
Dunes City Indivisible, COIN Comms Team / Florence
While we worked on a project together sometime in 2016, a good friend out of state said she’d rather not get into a discussion of Donald Trump, with whom she was not thrilled. But she assured me–to free our conversation of personal judgments, I suppose, as we moved on to non-political topics–that she voted “as a fiscal conservative, not a social conservative.”
Flash forward to touching base with her in 2025: she was confused about how her adult son was no longer speaking to her. She claimed to have no idea why.
This was truly none of my business, but as she made social media posts about Turning Point USA events, praising the legacy of Charlie Kirk, her family dynamic fit a common pattern. I could make a guess about at least one thing that might be conflicting her son. I chose not to mention that guess, but I felt for my friend’s confusion and heartbreak.
Ironically, Kirk is often quoted for his remarks on empathy: “I can’t stand the word empathy, actually. I think empathy is a made-up, new-age term that…does a lot of damage.”
In the full context of that particular radio broadcast in 2022, Kirk went on to say he prefers words like “sympathy” and “compassion” as indicating more understanding of others’ feelings rather than attempting to feel alike. Those clarifications make it easier for his Christian fans to defend what he said, since a lack of empathy (without further explanation) otherwise defines textbook psychopathy. While empathy and sympathy overlap in meaning, it is empathy that normally includes a cognitive aspect of understanding others’ feelings, with or without a purely emotional response. But I don’t believe Kirk mixed this up out of ignorance. He was far too deft at wordplay for us to accuse him of a poor grasp of vocabulary.
Kirk is not the only right-wing figure to attempt to redefine empathy as some sort of false virtue signal. As progressives claim to act with more empathy than conservatives who go to church on Sunday and shaft the poor on Monday, it has become necessary for promoters of fascism to recast the word itself as bad. The corruption of common vocabulary is a powerful tool of deception and projection. If you teach your followers that 2+2=5, you have a means of proving to them that mathematicians are liars. Then the more they hear from students of math that 2+2=4, the more the walls of their confirmation bias are fortified.
When it comes to finding common ground with the well-rooted right: speaking for myself, it’s easier to talk about what doesn’t work than to claim the answers to what does. I detest doublespeak and hypocrisy enough to struggle with keeping my mouth shut when I hear the meanings of common words turned upside down. But now that doublespeak has reached Orwellian levels in the halls of power, maybe denying airtime to the wordplay is an important tool for conversing eye-to-eye with friends and family who might be voting against their own interests and values. I have to remind myself of the power of words to throw up walls between us, and the power of common words for us to see the same side of things. It won’t kill me to appeal to compassion, for example, without starting an argument over what “empathy” means.
Maybe the one thing I’m sure fails every time is sharing no words at all.
Peter Bergel
Salem Regional Indivisible, Indivisible One Million Rising, The PeaceWorker (Founder/Editor) / Salem
Preaching to the choir has always had a bad rap. If the choir is not singing, then preaching to them is EXACTLY what we should be doing.
We are able to marshal large crowds at NO KINGS events, but only a small percentage of those who turn out do anything else – maybe not even vote. To make real change, we need action beyond demonstrating by those who agree with us. To stimulate that action we need:
- To make it clear to those at NO KINGS events – and elsewhere – what else is needed.
- Several ways – using a variety of media – to tell supporters how to plug in to help.
- Much larger, more complete, lists of those who turn out so we can inform them of action opportunities.
- A range of continuing resistance activities that require differing levels of risk and commitment and appeal to different kinds of people.
I would prioritize moving our supporters to more, and more frequent, action over trying to persuade people to the right of center. No doubt some right-leaning people who are close to the center can be moved leftward on some key issues, but in general our chances of moving far-right people to the left are about as good as their chances of moving us to the right.
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