I find myself returning to a comment by Ink subscriber Ted Lemon. He asked about “a daily to-do list with maybe 30 minutes of stuff we could do that would make an actual difference?” There are great newsletters that give such advice — Jessica Craven’s Chop Wood, Carry Water; Teri Kanefield’s Things to Do — but we know many of you are looking for more.
Before I came onboard at The Ink, I spent several years in service journalism, most visibly helping to build the recommendations website Wirecutter. The idea then was to help readers cut through the confusion around consumer products and household projects with clear, actionable advice that would make people’s lives easier and better, in however small a way. And that’s our idea now — but for democracy.
At this point, we aren’t prepared to give you a full-on Wirecutter-for-what-is-to-be-done or “Best Ways to Make Change” (we can’t really field test them all), but for now, starting today, each week we’re going to recommend one opportunity to act. We’re talking about actual involvement — a concrete step you can take toward making the changes you want to see in your community, city, state, and/or country.
We know not everyone’s going to be able to do everything, and that’s perfectly alright. Just get out there, do something — and after you do, come back and tell us about it.
We want this post to go as wide as possible, so we’re making it available to everyone (and we encourage you to share), but we also know that these recommendations are going to take labor and time. So help us out by subscribing and keeping these kinds of posts open to all.
This week, we want you to sign up to learn a conversational technique that will serve you well in whatever sort of action you decide to take.
Deep Canvass Institute 101: How to Have a Deep Canvass Conversation
The Deep Canvass Institute offers Deep Canvass Institute 101: How to Have a Deep Canvass Conversation. The training will take place next week, on February 6, 7, and 10 on Zoom and will use the topic of immigration as a way to train participants on deep canvassing.
Here is a link to the Institute’s Mobilize with all of the details and a way to RSVP.
The people at the Deep Canvass Institute want to emphasize that it’s important that folks attend all three sessions in order to complete the training. The third session includes an opportunity to actually do the work — to have live deep canvass conversations by phone with strangers — so it’s an important aspect of the training and will give you a real grounding in how deep canvassing works.
As deep canvassing pioneer Steve Deline told Anand (you’ll find the full discussion in The Persuaders), the technique gives you a way of engaging with the powerful emotions behind political opinions.
“My discovery in doing this work was that most people are sixty-forty around most things. If we ask them to plant their flag on one side or the other, if we approach them that way, they’re going to do so, because that’s what makes us feel like rational, thinking humans—having an answer to a tough question. But if we approach people with the idea that it’s normal to have complicated feelings, even if they have a Trump sign on their front yard, even if their public face expresses one thing—if we approach them with the assumption of ‘There’s something more going on underneath,’ oftentimes we find out that there is.”
Deep canvassing rejects the notion that people can’t change their minds, instead embracing the idea that by listening and working towards real understanding, you can create change, even where you might think it’s impossible.
The best way to get a sense of what deep canvassing is all about — and just how powerful it can be — is to see it in action.
Photo by Megan Jelinger/AFP via Getty Images
This post was originally published on The.Ink.