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This past weekend, I attended a talk at a local bookshop in D.C. with a literary agent who has just published a book of her own on how to build a nonfiction writing career. As this is someone I follow here on Substack who would be speaking less than a half hour from my house, there was no way I was going to miss the event. After all, I have written my first full length manuscript (though not my first attempt at a manuscript) and I could use the advice of someone who has seen and helped more than one person in my position.

I won’t dive into everything I heard this past rainy Sunday in the District, although I did take plenty of mental notes. One in particular that did stand out to me, however, was the idea that there is almost no such thing as oversharing the contents of a book before the book comes out. In other words, there is nothing lost by sharing some of the bits of wisdom a writer has put into a book in articles, videos, or posts that are released even before the book is published. As I heard in that packed room, if it’s something that could only fit into a few thousand words, it’s not a book anyway, just an article!

In that spirit of sharing, I wanted to adapt something from my own book, Be the Anchor, for this Substack post. Be the Anchor is all about how to communicate effectively with the people in our own lives who don’t necessarily live in the same reality as ourselves. While it’s mainly focused on how to maintain a connection with people who perhaps have fallen into conspiracy theories or disinformation, some of the contents of the book comes from the experiences of people who have done the hard work of communicating across party lines working on campaigns. Far from being glamorous work, campaigning involves no shortage of drudgery, but it also gives those who do it some profound insights into the thinking of all sorts of everyday people thanks to the sheer volume of conversations they need to have on a vast number of topics, including some divisive ones.

This excerpt comes from an interview in my book with a campaign consultant, Myles Bugsbee, who shared some of his strategies for communicating with people in libertarian Montana while working for then-Senator John Tester. Using the example of reproductive rights, Myles made an observation: even the most conservative or libertarian of people he came across agreed that the government should stay out of people’s bedrooms and doctor’s offices. This led to the realization that across vast ideological, economic, religious and geographic divides, we can isolate issues on which we can connect with our fellow citizens and find common ground.

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In order to do so, however, we must speak with them in terms that resonate with their values, not necessarily our own. It is entirely possible to have someone on the opposite end of the ideological spectrum agree with you that no woman or girl who has survived a sexual assault should be forced to give birth to the offspring of her attacker, yet discuss the issue in the abstract, or in terms that align with your own moral code, and you’re more likely to sound like you’re preaching instead of trying to make any sort of connection. In fact, evangelizing in your own moral language may risk foreclosing further conversation with someone with a differing worldview.

Simply put, some values we may find to be virtuous, such as fairness and equity, may be red flags to someone else. The words we use, even about something we can see eye-to-eye on, can almost certainly give the impression that we are pushing a wider agenda with which they disagree.

The big secret to making a connection with someone, no matter their media consumption, their voter registration, or the stickers on their truck is difficult but simple: cut the shit. Myles, in a far more upbeat tone, speaks of the chance to connect across political and social divides with a sense of bemusement. “To me, it’s fascinating because all too often, we get into our red and blue boxes and we miss out on a lot of persuadable voters out there who we can move if we speak to their values and relate to them on a personal level.”

But as Myles would remind me, sincerity is a practice, not a birthright. “You don’t need to work the land for a century to be able to relate to rural Americans… [and] the circumstances of your birth don’t need to define who you can connect with either.”

When it comes to connecting with someone, even if their ideology may be largely opposed to your own, the next step in Myles’ strategy is to “[share] a longer personal anecdote.” That personal narrative can be far more effective at debunking myths and stereotypes than jumping straight into facts or argument, which can be seen as confrontational or combative. To make the case, Myles calls upon the ever-ready example of social welfare and the horrific, often racially tinged stereotypes and stigmas that surround the use of any sort of social program that directly benefits low-income families. It’s the now-classic “welfare queens” as first coined by Ronald Reagan to turn white voters against effective and beneficial programs by creating a totally false specter of a Black woman abusing the system.

Rather than jump into a fact-based argument with someone who still labors under Reagan’s divisive and destructive mythology, Myles recommends my favorite tactic in such a situation: make it personal. Don’t make it about the person standing across from you, but by all means, use yourself to the extent you feel comfortable. Tell your story and use the real, authentic you standing in front of them to debunk on a gut level the stereotypes and falsehoods they have been holding on to.

Riffing on the direct aid theme, Myles gives the following example, “when someone slams programs, like aid for students, you can tell them the story of what Pell Grants have meant to you.” He goes on, “[y]ou can tell them that as someone growing up in a working class family and being the first person in your family to go to college, Pell Grants were key to me succeeding in college, which then allowed me to become a public school teacher. In the end, I was able to not only pay it back in the form of taxes, but pay it forward by teaching in some of our nation’s public schools.” Making it personal and visible through such storytelling, Myles points out, moves the conversation outside of the back and forth of partisan talking points and away from unproductive arguments. “It reframes [these policies] from abstract ideas or something that can be attributed to outlying cases [as is done in] conservative propaganda, and [it] puts a face to [it].”