Q&A of the Day – How to Make the Case for Trump Over Harris
Each day I feature a listener question sent by one of these methods.
Email: brianmudd@iheartmedia.com
Social: @brianmuddradio
iHeartRadio: Use the Talkback feature – the microphone button on our station’s page in the iHeart app.
Today’s Entry: Good afternoon Brian, I’m a faithful listener to your show. But l need your opinion. I am a Trump supporter. However several friends support Harris, who l think is a puppet for the left. I would appreciate constructive opinions on: point pro Trump and points against Harris. I work in a busy ER then am a cancer survivor on the off days. Appreciate any information! Thanks!
Bottom Line: Well, as I’m inclined to say there are two sides to stories and one side to facts. It’s a fact that there are very few undecided voters at this late stage in the process (current polling suggests we’re down to fewer than 1% of prospective voters who’re still on the fence), yet it’s possible the slim number of undecides could determine the outcome of this race should we experience states that are decided by less than a point. We had three states decided by less than a point in 2020 – Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin – which if they would have broken the other way would have resulted in a different result. This is to say that a willingness to engage in constructive and potentially persuasive conversations with those on the fence does have the potential impact of deciding the presidential election and potentially control of congress down ballot as well.
Current polling suggests there could be at least four senate elections, and several house seats, that could be decided by slim margins. In fact, this was a conversation I had with my sister-in-law Friday night who lives in Orange County, California and feels defeated in her vote because of the expectation of Harris easily winning the election within the state. I pointed out to her that aside from the Senate race in her state, her congressional district is a swing district that could be among those to determine control of the House of Representatives come January. I’m laying this out to help contextualize the conversation to provide food for thought for those who are seeking to be persuasive with others as we’re down to the final couple of weeks of this cycle. Now, for the the much greater challenge. Attempting to flip a current Harris voter to Trump as is the case in today’s Q&A.
Persuasive debate is an art. It’s something exceptional trial attorneys excel at doing and it’s something I was coached and worked extensively on in debate while in school many moons ago. Human nature, when we’re passionate about a topic, a la the presidential election, is to go straight in with our own perception about the situation. A la, seriously, how could you vote for Harris? Don’t you know X, Y & Z? And if you take that approach, you’ll not be effective because you’ll make it as much about the person you’re talking to as the candidate(s), issues, etc. The best approach is an unemotional appeal on the facts. In a way that serves the interests of the person you’re talking to.
JD Vance put on a master class two Sunday’s ago when he was being preemptively “fact checked” by ABC’s Martha Raddatz. As she tried to minimize the illegal immigrant Venezuelan gangs, he didn’t take the bait and debate the issue on her terms. Again, human nature in that instance would be to go straight at her about how dangerous the gangs are and how it is a big deal even if she doesn’t think so, etc. Had he done that, even if he were to make good points, it would be a messy back and forth that would likely lack persuasiveness because people would probably be turned off the by the argument.
One of my ism’s, or “Rules for Life”, is The Premise. If the premise of anything is false, anything built on that false premise is too. JD Vance in that exchange rejected the false premise by saying...” Martha do you hear yourself?”. It was the single most quoted line by any of the candidates last week. The implication, which, while he didn’t say this explicitly, was effectively – ok how many buildings being taken over by violent Venezuelan gangs is acceptable to you? That’s the art of persuasiveness in a nutshell. The nuance in that example is that he wasn’t trying to persuade Martha Raddatz, his eye was correctly focused on the rare undecided or persuadable voter who might have tuned in. Having discussed the art of persuasiveness let’s dive into specifics about Harris vs. Trump.
At this point every human, even Encino Man has an opinion about Donald Trump. If someone isn’t already pledging support to him, but also isn’t a diehard Harris supporter, it’s because they don’t personally like Donald Trump, but also may not like Harris and/or they don’t feel that they know enough about her to trust her. So, I wouldn’t make it about Trump. I would make it about his policy record vs. Harris.
I’d start these conversations with two questions. The old Reagan standby of “are you better off than you were four years ago”? If they say no, you have an opening in front of you. If they say yes – you may not. Either way the next question I would ask is: Are you happy with the direction of the country? If the person, or people, that you're talking to answer yes to both of those questions, that they feel they’re better off than they were four years ago and they’re happy with the direction of the country...and they’re already planning on voting for Harris. I’d stop at that point because you’re not talking to potentially persuadable people. Currently an average of only 28% of people approve of the direction of the country and most people are worse off financially than they were four years ago. Since January of 2021, when the Biden-Harris administration took over, inflation has raised the cost of living by 21%, however the average income has only risen by 18% over that time.
If you’ve found that you have an opening with the answer to one or both of those questions here’s the path that I would take on those two questions.
- If you’re not happy with the direction of the country and/or you’re not doing as well as you were four years ago, why would you want to take a chance on Harris? When she was asked on The View: Would you have done something differently than President Biden during the past four years? Her answer was... "There is not a thing that comes to mind."
- If you’re not better off than you were four years ago..., Wouldn’t it be better just to have Trump back in there to bring back those policies?
Rather than pounding them with facts, which can be done but probably won’t be persuasive (and keep in mind I say that loving facts and statistics as much as anyone), make it about them but in a constructive way and present them with the opportunity to think through it for themselves. For a closing argument I’d say something along the lines of...at least you know what you're getting with Trump, and we know that some of his policies were helpful... My concern is that if we get Harris as president, she’ll do what she did when she was in the senate. At that point you should get a “what do you mean?” type of response (or if they just acknowledge that concern you’ve probably proved your point). It's then that you can point out that her voting record was far too the left of the average Democrat and that she most often voted with Bernie Sanders.
Hopefully that contextualized approach and examples are helpful. I’d love to hear how it goes.