Tag: persuasion

Know Your Audience

As a blogger, one of the main questions you have to ask yourself is, “Who am I writing to?”  Is your ideal audience people who agree with you or people who disagree with you that you are trying to persuade? 

The reason it is important to know your audience is because you will take a different tone depending on who you have in mind.  Part of what made me think about this was listening to other voices in the conservative movement.  Some do not seem persuasive to me at all.  Mark Levin, for example, is a brilliant guy, but he comes off as a grumpy old man who thrashes anyone who disagrees with him. 

Others who I admire seem more persuasive.  Rush Limbaugh did not come off as a grumpy guy.  He did not come off as mean.  He loved parody and satire to make his points.  He would “illustrate absurdity by being absurd.”  He would mock the left.  What made him great was that he came off as a happy-go-lucky guy, with a genial personality and a good sense of humor.  Dennis Prager is also very kind and fun-loving.  He treats everyone with respect, whether they agree with him or not.  He even wrote an entire book on happiness. 

Without hesitation, I will tell you that my main goal is to persuade people.  I want to influence people and make a difference.  I want to explain conservatism in a way that makes sense to people and turns them into conservatives.  Most importantly, I want to point people towards the Bible.  Maybe, just maybe, it will lead someone to turn to God.  Ultimately, that is our purpose for being alive.

What does this mean?  I mentioned that Rush Limbaugh used to mock the left.  Can I joke about people who I am trying to persuade?  Can I mock them?  Can I call them out for believing stupid things?  I don’t want to come off as a complete jerk to reasonable people.  That last sentence holds the key word:  reasonable.

If you look at the likes on my posts and articles, you would think most of the people who read my thoughts agree with me.  If you read the comments, you would think that most of the people disagree with me, or even viciously hate me.  While I want to persuade people, there are people who I am not writing to.  There are people who are completely unreasonable and unreachable.  Their minds are closed.  Don’t get me wrong, I hope they read my articles and think about them.  Maybe that seed will eventually grow.  However, I do not care to argue with them.  It is a waste of time and energy.  Most of them are dug in to their emotional positions and will just harden their hearts to any other viewpoint.  If I do argue, it is for the other people to hear the arguments, not because I think the crazed leftist will budge.  They are fair game to be poked fun at or used as examples of foolishness. 

The people I am writing to are the people who are genuinely open to understanding.  That does not necessarily mean people in the middle.  It might, but some of the most closed-minded people I know are staunchly “independent.”  They are so concerned with seeming open-minded that they will not take a side.  The people I am writing to are people who are actually curious.  Instead of arguing or trying to ask gotcha questions, they ask good, honest questions.  They say things like, “Hmm.  I never really thought of it that way.  That makes a lot of sense.”  If they want to argue, they probably are not ready to hear.

When it comes to the people who already agree with me, my gut reaction was that it does not do any good to “preach to the choir,” but the more I thought about it, the wider my focus became.  There are two main reasons to write to people who are already on my side.  First, I want you to know that you are not alone.  If you turn on a T.V., read from mainstream media sources, or attend college, you hear 95% secular leftist viewpoints.  You might start thinking you are the only sane person left on earth.  Even worse, you may start to doubt your sanity.  I imagine it is a feeling that the Old Testament prophets had when they spoke up for God and the people ignored them.  It is a lonely feeling.  I have felt it myself, especially living in California.  It always helps to hear that other people are with you.  Second, I want to help give you reasons for your beliefs and positions that you might not have been able to put into words yourself.  This might give you ammunition to explain biblical, conservative values to your friends and family.  There have been many times when I have listened to people like the great Dennis Prager and thought, “He is putting into words exactly what I think, but better than I could have!”

Ultimately, I hope everyone reads what I write, but it will only resonate with reasonable people.  Some of you will just get irrationally angry at me.  Please feel free to leave crazy comments.  Those are fun.

What Is Liberty?

The week before California’s recall election I had the privilege of meeting the world’s greatest athlete from 1976.  That title was traditionally bestowed on the winner of the decathlon, and at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal Bruce Jenner won the gold medal for the United States while setting a new world record.  In 2015 Bruce Jenner shocked the world in an interview with Diane Sawyer in which he told Sawyer that he was now a she.  (Disclaimer:  So as not to be a science denier I am using the scientifically correct gender pronouns in this article.  That is not the focus of the article.)  Jenner, who now goes by the name Caitlyn, ran in the California recall election as a Republican to replace the inept Governor Gavin Newsom.  The Friday before election day Caitlyn Jenner was the guest speaker at a discussion group that I have been attending for the last couple of months.

Caitlyn’s talk was impressive.  He was personable, friendly, and funny.  Jenner said that after the Sawyer interview there was more criticism for coming out as a Republican than there was for coming out as transgender.  Jenner also told a funny story about being in the weight room at the Olympics when a female East German athlete came in and started lifting heavier weights than him, ironically causing him to leave because he felt emasculated.  Jenner genuinely cares about California and wants it returned to the greatness it once had.  I did not expect much talk about actual policy positions, but Jenner has a pretty solid grasp of many of the problems Gavin Newsom and years of Democrat control have caused, including sky-high tax rates and backbreaking regulations.  A lot of ideas that Jenner had to fix some of these problems were good, including a sunset provision which would require regulations to be reevaluated by the legislature every ten years or else they would fall off the books. 

There was, however, one major point that Jenner made that stood out to me because it was based on a flawed premise.  Jenner said that he decided to run because of his belief that California needs a moderate Republican to fix the state.  Specifically, he said that people should vote for him because he is conservative on economic issues and more liberal on social issues.  Jenner also said that the candidate that I endorsed, Larry Elder, is “far-right.”  The premise of that argument ignores the fact that conservatism comes with a built-in solution to people disagreeing on social issues:  liberty.

Jenner’s reasoning assumes that the choice you have is between voting for a left-wing government controlling your life or a right-wing government controlling your life.  In actuality, the choice is between a left-wing government controlling your life or you controlling your life. 

For example, as a conservative Republican, I believe that the country would be much better off if every single American attended church weekly.  I would agree with Jenner if a governor who is “far-right” was going to mandate church attendance.  As much as I think we would all be better off if everyone went to church, I only believe that to be true if it was done voluntarily instead of under coercion.  If the Right operated like Democrats this might be something to worry about.  Imagine, the government forcing all businesses with over 100 employees to require proof of church attendance to be employed there.  Jenner’s argument only works if the Right did that kind of thing.  Instead, the Right wants people to be free to choose, even if we disagree.  That is what liberty is. 

Conservatives, especially Christian conservatives, are often accused of telling people what to do on moral issues.  The truth is, we do care about your moral decisions and we want you to choose what God wants for you.  Notice, however, that I said: “choose.”  Except on the issue of abortion, where the choice directly harms another person, we do not want to take the decision away from you.  The difference is huge.  Conservatives may try to persuade you to do certain things, but that is not the same as using tyrannical power to force those things.  This is what Caitlyn Jenner was missing.  The further to the left a politician gets, the more parts of your life they want to control.  Being a moderate Republican still means they want to have more control over you than a “far right” candidate does.  That is not a good selling point. 

Jenner was asked if he would run for office again if he lost this election and answered that he wasn’t sure about running again, but he would definitely work with the Republican Party to become more of a big tent party that is more inclusive.  I hope that he does, but it needs to be done by explaining clearly that the way to do it is to push for a return to limited government and personal liberty.  We can agree to disagree.  You are welcome in the Republican Party even if you want to use your God-given liberty to do things we may not agree with.  I certainly do not agree with many of Caitlyn Jenner’s lifestyle choices, but I also do not want the government to force him to do what I would prefer.  The Right has no interest in taking away your liberty.