How to Fight About Politics

The right way to argue with strangers

Welcome back to Geoff Rodkey’s Bad Advice! Today, we’re bearing witness to the plight of an International Traveler, crying out from the frigid, wind-scoured crags on the upper slopes of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs:

“My taxi driver from CDG, an immigrant woman from Cameroon, praised Trump and LePen. And then asked my opinion. How, and perhaps more important, when, should I have responded? Factor in jet lag please. And traffic. And rain.”

Thanks for your question, I.T.! As you know, this column is for—and by!—people with problems. In your case, I’ve identified four:

1. Jet lag

2. Traffic

3. Rain

4. Your cab driver’s political opinions

Having guessed your location by googling “CDG” and discovering it’s the Paris airport, I’m tempted to add a fifth problem to that list: you are currently in France, but you are not French. As a result, you may be suffering from constant microaggressions, mostly perpetrated by waiters. 

If so, the only solution is to leave the country. 

These people will never accept you, no matter how good your accent is

Similarly, you can eliminate your jet lag problem by not flying to France in the first place.

Unfortunately, once you’ve cast that die, the traffic is probably unfixable. My best guess is that it’s caused by large numbers of people who are at the airport but would rather be in Paris and are all trying to make that happen simultaneously. 

Unlike the waiter situation, you shouldn’t take this personally. As with most problems caused by forces beyond your control, I’d recommend acceptance, coupled with either mindfulness meditation or mindless scrolling on your phone.

The rain is also not a solvable problem, although it might ease your psychic burden to remember what Jesus said about God in Matthew 5:45: 

He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.

If that’s too Jesus-y for you, I’d recommend Charles Dudley Warner, who once said “everybody complains about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.” 

I was going to attribute that quote to Mark Twain, until I did another google search and realized Twain had ripped it off. 

Fun fact: Jesus also plagiarized HIS line, from the pseudonymous Preacher in Ecclesiastes 9:2: 

All things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous, and to the wicked.

If Charles Dudley Warner and the Preacher got together, I bet they’d find a common gripe in the occupational hazard of hanging out with a guy who’s in the same line of work you are, but draws a much bigger audience.

Where was I? 

Oh, right: the cab driver. Who likes Trump and Le Pen.

I get the sense you don’t share her opinions? Otherwise, this isn’t a problem so much as a great opportunity for a cross-cultural bonding experience.

So what’s your best course of action when you’re stuck in a small metal box with a stranger, and she starts talking up political leaders whom you presumably hate and/or fear? 

Let’s take a step back and try to frame this in a bigger picture. It may be helpful to remember that… 

There is nothing at stake in this conversation.

It seems to me that unless they hold public office, other people’s political opinions should only matter to us if they can cast a vote in an election that might have some impact on our lives. 

And regardless of what voter fraud conspiracy theorists will tell you, this woman can’t vote in a U.S. election. She probably can’t even vote in France. And anyway, French waiters are going to keep sneering at you whether Le Pen wins or not. 

It’s possible she’s voting absentee in Cameroon. But the same guy’s been running that country since 1982 (google search #3—see how hard I work at this?), so I’m a little skeptical that her vote will get counted properly. Either way, what happens in Cameroon tends to stay in Cameroon, unless it spills over into Equatorial Guinea. 

So nothing you say to each other in this conversation actually matters, except to the extent that it’ll affect both your mood and hers. 

The big question, I guess, is whether you want to part ways having tried to make her—and yourself—feel a little better about being alive, or a little less alone in the world.

Do you want to use this interaction with a stranger as an opportunity to add some small token of value to the karmic change dish of the universe?

If the answer is yes, I recommend option #1:

Find a common enemy to unite against.

The weather’s lousy, right? And so’s the traffic? Change the subject and talk about that stuff instead. 

If you do, forget what I said earlier: take it personally. Get angry. Then encourage her to do the same. 

Curse God for punishing both of you with this stupid rain! And/or traffic! 

Better yet, curse the guy driving the car in front of you. There’s a good chance he’s French. You’re not. And neither is the cab driver. But you can bet she’s got her own issues with French waiters.

So single out the nearest French guy for abuse and really go to town on him. 

Nothing, I mean nothing, brings people together like hating on a common scapegoat.

But what if you’re the kind of person—as I suspect you might be, because why else would you have asked this question?—whose identity is so wrapped up in their political convictions, and whose amygdala has been so tenderized by attention-grabby partisans constantly pushing the buttons of your fight-or-flight response with apocalyptic warnings of catastrophe if the other side wins (a few of which might actually be valid, so please don’t quote these words back to me if we slide into authoritarianism after the next election) that the mere presence of someone with a different point of view is so triggering, you just can’t let it go unaddressed?

In you were able to parse that last sentence (sorry, got a little carried away there) and recognize yourself in it, you’ll want to pursue option #2:

Tell her why she’s wrong! 

And not just wrong, but deluded. Why else would an immigrant support politicians who are explicitly anti-immigrant?  

Ignore the fact that, as a human being, she has both moral agency and a life experience that’s wildly different from your own. Don’t get hung up trying to untangle the complex thicket of psychological, social, and experiential factors by which people come into their political beliefs.

And for God’s sake, don’t fall into the trap of expressing curiosity about why she likes these politicians. Resist any temptation to use this as an opportunity to broaden, let alone challenge, your understanding of either politics or human psychology.

Just assume she’s a moron and lecture her accordingly. Tell her she suffers from what the Marxists call “false consciousness.” Then sit back and enjoy the dopamine rush you’ll get from performing self-righteous indignation. 

At first blush, you may recoil from this advice. Perhaps you’re thinking, “But if I’m condescending and dismissive, how will I ever change this cab driver’s mind? Wouldn’t it be more persuasive if I respond in a way that’s both thoughtful and empathetic, making the best possible arguments in favor of my position while couching them in a tone of respectful kindness?”

No. 

Because no matter what you say or how you say it, nothing that comes out of your mouth stands a ghost of a chance of changing this woman’s mind. I have spent decades thinking and talking about politics with people, and I have never, not even once, persuaded anyone of anything they didn’t already believe. I can’t even get my wife to budge on her opinions, let alone strangers.

That’s just not how this works. 

I mean, think about it from your end: is there anything the cab driver could tell you about Trump or Le Pen that would change YOUR mind about them?

The down side to engaging her in a political spat is that it stands a good chance of making you both at least a little bit upset. Once the self-righteous dopamine rush wears off, you’re likely to exit that cab feeling worse than when you entered it, and so will your driver.

UNLESS…

You’re the kind of person who gets a kick out of fighting with strangers. Some of us do! If you’re one of them, I’d recommend option #3:

Pick a fight that’s just as meaningless, but much more fun.

Organized sports is awesome for this. Especially in Europe, where people are so into it that armed gangs of soccer fans attack each other in the streets on the regular.

They call it “football” over there, so you could start by taking a poke at that and see if you can bait her into into a tussle over linguistics.

But eventually, you’ll want to escalate to the personal. Ask what her favorite team is.

Then tell her why they suck.

Even better, pretend you’re a fan of their arch-rival. 

You may have to do some surreptitious googling in the back seat to acquire enough team-specific knowledge to really heckle her. But the good news is that no matter what teams are involved, fighting about sports is almost as predictable and reductive as fighting about politics.

So you can pre-write your insults and just plug in different names. For example:

“Do you like PSG [Real Madrid/the Yankees] because you have no self-esteem? Are you too emotionally insecure to root for a small-market team?”

“Mbappe [Bellingham/Judge] is SO overrated. Did you hear he’s a pedophile?” 

If your cab driver’s not into sports, go after her aesthetics. Start with a couple of ambiguously snide comments about her haircut. That’ll knock her off balance.

Then ask who her favorite musician is. When she tells you—regardless of whether you enjoy that person’s music, or have even heard of them—express a level of disdain bordering on revulsion. 

“You like THAT? In your ears? As an adult? Wow. Do you also like the sound of cats screwing?” 

The words aren’t as important as the tone. Make it withering. Let your voice drip with corrosive sarcasm. That’ll get the point across even if there’s a language barrier.

Try to reduce her to either tears or threats of violence. If you manage to ring either bell, congratulate yourself. You won!

Then tip her at least twenty-five percent, because it was totally worth it.

Thanks for your interest in my bad advice! If you think it might be unhelpful to others, please share it.

(Unless they’re French. I was kind of mean to that whole country. Which is pretty hypocritical, because honestly? Americans are worse.)

P.S. — if you’re reading this via email, that spiffy new email header at the top is courtesy of artist, director, former Hevy Floe frontman, and all-around mensch Nick Spooner.