How could social transformation come to pass when so many, even those most thirsting to change things, had written off the very possibility of changing people’s minds? It had helped to open an ever-widening, seemingly unsustainable gap between the ambitions for structural, material change and the utter pessimism about individual people changing. In the change-making circles I had begun to follow, the political culture of the write-off had made itself strongly felt. The tendency to write off is rooted in the assumption that differences of identity are unbridgeable, that people are too invested in their privileges and interests to change, that the failure to achieve change in the past predicts failure in the future, that people and their opinions are monolithic and strong rather than complicated and fragile, and therefore the purpose of politics is to protect yourself from Others and galvanize your own instead of trying to reach across. Leaders who attempt outreach have been attacked by their own as sellouts, chided for centering those who would never ally with them anyway over those who have long had their back, if not their attention. People have watched as tens of millions of their loved ones mentally disappear into online rabbit holes and cults, but little organized effort is made to bring them back or protect future victims.

Political campaigns frequently receive advice to focus on mobilizing sympathetic voters more than winning over skeptics. Social movements that need to grow to win have often seemed to devote more energy to keeping people out than pulling people in.

This challenge to persuasion has taken myriad forms. Many Americans have grown alienated from an idea at the heart of democratic theory: that you change things by changing minds-by persuading. The Persuaders is a stunning insider account of activists, politicians, educators, and everyday citizens who are on the ground working to change minds, bridge divisions, and fight for democracy.

Anand giridharadas amazon