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In politics, stop talking, start doing
Mike Phipps on the blog site, Labour Hub, has published a review of “Don’t talk about politics: how to change 21st century minds”. The review is written by the book’s author, Sarah Stein Lubrano. The article has the title, “I Canvassed, It Didn’t Work, Now I Know Why “. What fascinates me about the review, is the way in which she communicates her enthusiasm for canvassing for Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour and yet her recognition that doorstep canvassing, and in her language, even talking to people, does not persuade anyone.
One of the themes I took away from Political Technology 25 was that motivating voters to vote, is easier than persuading people who are reticent to support you. Politicians, it seems, do not know how to persuade people, which may be one of the reasons why so many of them copy popular policies from other parties and use the bogus concept of the Overton window to justify it.
Since the 2019 election, Lubrano has turned to projects in building social solidarity.
In the labour hub article, she says,
If I could do it over again, I would instead have tried to build a food coop in my neighbourhood ( like I later did with my friends). Or I would have rebuilt a weakened social space, the way the people interviewed in the podcast did when they turned pie shops, laundromats and mining halls into…
