Earlier this year, I wrote the Understanding MAGA series. The only real feedback I got was along the lines of, interesting, but how can we convert enough people to our cause?
I mostly got some version of,
“How do I convert someone from MAGA?”
But I also got a few,
“How do I convince a libtard he’s wrong?”
Fair enough.
So, this week, let’s talk about persuasion.
I think the questions above start one step too late. Persuasion begins with understanding, not conversion. Before you can change someone’s mind, you have to understand the worldview that makes their beliefs reasonable to them. Attack the identity and they will defend it. Understand the viewpoint, find common ground, and you have a chance to create room for reconsideration.
Roger Williams understood something like this nearly four centuries ago. He was no relativist. He argued hard for what he believed. But he also understood that disagreement is normal, that every side tends to see itself as right, and that persuasion works better than coercion. That makes him an unusually good guide for what I think of as the art of persuasion.
That is why I went back nearly four centuries for a role model to Roger Williams, one of my favorite historical figures. He also happens to be my 10th great-grandfather, which is one reason I’ve spent so much time studying him over the years. I’ve called him a man 400 years ahead of his time. He was a minister, political leader, founder of Providence, defender of Native American rights, advocate for liberty of conscience, and an early champion of the separation of church and state.
But for this column, I want to focus on something smaller: how he dealt with disagreement.
Persuade the Persuadable
When Williams arrived in New England, public discussion was already part of his life. In Salem, it was customary for Williams to propose a question or topic and for the local leaders to each speak on it. At times, he found himself at odds with them.
And Roger Williams could argue.
He argued against taking Native American land without fair compensation. He argued against forcing people to attend church. He argued against government-enforced prayer. He argued that atheists, Jews, Muslims, Catholics, Protestants, and everyone else had a right to follow their own conscience.
These were not safe positions in the 1630s.
Eventually, Williams developed an interesting strategy. He actively sought out people who had not yet heard his arguments. Those were the people worth his time. He had much less interest in endlessly debating people who already understood his position and remained firmly committed to persecution.
The more fervent their zeal, the more he distanced himself.
I think there is wisdom in that.
Once you have presented your position clearly, supplied your reasons, answered fair objections, and the other person fully understands you, there comes a point where continuing is no longer persuasion. You are just repeating yourselves and raising the risk of anger, hate, and division.
You do not control another person’s mind.
You can persuade. You can explain. You can question. You can challenge. But ultimately, the other person gets to decide what enters their worldview.
The Debate Viewpoint
Williams expressed this beautifully in 1648. In a paper submitted to the town of Providence, he wrote:
“…all men are apt & prone to differ…it is no New Thing…either part or partie is most right in his owne eyes…”
That observation is nearly four centuries old, but it describes every Facebook argument I have ever seen. Everyone tends to think they are right. You think you are right. The person arguing with you thinks they are right.
That insight gets to the core of what I call the Debate Viewpoint. People usually enter a disagreement believing their position is correct, just as strongly as you believe yours is correct. Understanding that changes how you approach persuasion.
The goal is not to react to every sentence or win every point. Your goal is more simple. Find a way to navigate the dialogue with truth and honor. If you can’t, don’t debate. And to do this, you need to understand the other person’s viewpoint. Only then can you guide the dialogue toward the strongest ground for your own position.
This is where emotion gets us into trouble. Someone says something irritating. You fire back. They reply to that. You respond again. Five minutes later, you are arguing about something you never intended to discuss. The other person is now deciding where your mind goes next.
Take control back.
Instead of asking: What is my reply to what was just said? Step above the dialogue and ask: Where do I want this conversation to go? That small change is powerful.
The Debate Pivot
This leads to another tool I call the Debate Pivot. When I think of the Debate Pivot, I think of the Socratic Method. They are different techniques, but I think of them as cousins. The Socratic Method uses questions to help someone examine their own beliefs, assumptions, and contradictions. I’ve personally found it difficult to master, especially when the other person is focused more on winning than exploring. The Debate Pivot fills some of that space for me. Both begin with understanding, but instead of trying to guide someone through a chain of questions, I usually find it more effective to understand their point, acknowledge what is true, present my own view, and then let them be who they are.
Now, suppose the other person puts a fact in front of you. First step, fact-check it. If it is false, say why. But if it is true, acknowledge it.
That sounds obvious, but people are remarkably bad at doing it when emotionally invested in a position. We sometimes feel that admitting one point somehow weakens our entire worldview. It doesn’t.
If someone says something true, start there: “Yes, that’s true.” Then explain how that fact fits into the larger picture.
A Debate Pivot is not dodging the argument. Quite the opposite. You are dealing honestly with the point, then steering the conversation toward the ground that actually matters.
Acknowledge. Put it in context. Pivot.
That is much more persuasive than pretending an inconvenient fact does not exist.
Debate with Honor
This brings me to a rule I think is even more important:
“If you are willing to lie to win a debate, you are debating without honor.”
That’s my writing of an old sentiment.
Daniel Dennett drew a similar distinction when discussing sophistry. Some people, he observed, are “in it to win, not to get at the truth.” That is the danger. Once winning becomes more important than truth, argument becomes a bag of tricks.
Dale Carnegie approached the same problem from another angle. His famous advice was that the best way to get the better of an argument is often to avoid it. You can win a point and still lose the person.
Steel and Straw
Persuasion begins with understanding, not conversion. If you want to change someone’s mind, first understand the viewpoint that makes their position reasonable to them. The best persuaders do not attack strawman versions of arguments, nor identity. They strive to create room for reconsideration. They start by building a steelman argument.
A steelman is the strongest fair version of the other person’s argument. The best persuaders resist jumping on errors in thinking. Before they even start thinking, they make sure they understand what the argument is. They reflect and accept what they agree with and make that part of their reply. That gives the other person acceptance, and we all want that. To persuade, you need to actually understand what others believe, why they believe it, and what evidence or values support it.
Remember, a strawman weakens the other person’s argument so you can knock it down. Steelmanning does the opposite. Only then do you respond. Ideally, the other person should be able to say:
“Yes. That’s what I mean.”
From there, persuasion becomes less about scoring points and more about finding where your viewpoints actually diverge. Roger Williams was remarkably good at this kind of engagement. He listened, argued hard, and tried to meet people on ground they could recognize.
That takes confidence. It also takes intellectual honesty.
Freedom of Conscience
This is where Roger Williams’ larger philosophy comes back into the story.
Williams did not think all ideas were equally good. Far from it. He held strong religious and political convictions. He thought many of his opponents were terribly wrong. But he came to an extraordinary conclusion for his time:
Being wrong does not give someone else the right to control your conscience.
That idea became part of his larger argument for what we now call freedom of speech. Providence became a place where citizenship was separated from religion and where people could follow different beliefs without the government forcing conformity. Williams envisioned a pluralistic society in which people could disagree deeply and still live together.
That is also a lesson about persuasion. Persuasion respects agency. Coercion does not. You can make your case. You can make it passionately. You can expose errors, challenge contradictions, bring evidence, and defend what you believe is true.
But the other person still gets to choose.
Keep the Person
Living well includes living with honor. A good debate is not just about making the strongest argument. It is also about how you conduct yourself while making it.
Listen fairly. Acknowledge what is true.
Do not knowingly distort what the other person believes. Do not invent facts. Do not lie to win. And perhaps most importantly, remember that the person on the other side of the argument is still a person.
You may lose a point and still keep something more important: your honor. You may even keep the friendship.
That brings me back to Roger Williams. He lived in a world of brutal religious conflict, civil war, banishment, persecution, and very real violence over ideas. Yet his answer was not to silence disagreement. His answer was to protect it.
People are prone to differ. Each side tends to be right in its own eyes. Nearly four hundred years later, that remains true.
So make your case. Seek truth. Debate with honor. And whenever possible, retain the friendship of your adversary.
