Philosophers Can Be Awesome At Political Phone Banking

As I write, the 2024 U.S. federal election is in its final stretch, and it’s a nail-biter. A few thousand swing voters may well decide the future of the country when it comes to climate change, social injustice, abortion access, international war, free speech, and even the basic structure of American democracy.

Most academic philosophers I know (students and instructors) care a lot about this election, but many feel helpless to do more than vote or donate to campaign funds. But I think we have another way to make an impact: we can phone bank, and we’re positioned to be pretty good at it, perhaps even awesome.

No doubt: phone banking is nerve-wracking. It can feel invasive to call strangers, and it’s no fun when someone hangs up on you. I’m a fairly seasoned phone-banker, but my heart still starts racing whenever I start—and I often end up cutting my shift short. It would help if there were clear evidence that phone banking makes a big impact but, unfortunately, the empirical evidence about that is mixed. So it’s hard to be confident that the anxiety and stress is worth it.

If I had to bet, though, I’d wager that we philosophers can make difference by phone banking—at least, as long as we employ the right skills. I’d base that bet on personal experience. To be clear: I’ve never flipped a voter in a single conversation, and I don’t know anyone who has. But flipping voters isn’t not the only way to impact votes. Small effects on someone’s political beliefs can change whether they vote at all, or how they resolve their uncertainty at the final moment when they decide. Small effects can also shape how someone talks to friends and family, tipping those people one way or another.

Here are three examples where I’m pretty sure I’ve moved the needle:

• A white-collar voter in Georgia told me he was conflicted, but leaned the opposite way from me about the presidential race. The first thing he wanted to talk about was tax policy. Specifically, he asked me hard questions about Kamala Harris’s proposed unrealized gains tax. I told him that I wished I was an economics instructor, so I could say something intelligent about that, but admitted I’m only an ethics instructor. He laughed, and the conversation pivoted to what happens in ethics classes. I told him about how I help my students respectfully argue with each other, and he was fascinated—saying he wished things like that happened in presidential debates. He left the conversation with a much more favorable impression of university classes (and academics of my political stripe) than he came in with.
• A Michigan voter in his 80s, who agreed with me about the presidential race, had received some confusing mail about his voting registration. From what he said, it sounded like he’d received outright misinformation, and I was able to give him the number for a trustworthy voting information hotline. He also wasn’t sure about his state’s senate race, but then was persuaded when I told him which candidate would support our preferred presidential candidate.
• One Pennsylvania voter, who disagreed with me about the presidential race, made an off-hand comment about radical Marxists. I told him I knew some radical Marxists, which surprised him. Then I explained that many of them are fans of Bernie Sanders. He’d never heard that connection, and turned out to have some real sympathy for Sanders. The conversation seemed to leave him less confident than he’d started.  

In none of these cases did I present a formal argument, or throw out statistics or historical facts. I’d tried that approach in my earlier experiences with phone banking, and kept running into walls. But through trial and error, and through working on the ethics of persuasion, I’ve learned to instead use a different set of skills. These are skills that academic philosophers cultivate less in writing papers and giving talks than in discussion: careful listening, clarifying ambiguities, avoiding ad hominem attacks, and not overstating a point. (Yes, I know that not all philosophers show those skills, but many of us at least work to cultivate them.)

So here are five rules for phone banking as a philosopher, whether you’re a student or a seasoned professor. No doubt: these rules won’t make phone banking easy for anyone. Moreover, other philosophers face obstacles that I don’t, as a moderately extroverted man with a ‘standard’ American accent. I should also admit that my approach isn’t the only viable one – other promising approaches might focus on curiosity, questions, and/or stories. But I am confident that these rules could help many other philosophers make a difference:

1. Know that your aim is modest: Phone banking is a team effort. You’re part of a group that’s collectively trying to sway a few voters. Those voters are out there, and part of the task is to search for them. If you just get a bunch of hang-ups, you’re helping the team know where not to look. Real conversations are the exception—my average is one real exchange for every thirty minutes of trying. Moreover, even when you do have a conversation, you’re unlikely to dramatically change anyone’s vote on the spot. But you can give them food for thought—and that might make a difference later. Perhaps things will ‘click’ for them a few days later, or perhaps they’ll just be less confident when talking to an undecided friend.
2. Represent your group: Even if all you say is “Hi, my name is ___, and I’m a volunteer with the [political party],” you’re adding something to the team effort. For one, you’re showing that your political party has volunteers, so it’s not all driven by special interests. For another, the way you say that conveys something about who supports that party. Saying “Hi” it in a friendly, non-confrontational way signals that at least someone in that group is nice. In our age of hyper-polarization, just humanizing your group can help. I’ve taken to thanking anyone who answers kindly: “Thanks so much for answering and being willing to talk—I get really nervous doing this.” That’s honest, and makes me relatable. To someone who regards people of a certain political stripe as, say, “unhuman,” that’s already food for thought.
3. Listen and build rapport first. It’s a familiar but powerful idea that most people have a need to be acknowledged – seen and heard. When you call a stranger, you might be taking up their time, but you’re also offering them a gift. If you really listen, and really pay attention to what they say, you acknowledge them as someone worth listening to. We live in an age of widespread loneliness and isolation, so this kind of acknowledgement is all too rare. Ethically speaking, since we’re calling them, we owe it to them to listen first, before we start talking. That will humanize us (see above), and let us know when to start talking (see below).
4. Stay within your obvious competence. When we encounter a new person, we quickly form judgments about their warmth (whether they pose a threat) and their competence (whether they know what they’re talking about). If you’ve made it through step 3, you’ve shown yourself to be warm. But warmth and competence can come apart, so the other person might now worry that you’re well-intentioned but incompetent. Few of us philosophers can convince a stranger that we’re an expert on economic, legal, or historical issues. So if we talk about those, we’re easily dismissed. But we can easily convince someone that we know about our own institutions, and that we know others with similar political views (Marxists, libertarians, environmentalists, originalists, etc.). That’s why I was able to make an impact with the voters in Georgia and Pennsylvania. It was easy for me to convince them that I knew what happened in some ethics classes, and that I knew some Marxists. Similarly with the voter in Michigan. He knew I was volunteering to support his preferred candidate, so he saw me as competent when it came to a voter registration hotline, and to which Senate candidate would support the president he hoped to elect.
5. Embrace self-compassion. It’s okay to give yourself a break, just as you’d give others a break who were doing something emotionally challenging. I wouldn’t blame someone else for bowing out after thirty minutes, if that was all they had the bandwidth for that day. So sometimes, that’s when I bow out too. Given the stakes of this election, we have reason to push ourselves a bit, but none of us have unlimited time or emotional energy. Thank goodness we get to do this as part of a team. 

Colin Marshall

Colin Marshall is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Washington. He works on the history of philosophy, metaethics, and the ethics of persuasion. He has recently, and probably wrongly, argued that political persuasion is disrespectful.]