Learning to talk to (some) Republicans

I had an “Ah-Ha” moment/conversation today. As you know, I have a difficult road ahead healthwise, so maybe that played a role. But a dentist, who is Republican, was telling me that all of a sudden they had a lot of patients coming in with broken teeth.

I said that people are quite stressed right now and the dentist seemed mystified by that. I told them that students were really scared and I was scared for them. No impact. The dentist had worked when they were a student, etc. We had a series of the usual, failed discussion — Elon can’t get a clearance and these actions are extra-constitutional, so what’s next. Then their respose was why were we giving money to Iran and why are we giving 300M to Mexico, etc. Nowhere.

But — and I don’t know how it happened exactly — we got onto the fact that in the 90's there was a vote in Bern County to put fluoride in the water. It was a great boon to children and dentists. Then, in 2012, the County Water Commission decided unilaterally to remove fluoride from the water. The County Commission didn’t take a vote or listen to all the dentists who pleaded with them not to do that. They even ignored the American Dental Association. Now dentists are seeing many more kids with bad teeth (cavities).

I could see that this was something they knew about personally and were extremely close to. And they were right that dentists should have had a say in it. I said, I was sorry and that decision was a real mistake.

Then, I said I feel the same way about research and students and academia isn’t all bad. I said that I thought there were few conservatives in academia because it doesn’t pay enough for the amount of work and it would drive serious entrepeneurs crazy.

One of the interesting topics was when they mentioned that they couldn’t get papers accepted in journals because they didn’t have research credentials. It became clear to me that we do need journals for practitioners — mentors, dentists, MDs in the field, and others — people who don’t do research but, have good observations base on experience. I told them the same thing happened with “on the ground” mentors. There is a real need to give people with deep experience in their fields a place to share their experience-based observations.

We talked about some other things — but it was the exchange about fluoride — a topic that was close to their heart and they had been denied a voice that opened up a real connection.

As I left, they said, “I learn so much from you.” They had no idea how much I learned from them this morning.

So, just an idea. Good luck.

Cartoon by Ricardo Caté, Kewa Pueblo