Kansas City mayor blunders in advising against engagement with ‘bonkers attacks’

I don’t look to start beefs for the sake of starting beefs, but Kansas City, Missouri, Mayor Quinton Lucas wrote a couple of tweets the other week that bothered me.

“In recent days, you may have noticed that certain statewide candidates have started posting bonkers attacks on large swaths of Missourians — typically Black people, women, LGBTQ+ people, and the millions of us in the Kansas City and St. Louis metros. My advice: don’t engage,” he wrote in the first message, posted May 22.

He concluded by writing: “The attacks are performative, either to hide a silver spoon upbringing or to cover up a stunning lack of policy positions that will improve Missourians’ quality of life. There are smart ways to battle. Amplifying their messages is not. Let’s have our narrative, not play theirs.”

Lucas has elections to win and a political future to nourish. I understand.

Yet these messages strike me as precisely the wrong thing to say to constituencies in Missouri and Kansas, and indeed across the United States. You do not win battles over ideas by refusing to engage. You do not change people’s minds by refusing to speak with them.

What’s more, you do not tell people who are facing unparalleled oppression by the state that they should essentially shut up and take it. That’s outright harmful.

Framing debates

Lucas does make one point that everyone should remember. If you’re arguing with someone over something — anything, really — you don’t automatically accept that person’s framing.

They may have a different worldview or set of moral beliefs than you. They may have different life experiences. They may be trying to, as the mayor suggests, bait you into an over-emotional response that harms your cause.

So don’t do that. Make your own case. State your own view.

Too often, I see progressives and liberals (and anyone not on the far right wing of the Republican Party) arguing amongst themselves about tactics and vocabulary. Meanwhile, they ignore the seizure of vast swaths of rhetorical territory by their ideological opponents.

Do I have an example? I sure do. In the aftermath of Donald Trump’s 2016 election, those in the progressive activist space rushed to confront the rampant racism poisoning American society. Diversity trainings and social justice campaigning spread near and far. Don’t get me wrong: Everyone needs that information and should commit to fighting racism. It will  change how you see American history and culture.

I worried at the time, however, that this work centered on people with similar mindsets. At a certain point, folks who hadn’t thought about race and its role in American life would have to be engaged, too. The way that progressives framed the issue — loaded with notions of collective guilt and societal obligations — seemed sure to ignite new culture war battles.

Within a few years, conservatives needed to distract the public from the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and COVID-19. They found a juicy target in these nascent murmurings for justice.

Progressives hadn’t prepared and were caught off guard by the furor over critical race theory.

I would suggest that this happened precisely because they didn’t spend that time engaging with people who believed differently than them. Activists, nonprofits and advocates spoke more to themselves and their diehard supporters than to the unpersuaded or unknowing. They then lost control of a narrative critical to building a better country.

They needed to engage more and earlier. They needed to have facts and figures and framing at the ready. Instead, they argued about the definition of “critical race theory” itself.

Winning above all

Many folks in the political-news media complex confuse electoral politics with life. Elections produce winners and losers, and reporters shape those contests into comprehensible stories.

Life works differently. When politics affect people’s very existence, they will respond. Their voices and their anger might not be politically palatable. It might strike Quentin Lucas — or Laura Kelly or Ty Masterson — as counterproductive.

So what?

As Statehouse lawmakers debated stripping transgender people of their rights, I heard and read emotional rhetoric from transgender activists. While I agree wholeheartedly with their cause, I wouldn’t have necessarily used their words. You can read my columns on the topic to see my preferred approach.

But I might be wrong! That’s not only okay, it’s how public conversations should work.

I’m older than many of these activists, and I wouldn’t dream of telling them to shush. They have a perspective, they have their beliefs, and they should be able to fight for themselves. They don’t have an election to win or lose; they have their lives and those of their loved ones to protect.

Good journalists and columnists cover the world beyond electoral politics and legislative sessions. We try to show that our state and its people encompass more than simple blue and red, liberal and conservative, urban and rural. Kansans (and Missourians) differ in a multitude of ways. Trying to deny or stifle that difference for political gain risks turning public dialogue into platitudinous pablum.

That’s a truth Mayor Lucas would do well to remember.

Clay Wirestone is Kansas Reflector opinion editor. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.