(I'm trying to maintain a writing practice; it's just a little less frequent than I'd like! This one wasn't necessarily intended for Thanksgiving week, but it WORKS.)

A few days after the election, I had a long phone conversation with my dear friend Katie, who lives in Indiana, a very red state. "It's hard," she said: "Fox News talking points just appear in conversations out of nowhere, and I never react well. A couple of weeks ago, while my daughter was getting her hair cut, the stylist—a 60s-ish woman who's so nice—started talking about how worried she was for all the hurricane victims that Biden was directing FEMA to ignore. We weren't having a political argument. She just thought she was stating sad facts. And I froze!"

I mean, yeah. This kind of thing happens to me all the time. So we workshopped it a little, because we both like a little bit of analysis, especially if it ends in a USEFUL SCRIPT.

Why did she want to say something?

Because she wants to help correct misinformation, especially if it's pulling people toward dangerous political choices. Because she really likes this woman and wants to have genuine conversation with her. Because she wants her daughter to see her having kind, nuanced discussions and telling the truth.

And what kept her from saying something?

She didn't want to be divisive, or rude, or superior-sounding. She didn't want to start an argument. She didn't—shocker—have the real FEMA expenditure data at her fingertips, so she didn't feel confident flying into support-a-position-with-evidence mode.

So here's the magic script we're trying

We landed on a cheery, firm, "oh, I don't think that's true!"—briefly indicating that these "facts" are debatable, without shutting off future communication. It conveys confidence, kindness, and a commitment to the, um, existence of truth.

This is what I'm going to try out over the next few weeks, when I will be in conversation with lots of people I love and whom I believe to be DEEPLY MISINFORMED. It's not particularly direct. It's not going to immediately change the world or anyone's mind. Turns out (and now I'm speaking to Young Michelle): your job in every conversation is not to convert the person you're talking to.

I'm also going to be workshopping "Whoa!" as my standard response to any -ist comment—racist, misogynist, homophobic. I can never ever respond appropriately on the spot, but I think "Whoa!" is a good way to give myself time to think.

Teen-parenting experts say that it's often enough to respond to kids' rudeness with "whoa, that was rude": just a reminder, hey, there are still boundaries, and you just hit one. This is like that, I think: "what you just said isn't actually OK. I'm not going to make a Big Thing about it in this moment, but I'm going to let you know you just hit a boundary."

A final word about "divisiveness"

Fox People have somehow claimed two mutually exclusive things at once: liberals are sensitive snowflakes, and if a liberal challenges them they reserve the right to fly off the handle and yowl about divisiveness and "unity" and "why are you making this political?!?!"

Some Fox People get to call immigrants "poison," say "your body, my choice," and repeat the wildest conspiracy theories...but if we say "I don't think that's true!" we're the divisive ones?

Nope!

It is OK for us—even and especially the nice girls among us—to call a spade a spade. "I don't think that's true!" or "whoa!" is not an attack. We can own it, stand confidently in it.

Also btw, thanks, PATRIARCHY, for the expectation that I'll be Nice and Unifying Always.

What do y'all think? What are your best scripts for close-range resistance?