Opinion: Instead of dissing them, hug those election deniers

Before you feel annoyed and then dismiss the next election denier you hear, think about all the deniers you know, some of whom you love. Reach out in kinship and ask that denier for a hug, graphics columnist Sergio Pecanha shares an opinion piece in The Washington Post.

Pecanha, a citizen of the U.S. and Brazil, begins with Jan. 6, 2021, which he says wasn't the beginning, but a pinnacle Americans can recall: "Americans know the feeling: It’s hard to believe the sight of a capital vandalized by a mob of people who won’t accept the result of an election because their side didn’t win. It’s our country — our democracy, ourselves — under attack." Pencanha looks to the Jan, 8 mob action in Brazil's capital and sees the similarities, "How bizarre to hear election deniers halfway down the planet expressing, in another language, the same sentiments felt two years earlier by American rioters. 'We invaded what is ours — by right,' one Bolsonarista said in a video posted online. . . . It’s as though the rioters come from another planet."

If only that were true. "But that oversimplification hurts us. Many of those involved in the attacks on democracy in the United States and Brazil were led to believe that their elections were stolen," Pencanha writes. "That they were standing up for freedom. That we are the aliens. We shouldn’t ignore them. Brazil and the United States are still democracies — the people who hold these beliefs have the right to vote, too. . . . Besides, who among us these days doesn’t have an acquaintance, a sibling, a cousin or an otherwise lovely whatever-in-law who fell for the conspiracy theories?"

Pencanha says of them, "They are decent people (mostly). People we love (mostly). Maybe people who have become so detached from reality that we prefer to just avoid them. We don’t choose our relatives. Among my friends, it was different — not one supported Bolsonaro. But this is another sign of trouble: the information bubbles we live in. . . . We need to pop these bubbles."

Why? "It is only because I know and love many of those inside the other bubbles that I can empathize and make the effort to try to understand them. I invite you to do the same," Pencanha implores. "Maybe you think this is in vain, because you know you won’t change their minds. That might be true. But that’s not the only good thing that can happen."

What else? "It is not new for voters to feel anger, sadness, disillusion, confusion. Nor are these emotions unique to Brazil or the United States. But it has become so easy to spread lies to take advantage of the people who feel these things," he notes. "It is natural to want to brush off those who fall for the kind of lies spread by the Bolsonaros and Trumps of the world. It’s an understandable defense, but it won’t make the problem go away."

Pencanha suggests, "What if, instead, we pull them in closer? Draw them to us. Look them in eye." And offer them love.