So, Donald Trump—how’s your mama?

I hate being manipulated. Donald Trump wants a second term as president. So, he’s running his presidency the same way he’s managed his life so far: divide everyone beneath him. He ran his companies that way—pitting each subordinate against the other so advancement depended on the other losing. His current goal: to pit me against you.

To succeed, he has to put our deeply held values in play. We’re Americans—we’re not going to claw at each other over Duke’s or Hellman’s, Wendy’s or McDonald’s. But race, or the flag, or first-responders, yep, that’ll do it. That’s why he tweets, to stir up our emotional reactions. It’s hard to rile emotions with proper, boring governmental action. In fact, our founders designed the country’s governance structure to prevent emotions from flaring (see de Tocqueville). But if you insert yourself personally into a public conversation in a VERY LOUD VOICE, you succeed.

Trump’s game plan to divide us also requires that he fracture the things we use to connect. We won’t fear the other if we see them as on our team. Literally, that was what this weekend’s attack on the NFL was about. Sports are one of the major avenues we use to connect with strangers. When I first heard about the planned protests, I thought everyone should buy game tickets and support the men on the field by taking a knee in the bleachers. That’s exactly what Donald Trump wants. He wants the man next to me to quit thinking of me as a Saints fan and instead look at me as a pinkie, Commie, libtard kneeling. (And listen, y’all, it worked: I got mad at Drew Breese for not kneeling. DREW BREESE, whose Saints led New Orleans into a remembrance of joy after the levees broke. My Lord.)

Unfortunately, Trump’s management style doesn’t work. The companies he managed tanked, until he learned to slap his name on a business and let someone else run it. If we participate in his manufactured divisiveness, our country will tank too.

The good news is, I don’t work for Donald Trump. Neither do you. My livelihood doesn’t depend on staying in his good graces. I don’t have to fight you to keep him happy. If I let him lead me by the nose into more and more extreme positions until we both think the other has lost their damn minds, it’s purely voluntary.

At this point, you might pause and blink—is he really manipulating me? Is my righteous anger being manufactured to serve another man’s goals? But, after a minute, chances are you’ll return to the emotions you brought to the second sentence of this post. You’ll decide your feelings on racial injustice or the flag are too important, and I’m an appeasing Neville Chamberlain. Only problem, you aren’t Churchill. You and me, we’re Czechoslovakia. Pawns. We’re victims of the man who destroyed our ability to connect over the sentence: “How ’bout them Saints?”

We have to resist this manipulation. But how do we do that? How do we break the circuit of emotions that keep us ready to anger, dismiss the other, hate them for not appreciating how important our values are?

You turn to the person next to you and ask, So, how’s your mama?
Or say, I love your earrings.
Tell me what fun things are in your life these days.
You a Game of Thrones person or not a Game of Thrones person?
Would you share the recipe to this green bean casserole?
Can you believe how hot it is?

For this to work, you must actually do it. You can’t intellectually admit that it might be a good idea. (And, please, don’t try to “talk” someone into seeing your point of view—it factually doesn’t work.) You have to experience a conversation with a particular person whom you perceive as fighting against your most precious American values, even if that conversation takes place in your mind with their image in your brain. Afterwards, your brain will untighten, and you’ll seek to find slivers of light into which agreement can slip. You’ll come up with ways to support the other’s values while maintaining your own. I know—where’s the integrity in that?

Go ahead. Give it a try. I’ll go first.

So, Donald Trump—how’s your mama?