{"id":2732,"date":"2024-10-16T22:07:49","date_gmt":"2024-10-16T22:07:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buildersmovement.org\/?p=2732"},"modified":"2025-03-11T13:19:41","modified_gmt":"2025-03-11T13:19:41","slug":"conservative-environmentalist-against-polarized-politics-and-simplistic-stereotypes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buildersmovement.org\/2024\/10\/16\/conservative-environmentalist-against-polarized-politics-and-simplistic-stereotypes\/","title":{"rendered":"Conservative Environmentalist Talks About Polarized Politics and Simplistic Stereotypes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIt feels weird to call myself a conservative because the automatic stereotypes that people have aren&#8217;t necessarily what I am or what I believe.\u201d<\/span><\/i><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/i><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0 \u00a0 \u2014 <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Benji Backer on the <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">12 Geniuses<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> podcast<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the latest episode of <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/buildersmovement.org\/2024\/08\/21\/debate-without-hate-podcast-series-navigate-divisive-election\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cDebate Without Hate: Elections 2024,\u201d<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Benji Backer, the author of <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Conservative Environmentalist<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, shares insights about building cross-partisan consensus and beliefs that don\u2019t easily align with political stereotypes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Benji Backer: The Conservative Gen Z Agenda for Climate Change\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/kkflaop4cVA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Benji describes how he got his start in political involvement at a time of extreme partisan division:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It was the middle of the 2016 presidential election, and I was really dismayed by the divide that was starting to happen in politics, the visceral partisan divide. And of course, I was right-of-center, but I was never like, oh, the left-of-center sucks or, you know, people who are liberal are horrible. And I hated being called horrible as a conservative by people on the left. I just felt like things were changing in a really bad way.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Benji\u2019s experiences provide insights for anyone working on a political issue. For one thing, there\u2019s often more common ground on contentious issues and far more creative solutions than many people realize. For another thing, we\u2019re surrounded by simplistic political stereotypes, so examining the ways people <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">don\u2019t<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> fit those stereotypes can help us engage with each other in more productive, less biased ways.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A key takeaway from this talk is the importance of empathy in political discourse, particularly on polarizing topics like climate change. Benji points out that, although conservatives and liberals may approach the issue differently, they often share more common ground than expected. He emphasizes that addressing climate change requires a variety of approaches, including local community initiatives, entrepreneurship, and effective policymaking.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=kkflaop4cVA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Watch this <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">12 Geniuses<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> episode now<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Want to stay in the loop about efforts to overcome toxic divisions? <\/span><\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/buildersmovement.org\/join\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sign up for our newsletter<\/span><\/i><\/a><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cIt feels weird to call myself a conservative because the automatic stereotypes that people have aren&#8217;t necessarily what I am or what I believe.\u201d \u00a0 \u00a0 \u2014 Benji Backer on the 12 Geniuses podcast In the latest episode of \u201cDebate Without Hate: Elections 2024,\u201d Benji Backer, the author of The Conservative Environmentalist, shares insights about&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":2733,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"collection_feed":[],"type_feed":[72],"class_list":["post-2732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - 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