A Quaker author chat. Kat Griffith’s article, “Rhapsody in Purple,” appears in the Feburary 2025 issue of Friends Journal.
Kat Griffith shares her passion for connecting with people through door-to-door interactions, emphasizing the rewarding nature of these conversations, even with those who hold opposing views. She recounts memorable encounters, including discussions with a man displaying a provocative political banner and a homeless veteran, highlighting the importance of human connection and understanding in bridging political divides.
Griffith stresses the significance of curiosity over outrage when approaching others, advocating for open conversations to foster empathy and reduce loneliness. She believes that these interactions can lead to meaningful relationships, regardless of political differences.
The video concludes with Griffith encouraging viewers to engage with individuals from various backgrounds, emphasizing that shared values, such as caring for family and community, can unite people despite differing beliefs.
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Automated Transcription
Hi, I’m Martin Kelley of Friends Journal, and with me today is Kat Griffith. Kat is the author of a February article called Rhapsody in Purple, and welcome. Welcome, Kat. Thank you. Great to be here.
Sure. Let me read the bio here on the bottom of the article. Kat Griffith lives in Ripon, Wisconsin, the birthplace of the Republican Party, and serves on the Fond du Lac County Board. She is a past co-clerk of Northern Yearly Meeting and worships with the small but mighty Winnebago Worship Group. In a previous article, One Quaker’s Excellent Adventures in Politics, in the June-July 2023 issue, describes in more detail her first run for office.
So this article is all about how you like going door-to-door, knocking on strangers’ doors and talking politics with them. Why do you like it so much?
I think I, and I don’t just like it, I love it. You love it. I love it. I fall in love with my community all over again when I do it. Not every conversation is great, not by any means, but I have had so many really surprising experiences where I made a connection with somebody that I wouldn’t have thought I could make a connection with, and it was rich and rewarding.
I mean, I remember one time, I wasn’t actually canvassing, I was biking, but I saw this banner in front of a guy’s house, and the banner was a picture of Trump standing astride a tank, and there were all these symbols on it. I mean, it was clear that it was like, it was really well thought out propaganda, you know, like this was really thought through. And I was just amazed, like, what is this about? And I got off my bike and I was standing there and I was looking at it and just trying to figure it out, and the guy who owned the house came out thinking that I was trespassing. And I said, no, I’m just, I mean, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to trespass, but I’m just really curious about your banner. Could you tell me what it means? Like, what is this? So we ended up talking for over an hour on my banner while he’s telling me what all this means to him. It was very educational. And we ended up, amazingly enough, finding things that we had in common. Our views were not as far apart as you might have thought.
And I went back about a month later and said, you know, I really appreciated that conversation we had. Could we talk some more? And we stood outside. It was about 45 degrees. He was in his socks, not even wearing shoes, standing on the driveway. And we talked for over an hour again about just all sorts of political stuff. In some ways, he was a rabid, you know, whatever. I mean, he had a big gun collection, you know. And at the same time, we could find things that we agreed about. We weren’t as far apart as you would think. And that’s not because I’m conservative. I mean, I’m not. But it was very rewarding. And I wrote him letters, you know, a couple times. I would send him a letter and say, hey, this is what I’m thinking about. What are you thinking? He never replied. But I don’t think it was a bad thing.
Yeah, I mean, I think some of us would be like seeing that banner and like tiptoeing behind to get away or to ride our bike a little bit faster. But you’re saying that there’s opportunities, even in sort of this dramatic posturing of a banner, that we shouldn’t be afraid to approach people. That maybe, I guess maybe if you put up a banner, you’re actually asking for commentary or you’re saying you have strong views and want to talk about them.
There was a guy who put up a banner. It was, I don’t know, it was one of the many Trump banners that were available this last year. He had a long property bordering a road that I bike on a lot and a fence, a long fence around it. And so he put up a banner and there was an editorial in the newspaper that was offended by this banner. The banner had some nasty language on it. And he was so, how shall I put it, stirred up by this editorial that he responded by putting up 18 more of them. And it was just like you’d go down this corridor of banners screaming stuff at you, pro-Trump stuff. But I always sort of thought, you know, I just really want to talk to this guy. If I see him out there, I’m going to pull in on my bike and say, hey, you know, I’m actually your county board supervisor and I’d be curious what’s on your mind. What are you thinking about? Just hear what he has to say. Because so often what I find is that people are,they put up banners because, yeah, they’ve got something they want to express. They’re triggered in some way, but you talk to them and they’re not as outrageous as the banner. I had some trolls when I was running the first time who said horrible things about me. And when I reached out to them and said, hey, can I take you out to coffee and just hear you out? Just tell me what you think. I want to hear it. I want to know what you think. They calmed down so fast. It was amazing. There were two in particular that just completely stopped trolling me after I reached out to them. And one of them actually wrote me an email message, which I still treasure, saying, you know, that was really classy that you reached out to me like that. And I’ve changed my mind about you.
I had another experience with a young guy who was running for mayor in town. Very, very interesting young man. You couldn’t slice and dice him and put him in the usual slots. He served in the National Guard. He was gay. He believed very strongly in gun rights. He was libertarian. And he was an undergraduate running for mayor, which is a very, very brave young man because he didn’t have a lot of friends. There were very few people who would claim him. And he reached out to me after the election, which he lost. And we ended up becoming good friends. And I became very, I mean, I’m truly impressed with his courage, even though we certainly disagreed on some things. And he actually gradually moved further left during our conversations. He evolved when he saw what his side was doing to gay people, particularly. And he really evolved. So very interesting relationship.
Yeah. I mean, we talk about, you know, an epidemic of loneliness. And, you know, we have, you know, the 24-hour cable news. We have endless TikTok streams. We use apps for shopping and for dating. We can go through, I mean, I can go through a whole day barely talking to a stranger. And it sounds like you’re kind of finding, you know, a way past that and almost tapping into the loneliness to be a voice to talk to.
Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Like, you’ll laugh, but I do not have a working card for an ATM machine. And one of the reasons is I go to the credit union. I want to talk to people. I want to deal with actual people. I don’t even go through the drive-thru. I go into the credit union. And I know the people who work there. You know, the director comes out and says hello. And I know several of the people there. And it’s just I want those connections with the supermarket. You know, I have former students who are bagging groceries, and I like to see them. And, you know, I look for these places where we can connect. It’s just really, really important to me. And I’m glad I live in a small town where many different circles that I hang in connect in different ways. And, you know, I go to the grocery store, and I may see somebody from yoga. I may see somebody from the high school I used to teach in. I may see somebody from a downtown business that I know or, you know, whatever. I have cross connections, yeah. Yeah, I really want that and need that. And the pandemic was horrible for me. But basically what I did was sort of extrude committees for three years. I mean, I just created all these things, all these excuses to get together with people online. Wonderful.
One of the stories that is the funniest in your telling here, but also sort of the saddest, is the recently homeless vet. So maybe you can share it. I mean, what really sort of broke my heart was that you were the first person to ring his doorbell and the first person to come into his house. Here’s someone who, you know, served his country. And you can tell the story better, but, you know, obviously, you know, maybe some PTSD. There’s anger. And you’re talking to him. I mean, you’re doing almost social work here as you’re canvassing. So tell us a little bit about that story.
Can I say what he said? You can say what he said, yes. We won’t bleep it out here. Okay. So, yeah, I was canvassing in a neighborhood that’s actually not in Ripon. Usually I’m canvassing here, but I was actually in another town. And there was a relatively recent housing development that had a number of people who were on limited incomes. And so I was going house to house there. It was very, very rich territory for me. I mean, really good connections that I made with several people. And this one house was this guy who came to the door just vibrating rage. You know, it’s like, whoa, you could just feel it coming off him. And I said,well, I’m out canvassing for Janet somebody or other. And he said, they’re all a bunch of dickheads. I said, well, yeah, so we got to counteract this. He said, well, yeah, so we got to counteract the dickheads. And he just looked at me like that was a revelation. And he was like, yeah, counteract the dickheads.
And so we ended up having this whole conversation where I was trying to channel some of this rage and angst. And he was, well, it was exciting. It was invigorating. And gradually he sort of realized that actually there were some things he could do. And this candidate that I was campaigning for actually had Veterans Affairs as her number one issue, which was just very lucky. And so we were able to talk about that and talk about the ways that veterans had been failed and the ways that we were trying to make it better and that kind of thing. And it was a really good conversation. And every so often he would just have to say it again. Yeah, counteract the dickheads. And it just kind of became this refrain and it got kind of funny. And it was kind of like Obama’s moment where there was that woman who said, fired up, ready to go. So that line is kind of mine. Whenever I’m feeling kind of, you know, a little weak and frail and maybe not energetic enough, I’ll just think about that guy. That’s your pep talk now. My pep talk, you know. And it doesn’t make me angry at the people that he was angry at. It just makes me feel this sense of energy and, you know, like positive mission here.
So, yeah, but it was very touching. I will never forget, you know, when he said, as I was leaving, that it meant so much to him that I had rung his doorbell and come in. Like people were not willing to take that risk. People were not bothering to reach out. And he was desperately lonely and didn’t know how to break out of it. And I just feel like our society needs this. We need to reach out to each other for that human connection.
I get invited into a lot of houses, particularly a lot of older people who are really, really lonely and have somebody come to their door and be willing to talk with them. They’re happy to see me. And I love going to… The woman who talked to you about every election she had voted in since Eisenhower, was it? That’s a lot of elections. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there’s a lot of people who, you know, there was an old guy who lived up the street from us who I canvassed a number of times. He was German. And the first time we moved here, when we moved here 25 years ago, he was walking up and down the street with a cane and we introduced ourselves and noticed he had a German accent. And then we found out my husband’s name is Norwegian. And he said, oh, I was in Norway once. And Soren asked him when that was. And he told us that I could see the wheels turning in my husband’s mind like that would have been the Nazi occupation. You know, but he was somebody who I won’t say that he was a hero, but he was a very, very decent man. And he was horrified by what his country did. He was horrified by Nazism.
And over the years, I had many conversations with him before he died about what he saw happening here and how it reminded him of Nazi Germany. And he was saying that back in the late 90s when we first moved here. He was seeing traces of what came to be. So, yeah, again, rich conversations with a lonely old man who lived down the street from us, many of them.
Yeah, it sounds like this is more important to you than the actual governing. You said something in your previous article. I’m trying to see if I kept it here, but that a platform for running for office is almost like a fantasy wish list of things that you don’t actually get to do much of that when you’re in office.
Yeah, the county does a lot of important and good work. I am actually gratified to find out how many good things counties do. But most of it is dictated. A great deal of it is dictated by the federal or state government. That’s why counties exist, is to be the boots on the ground for the state government. So we are mostly assigned things we have to do and assigned how we have to do them. So there’s a lot there where there’s not so much discretion.
But yeah, I think for me, I’ve found that the opportunities to build relationships and just the platform of being an elected official is the best part of being an elected official. It’s not what I get to do on a policy level, which mostly ranges from it’s either trivial stuff or it’s stuff where my vote doesn’t matter. There’sno way I’m going to stop that current or I agree. It’s a perfectly good idea. I’m going to sign on to it just like everybody else because it’s just reasonable. I don’t feel like I’m very effective. I don’t feel like my presence makes a big difference on the board. In that sense, it doesn’t feel like a good use of my time. But the opportunity to canvas people, the opportunity to build relationships across the aisle, that is very rich. And I love doing that.
I took to heart something that Heather Cox Richardson said in a recent video that in this moment, one of the best things you can do is if you know Republicans, reach out to them and talk to them about what’s going on and see, is this what they wanted? Chances are they’re not learning from their news outlets the same things that we’re learning. And, you know, we should find out. So I did. I called up a friend of mine, a man I’m very fond of on the county board, and asked him about, well, what does this look like to you? Is this what you voted for? Is this what you wanted? Turned out he didn’t know a lot of the stuff that I knew. And so I figure one of two things will happen, or maybe both will happen:
- He may learn some things that he didn’t know about.
- I may learn some things that I didn’t know about, or at the very least, I’ll learn why a lot of our messaging is ineffective and what might make it more effective, you know, when I understand him better.
Right. Well, there’s a lot of sort of things happening, but also noise happening right now, so it’s a little hard, and I think it’s hard for everyone to focus. So maybe that sort of helps him focus, the person you reached out to, but also you focus, like what’s actually happening. That does sound very useful.
So what advice would you give to friends who are bicycling past the obnoxious banners or running into people? What should we be doing? How should we start a journey to becoming the cat grifters of our counties?
Well, I think everybody needs to be themselves in their counties, but I think one thing I would say is cultivate your own curiosity about people. If you go into an interaction curious rather than outraged, that’s a much better starting point, and I find that if I start off genuinely curious, like, wow, what does this mean to you? Tell me about this. It’s disarming. They’re much more likely to open up, and once they start disarming, you will learn things that you didn’t know, and they will be more willing to admit things that they didn’t really want to admit. You know, they’re more likely to admit the weaknesses of their side if you’re not on the attack.
The other thing I would say is get rid of your own banners. You know, like if you—there’s a lot of signs like that we believe in science and da-da-da-da. There’s this whole list of things. It’s kind of like the Trump on a tank banner. I mean, that’s how it’s experienced by the other side, right? It’s a statement of, like, these are all the non-negotiables, and you may hold those non-negotiables really close to your heart. They may really matter to you, and I agree with everything on those posters, but it’s not a way to start a conversation. My goodness. It’s a way to draw a line in the sand, and that’s not what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to start a conversation. I’m not trying to say my side, plant a flag. This is mine. No, I don’t think that’s what we need right now.
I think there’s places to absolutely stand up and be counted. Yes, we need to do that. We need to be bold, but first we need or in addition to that, we need to be willing to listen. We need to enter into relationships with curiosity and see what they have to say and find that we’re not as far apart as we thought they were, as we thought we were. And even if we are really far apart, we can still like each other across those distances.
I genuinely love several people whose beliefs still leave me shaking my head, and yet I know that they’re not evil. I know that they didn’t come by their views easily necessarily. They may have been hard won, and they’re willing to sacrifice them just as I’m willing to sacrifice for mine. And we love our kids. We love our town. I mean, we share those things. That’s heartwarming and inspiring, and I’m glad you’re sharing it. I’m going to make a point to be braver in my conversations with people, and I have friends across the spectrum too that I know through various different circles. So plenty of opportunities, and I think many of us have plenty of opportunities.
Well,I think right there that’s the place to start. Like, I’m amazed at the number of people who actually don’t know any Republicans or they’ve. Like, I’m amazed the number of people who actually don’t know any Republicans or they’ve never had a conversation with one about politics. And I think that’s the place to start, is to cultivate a relationship.
And I did this many years ago. I wrote another article about it then called Conversations from the Heartland, where my homeschooling friends and I got together for a series of conversations over about a year about the things that divided us. And that was a life-changing experience. It really was. I’ll never forget it.
And I think, you know, one of the most important things that came out of it was the realization that, and they realized this too, that the other side wasn’t morally sloppy. It wasn’t that the other side didn’t care. Different things moved us, different things persuaded us, but we all cared. And that right there was a reason to not hate each other. That right there was a reason that we could stay in relationship.
Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for sharing this with us. And, you know, in a couple of years, share, you know, how it’s going again. I’m sure people would like to know, you know, how we’re all dealing with these, you know, the next four years and communicating and learning from each other and staying curious. So thank you for this good reminder to do that. Good to be here. Thank you so much.
Kat Griffith lives in Ripon, Wis., the birthplace of the Republican Party, and serves on the Fond du Lac County Board. She is a past co-clerk of Northern Yearly Meeting and worships with the small-but-mighty Winnebago Worship Group. A previous article, “One Quaker’s Excellent Adventure in Politics” (FJ June-July 2023), describes in more detail her first run for office.
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