Bogan. Cooker. Racist. Woke. Lefty. Latte sipper.
We throw these words around as though they explain people. Mostly, they put people in a box and give us permission to stop listening.
The words change depending on who is speaking.
We may believe these words make our case. They usually do the opposite.
I saw that when I spent five days handing out how-to-vote cards for the Community Independent candidate in Farrer. For much of that time, I stood beside the One Nation volunteers.
We talked, shared pastries and took turns doing the coffee run. I learnt their names and heard about their families, farms and communities.
I asked what had led them to One Nation. They talked about water, hospitals, services disappearing and decisions being made in cities by people who would never live with the results. Many had voted for the Coalition for decades and felt the party had stopped listening.
One Nation gave that disappointment somewhere to go. These people were talking about water buybacks, hospital visits and children leaving town. They were neither stupid nor aggressive. They had reasons for voting as they did.
One Nation tells people that educated elites look down on them. Call its voters stupid, backward or racist and you have helped One Nation prove its point.
It works both ways. Question a One Nation policy and you may be called woke before you have finished the sentence. Apparently, even a seventy-year-old dairy farmer can become an inner-city latte sipper without leaving the farm.
Once we put someone in a box, we stop being curious. We stop asking what happened, what changed and what might change again.
Labels end conversations. Questions start them.
If we want people to reconsider what they believe, insulting them is a very strange place to begin.