After a crisis, human beings begin to talk about it.

The re-election of Trump felt like a crisis to many Americans, and after the Inauguration, their worst fears seemed to be ramifying. And fast. Then, they began talking.

It’s happening.

Steve McDaniel, a retired administrator of rural public schools in Georgia, texted three Decatur neighbors on March 6 about having “lunch and an open discussion of politics tomorrow.” One of these was Charlie Hayslett, a retired graybeard of Southern political journalism and PR who walks slowly with a cane. His blog, Trouble in God’s Country, uses voting data to show why Democrats lost in Georgia – too many simply didn’t bother to vote.

Another was Charles Gordon, a widower like Hayslett but older. Gordon had worked for decades in the U.S. foreign service, in the Philippines, in Africa and in Europe. Since that first Friday, the group has met over lunch three times.

The day after their third lunch-talk, the condo building next door held a “Blue Party Party.” Democratic voters seem to predominate in that Decatur Renaissance building; about 50 showed up for the wine and cheese. The conversations were noisy, a challenge for the hearing of that age group. One woman, wearing a sweatshirt with a reference to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, “And yet she persisted,” had just come from an Atlanta rally for Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.). A lot of conversations were going on over wine and cheese.

The Party Party had been organized by Joey Testa, the son of a couple in the building, and by a young female Democratic volunteer wearing Charles Taylors. They gathered two pages of names and emails for more conversations.

A few blocks from the restaurant where Steve McDaniel’s group met, the mother of a non-binary child hosted another group in her home to talk about politics, over grapes and sandwiches. In particular, she wanted to hear what these neighbors thought about the “trans” issue and a Georgia bill defining sex in the Official Code of Georgia as the one assigned at birth, not the gender chosen as an identity. Nine neighbors came, expressing a variety of thoughts about HB 267, all from different perspectives but supportive of the mom.

Conversations like these may be more effective, in the long run, than Democratic Party fund-raising or impulsive “resistance.” People who are following the news are beginning to talk. If it’s here, in the metro enclaves of a Red state in the Deep South, it’s everywhere.