How to talk to Republicans who don't like "your facts" or facts in general.

[Dbeasy 14969]

This is pretty much where I'm at with this.  I'll add to #2 that I actually talked to a friend who is a therapist and she suggested setting structural boundaries out loud with people that fit in this bucket.  I have yet to do that with my family, but I'm pretty sure it's going to be necessary over the next few months.
The whole situation is hard on my heart, but I don't have the personality where I can just nod my head and ignore blatant falsehoods that are lobbed at me in conversation.  I just don't have that tool in my kit unfortunately. 

I don’t either but for the health and welfare of myself and my spouse I’m going to try my hardest to shut up.

[ChuckNorrisActionJeans 2659]

If it's someone who might not be 100% irredeemable and it's worth trying (like family), I think you have to find a wedge inward that aligns with their values --- or what they claim as their values. 

For instance, my mom recently was asking about the whole "defund the police" movement (just asking questions!) Well, what's one thing Repubs hate? Unions! So I explained that police unions dictate police force rules so that even the worst cops have no accountability (accountability!), they get a paid vacation with no consequences, and cities continue to bow to the unions who have a stranglehold over city budgets to allow a shockingly high proportion for an accountability-free PD (fiscal responsibility!) And you know what? Her response was something like, "yeah the unions have too much control..."

Ungrateful thugs kneeling for the anthem? Me: "Yeah I just wish that wasn't one of the freedoms our vets had fought for" with very serious face (freedom!!) 

Also, knowing they'd probably voted and would never ever ever consider not voting for every R, I said "hey if you haven't voted yet, please don't vote for this judge (one of my bosses) because he's an activist judge who's a maniac and lacks judicial temperament." I don't think any voter likes to think of themselves as low-info and uninformed, so thought just maybe it'd make her stop and think, and particularly consider how an R could also be an "activist" judge. 

My dad has fallen into a very deep state of depression and anxiety and no treatment has helped. I mentioned that watching cable news (obv they are Fox-ites) increases anxiety. I didn't attack the content in any way but told her the format of CONSTANTLY BREAKING NEWS! and the graphics, quick edits, and ever-scrolling chyrons are designed to elicit fear and anxiety. And she told me my dad's psychiatrist told them the same thing.

Speaking of anxiety, she has freely volunteered to me before that "the older you get, the more you hate change." For those with that mindset, it obviously translates into your political views and voting habits. So fearmongering really works. And attacks, even just calmly stating facts, only cement people's views even when they are dead-cold proven wrong, studies show. So my opinion is you have to slip past the reptilian brain response and sneak around the back by using appeals to their own sense of patriotism and values. And it's much more helpful if they don't know that's what you're doing. 

[youdunnf'dup 2147]

This person was my baby sitter growing up. She really used to be a good person. She kept up with our family all through my time in high school. Ever since trump was elected she posts this type of ridiculous shit on Facebook. She’s been brainwashed by Fox News and it’s happened to so many people I know really well. 

 

I tried messaging her to see if we could find some common ground, but you just can’t when their echo chamber is putting out these lies. I don’t see how the country can “come together” when their news sources are set up like this. They keep saying people need to talk more. It’s talking to a brick wall.

Edited November 9, 2020 by youdunnf'dup

[bad_teammate 13132]

Is she not a good person anymore?

[youdunnf'dup 2147]

7 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

Is she not a good person anymore?

That was the wrong way to word it. She is still probably a good person even though we don’t talk anymore. She just talks like an idiot on social media and she just regurgitates everything that Trump says. Talks shit about his sexual assault accusers. Says racially insensitive shit all the time. She gives her idiot opinion on social media way too much. I wouldn’t have even known she was a republican until trump was elected, but since then, my god. A lot of people have experienced something similar. A transformation from a few of their republican friends and how they talk.

I don’t have a problem with a lot of republicans. I have a few conservative options even though I would consider myself a moderate liberal. But I can’t talk to you if you’re spewing the same bullshit that Trump is.

Edited November 9, 2020 by youdunnf'dup

[cactusflinthead 27594]

2 hours ago, High Plains Drifter said:

 

My mother is a trumpkin. I don't bother discussing politics with her. If she says something, I either ignore it, or scoff and change the subject. I haven't seen her in a while. We do talk on the phone every now and then. My daughter is pretty close to her. Last time we saw her was last christmas. She had Fox news on, pretty much continuously. I told her that if she didn't want us to leave right now, she needed to turn it off.

She turned it off. After some initial tenseness, it went ok.

 

other than this board, I NEVER talk politics with anyone other than my wife and 1 or 2 close friends, who I know agree with me. If anybody else, from either side, brings up politics, I nod my head, smile, and exit the conversation.

 

I recall some years back, I was visiting a friend. We were sitting on his back porch, having a smoke and drinking some beers. His neighbor hears us and came over to invite us over later that night. He was having a small gathering. We went over later, and were sitting around his backyard, drinking and talking. Eventually, he started going off about the wetbacks and the muslims. Stared out fairly innocuous, but just got worse and worse. I just sat there, not saying anything. When he finally mentioned the n----- in the white house, I stood up and said "If we weren't in your back yard at your house, I'd beat your racist ass right now" and left.

All out of rep.

Cross posted from "what now Dems?"

[High Plains Drifter 10977]

2 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Racists want validation and they quickly escalate their racist remarks. I've never discovered that a long term friend was suddenly racist.

 

Wasn't my friend who was racist, it was my friend's neighbor-- who I had never met before that day. My friend knew the neighbor is a neighborly way, but had never seen that side of him, nor talked politics with him.

 

[TexasEd 8064]

Here is how you can start the conversation, ask them "Where was Obama born?" Any answer other than Hawaii or the United States just walk away and shake your head.

[RayDog 682]

Most humans are poor critical thinkers. Many believe in non-physical beings or that a mind can exist without a physical brain, failing to realize that any non-physical idea is not real. Most people believe that non-physical space has physical dimensions that can contract and curve and physical clocks that can change clock rate.

From there it only gets worse.

[NameAlreadyInUse 5106]

6 hours ago, horn4life said:

I also want to say that I honestly don't know if there is a way to do this?  Without having to be in some sort of confrontation (that I am not trying to instigate) in the end.

Yeah I tried this back before facebook when email forwards were still a big thing.  It does not work.  I'd get the email, do the research, prove it was factually incorrect, reply to the email, point out the actual facts, with references.  In the case of my mom, I changed exactly 0 of her unfounded opinions.  She did quit sending me those emails though.  They do not care whether they are factually correct.  They only care that what they believe gives them the correct feeling.  That feeling could be security, it could be righteous indignation, it could be whatever it is that that person values.  But they value that feeling way more than they value being factually correct.  

I never figured out how to get past it and it's a thing that I have spent hours and hours trying to solve now.   There is a solution, I know there is, I just haven't figured out what that solution is yet.

[Mole 4320]

The gleeful disengagement from objective reality is the great crisis of our time. It’s a complex problem: Facebook and other social media, presidential “leadership,” me generation Boomers suffering the psychological pain of failing to self-actualize, the existential crisis by a fading racial majority facing their irrelevance (see Chapel’s monologue on SNL), entertainment merging with news, religion merging with politics, etc.

I have hope over the long haul, but the short term is bad. I don’t know a quick way out, but I hope that the end of the Trump era will turn things down slightly. Facebook and Twitter, for all of their faults, decreased the odds of violence by their censorship. Perhaps they’ll continue with this and we’ll all become more educated about the true dangers of social media. The Boomers will fade in the coming years. Trump is the Boomer id, so maybe his movement will fade as the Boomers fade away. 
 

Entertainment news and religious politics are BBs that will be hard to put back in the box. There’s lots of talk on here about the damage that religion has in politics, but the damage has been been greater the other way. Our country has traded its soul and spiritual and moral grounding for partisan politics. The church died before the country and now the zombie church is killing the country. The “nones” may have to be the ones to save the soul and spiritual foundations of our country.

And entertainment and news: we need to make the news boring again. I blame the journalists, or maybe capitalism. If your news source isn’t boring, it probably isn’t really news. If you’re a political junkie, you aren’t more informed, you are just part of a media fandom. I’m not sure how you put those BBS back in the box.

[horn4life 3755]

The reason I posted this subject initially was two fold.  I had a brain flash of me ripping my BIL a new asshole with factual information just for the fun of it.  I will do that in some cases, but I NEVER am the initiator of the political banter.  So I think I am going to try with the small steps, when he inevitably brings up some stupid shit.  I can go nuclear, but I don't want to. 

I'm just glad that a lot of you seem to feel similarly in even making the attempt.  I still have a multi-millionaire guy that tends to exit restaurants/bars whenever he sees my wife and I because I laughed in his face about Trump's employment failings.  I was a dick, but he was ranting and raving at the bar and I finally just got tired of it.  I smile hugely at him ever time I see him. 

Badteammate asked the question "Why?" 

Because I know what can happen when people believe lies.  When they believe lies and insist that the lies are what we should be paying attention to instead of the truth, that concerns the fuck out of me.  I still am somewhat befuddled that people that I thought were right leaning are now wholesale purveyors of continual factual falsehoods. It's almost like some sort of warm blanket.  Anyhow if freaks me out, and I want to find a somewhat gentle way to confront the subject matter when they bring it up.  May not be a gentle option and I have to go with laughing and shaking my head dismissively, but I hope to find something in between.

Edited November 9, 2020 by horn4life

[Brisketexan 104624]

1 hour ago, NameAlreadyInUse said:

Yeah I tried this back before facebook when email forwards were still a big thing.  It does not work.  I'd get the email, do the research, prove it was factually incorrect, reply to the email, point out the actual facts, with references.  In the case of my mom, I changed exactly 0 of her unfounded opinions.  She did quit sending me those emails though.  They do not care whether they are factually correct.  They only care that what they believe gives them the correct feeling.  That feeling could be security, it could be righteous indignation, it could be whatever it is that that person values.  But they value that feeling way more than they value being factually correct.  

Yep.  My experience that perfectly encapsulated how they see the world was when a dear old family friend posted an already thoroughly debunked story "Matthew McConaughey endorses Trump for president!"  I gently replied to tell her that actually, he hadn't done so, here's the source piece you are citing, and you can see how it doesn't say that.  There is no record, anywhere, of MM endorsing Trump.  The reply?

"You can't prove he didn't!"  So, shift the burden to the rest of the world to prove the negative.  There is no reasoning, or evidence, or productive argument with them.  Shit, no matter what conspiracy theory they run with today, the ABSENCE of evidence is PROOF OF THE CONSPIRACY.  It's literally impossible to disprove anything they believe, according to their rules of proof and evidence.  There is nothing you can say, no evidence you can present.  It doesn't matter.

We are in deep, deep, shit as a country.  And I don't see a way out of it.

[Neonmoon 38127]

Sometimes a tact that works with family is to agree to their position, and then take it further. For example, the person says yeah this election was stolen. You agree, that’s right, I can’t believe they’re getting away with it, I’m going get my gun and go downtown and make my voice known

All of the sudden the love ones are like, whoa, whoa, let’s not go crazy here. 

[aggie08 21434]

1 minute ago, Neonmoon said:

Sometimes a tact that works with family is to agree to their position, and then take it further. For example, the person says yeah this election was stolen. You agree, that’s right, I can’t believe they’re getting away with it, I’m going get my gun and go downtown and make my voice known

All of the sudden the love ones are like, whoa, whoa, let’s not go crazy here. 

"Can you believe they dug up all of those dead bodies in Michigan to get their fingerprints on the ballots? And the gaggle of transgender prostitutes that they paid to give blowjobs to every one who agreed to vote for Biden in Nevada? Just sickening."

[hpslugga 4044]

7 hours ago, horn4life said:

I also want to say that I honestly don't know if there is a way to do this?  Without having to be in some sort of confrontation (that I am not trying to instigate) in the end.

It's an excellent question/discussion because at the end of the day it comes down to one thing, and this especially concerns the elderly generations:

There really is no polite way of asking someone "do you realize you have wasted your entire life over this?"

[TexasEd 8064]

37 minutes ago, horn4life said:

The reason I posted this subject initially was two fold.  I had a brain flash of me ripping my BIL a new asshole with factual information just for the fun of it.  I will do that in some cases, but I NEVER am the initiator of the political banter.  So I think I am going to try with the small steps, when he inevitably brings up some stupid shit.  I can go nuclear, but I don't want to. 

I'm just glad that a lot of you seem to feel similarly in even making the attempt.  I still have a multi-millionaire guy that tends to exit restaurants/bars whenever he sees my wife and I because I laughed in his face about Trump's employment failings.  I was a dick, but he was ranting and raving at the bar and I finally just got tired of it.  I smile hugely at him ever time I see him. 

Badteammate asked the question "Why?" 

Because I know what can happen when people believe lies.  When they believe lies and insist that the lies are what we should be paying attention to instead of the truth, that concerns the fuck out of me.  I still am somewhat befuddled that people that I thought were right leaning are now wholesale purveyors of continual factual falsehoods. It's almost like some sort of warm blanket.  Anyhow if freaks me out, and I want to find a somewhat gentle way to confront the subject matter when they bring it up.  May not be a gentle option and I have to go with laughing and shaking my head dismissively, but I hope to find something in between.

you're a damned liberal elite intellectual.  You hurt their snowflake feelings with facts.

[staboner 4959]

7 hours ago, horn4life said:

Simple dismissal of factual reality has been a fundamental lynchpin of Republican politics for so long I actually don't know where to start.  Wille Horton, Death Panels, Obama is a Muslim, Trump added a lot more jobs than Obama and on and on and on.  But I think the willingness for the masses to believe false information was crystalized in the 2016 campaign, and has only been accelerating as the "fake news/fake media" attacks on factual information has made many Republicans shift to twitter and Facebook for "their facts." 

Well obviously to a normal smart person getting your news off of facebook is fucking stupid as shit.  We have all heard the word for word regurgitations that mirror the disinformation.  Things ike I heard in the Spring, "If Biden wins everything will be open November 4th!"  When college educated people IN THE FUCKING HEALTH FIELD asked my wife about Fauchi, actually having a patent to make money on the virus, you have to shake your head.  How do those of us who actually enjoy a fact based discussion approach our Republican friends?  I personally and going to try over the coming months and years to try to factually inform my Trump friends and neighbors VERY GENTLY as to what the facts actually are.You see Trump folks honestly believe that Trump gave us the greatest economy ever!  The honestly cannot IMAGINE a world where President Trump did not blow Obama away in job creation... because it was "the greatest economy ever!!!"  Unfortunately this position is impossible to support with facts from any non-facebook source, with ACTUAL facts. The actual facts are that Trump simply never created more jobs than on his watch than the economy he inherited... PRIOR TO COVID!!!!  Also it's hard to not consider a lot of our neighbors and friends racist leaning when they complained fervently about that lazy Obama golfing all the time, while asserting the Church attending Obama was "a muslim." Then in the next breath the same folks thought Trump a fine Christian and hard worker, despite obvious evidence to the contrary.  Then embrace of false information for me is a toughie.  As how do you have a rational discussion with people who simply selectively pick and choose, or purely discard factual information.

I personally want to try and be gentle, and try to educate those who did believe falsehoods and fervently repeated falsehoods gleefully for the past 6 years.  Anyone have any good thoughts about how to introduce factual information to our Republican friends that might allow their views to be less shaped by false information?

In this thread I see people (IMO mistakenly) lumping all R votes in the deplorable category. That is your own internet disease taking over I think. Need to tone that down and try as best we can to talk to the folks that are actually still human beings. I have some in my wife's family who are smart, intelligent people that care about other people. They are clearly brainwashed and its sad, but unless you want that eventual civil war I would refrain from lumping them all into the dumb category. I am not saying the dumbs don't exist, and I am not saying that some need to be just called dumb, just saying that if we want real change I would work on the ones close to you that still seem to care about other people and have demonstrated they can think and shit. 

As an example - my wife's little sister - aged 22 - went from a hardcore trump supporter to hard care hating him in just a year's time. Now she's young and had other life changes, but its possible. Brought my wife to tears because as you can imagine she now sees a future of actually interacting with her sister again. 

My input:

IMO Sales 101. Interact on their language, not yours. In this case with politics you also interact on their ideals, their beliefs, their platform. Their is plenty of success on these ideals (centrist dems) and failures (trump) to highlight over and over. keep it there and avoid the gotcha shit. and if you run into the 'head in sand shit' just tell them to get out of their hateful echo chambers and then move on. 

 

 

 

[Sbbruin 21737]

5 hours ago, UDontKnow said:

I take it you're in hydraulics and may give out some Best Buy coupons from time to time?

Ball bearings.

[Saint Tacky 1610]

5 minutes ago, Sbbruin said:

Ball bearings.

It's all ball bearings these days

[Enchubben 5509]

6 hours ago, High Plains Drifter said:

 

My mother is a trumpkin. I don't bother discussing politics with her. If she says something, I either ignore it, or scoff and change the subject. I haven't seen her in a while. We do talk on the phone every now and then. My daughter is pretty close to her. Last time we saw her was last christmas. She had Fox news on, pretty much continuously. I told her that if she didn't want us to leave right now, she needed to turn it off.

She turned it off. After some initial tenseness, it went ok.

 

other than this board, I NEVER talk politics with anyone other than my wife and 1 or 2 close friends, who I know agree with me. If anybody else, from either side, brings up politics, I nod my head, smile, and exit the conversation.

 

I recall some years back, I was visiting a friend. We were sitting on his back porch, having a smoke and drinking some beers. His neighbor hears us and came over to invite us over later that night. He was having a small gathering. We went over later, and were sitting around his backyard, drinking and talking. Eventually, he started going off about the wetbacks and the muslims. Stared out fairly innocuous, but just got worse and worse. I just sat there, not saying anything. When he finally mentioned the n----- in the white house, I stood up and said "If we weren't in your back yard at your house, I'd beat your racist ass right now" and left.

Can you really not spend face time with your own mother and let her see her granddaughter if she has Fox News on in the background?

[The University 851]

even jim jones would be in complete awe of the programmatic cognitive dissonance that permeates our world now. it truly is something else.

[Gil Bang 25898]

22 minutes ago, Enchubben said:

Can you really not spend face time with your own mother and let her see her granddaughter if she has Fox News on in the background?

So, sometimes we go to the Elk's lodge here in town.  Dumpy, but cheapest, coldest beer in town.  Every TV in the bar is tuned to Fox News.   I don't find it all that offensive in general, but when there's a football/basketball/baseball game on, and the bar TV's are tuned to Fox News, I'm fucking pissed off. 

[High Plains Drifter 10977]

22 minutes ago, Enchubben said:

Can you really not spend face time with your own mother and let her see her granddaughter if she has Fox News on in the background?

 

No they face time or talk on the phone frequently. I speak to her fairly regularly.

No fox news when we are there.

[Bullneck 18987]

8 hours ago, BurntOrange&White said:

A lady I know announced to follow her on parler with her @name listed, I replied “lmao parler.”

 

She replied to 3 other people asking what it was but didn’t reply to me. 
 

“@personshesreplyingto social media platform that doesn’t censor speech. “

One of my Facebook friends (in reality someone I had a class with one that I don't even remember meeting) said she was signing off of Facebook and going to Gab and Parler.  When asked why, she cited Cambridge Analytica . . . but wasn't that four years ago?  Timing seems odd.

[RDCanecutter 26276]

10 minutes ago, Gil Bang said:

So, sometimes we go to the Elk's lodge here in town.  Dumpy, but cheapest, coldest beer in town.  Every TV in the bar is tuned to Fox News.   I don't find it all that offensive in general, but when there's a football/basketball/baseball game on, and the bar TV's are tuned to Fox News, I'm fucking pissed off. 

This is how you know you infiltrated a den of Communists, posing as Elks.

[Bullneck 18987]

8 hours ago, CooterBrown said:

This is where I ended up. I decided to make my Facebook account about friends in my immediate circle and those that live in my neighborhood who I see on a semi-regular basis. After getting rid of hometown friends who I haven't seen in person in 20+ years to Trumpkins, I went down from 350 friends to 85.  I haven't seen one Pro-Trump post in a year.  If you use Chrome, you can also install the Social Fixer extension and block all political ads and posts regardless of the source.  As a result, Facebook has become an extremely pleasant experience where it's just sharing pictures and life updates. 

Most of my UT friends are Trumpkins (or gay. Go figure).  I had to unfriend a lot of people, but knowing I only might see them again once ever again, at say, a tailgate party, during which they would annoy me greatly, I had to purge them.  It was kind of a bummer, but the level of vitriol was astounding.  

 

[HOOKEM4 5023]

I live with trumpkin inlaws that see fox news as too liberal. I go out of my way to avoid political talk. They don't, but I have always steered the convo away successfully. They are poors and I have spent countless dollars and time helping them. I rebuilt the facia/soffit and some framing on their house, bought them a new stove, tv, couch and let them hunt on my land for free. They still beat the drum on lazy people not taking care of themselves. Everything that has brought them to this point is the fault of the democrats. It is depressing but I don't have to deal with it more than I want to. It is like a wildlife study to me, I spend the time and energy the other kids of that family won't (they are all trumpkons) jist for the social study. It is an odd affliction being afraid of people they haven't seen for decades (minorities) and taking handouts from others while preaching their rhetoric to everyone. 

[Judge Roybeanbag 11810]

58 minutes ago, Enchubben said:

Can you really not spend face time with your own mother and let her see her granddaughter if she has Fox News on in the background?

Can his mother turn off the fucking television security blanket and maybe focus on seeing her grandkid?  See how that works?  

[aggie08 21434]

2 hours ago, staboner said:

In this thread I see people (IMO mistakenly) lumping all R votes in the deplorable category. That is your own internet disease taking over I think. Need to tone that down and try as best we can to talk to the folks that are actually still human beings. I have some in my wife's family who are smart, intelligent people that care about other people. They are clearly brainwashed and its sad, but unless you want that eventual civil war I would refrain from lumping them all into the dumb category. I am not saying the dumbs don't exist, and I am not saying that some need to be just called dumb, just saying that if we want real change I would work on the ones close to you that still seem to care about other people and have demonstrated they can think and shit. 

Maybe I'm projecting, but I get the impression that most people here are just talking about the extremes--the ones who love them some conspiracy theories, sharing Plandemic "documentaries", and actually believe the words coming out of Trump's mouth--not every Trump voter. I honestly have sympathy for the ones that are just "dumb." Their life probably isn't working out how they had hoped, and believing in conspiracy theories makes them feel smart, that they know some hidden truth that they weren't supposed to be able to find out, and gives them ammunition against the liberal "elites" that look down on them and want to take what little money they do have. They should just be ignored because they're never budging off of their positions. It's the ones that should have the sense to know that they're blatantly being manipulated and conned that are disheartening. They deserve to be ridiculed. It's their own fault that they've lumped themselves in with the dumb.

 

Edited November 10, 2020 by aggie08

[Enchubben 5509]

20 minutes ago, Judge Roybeanbag said:

Can his mother turn off the fucking television security blanket and maybe focus on seeing her grandkid?  See how that works?  

It sounds like she did unless I read the post wrong. She didn’t create the ultimatum though, her son did. Do you see how that works?

My parents are pretty liberal, and I can manage to not threaten to leave or not come overif they have any number of left leaning news channels on or even mention their point of view on politics etc. it’s not difficult, it’s called being an adult.

It reminds me of a situation with my staff from the kavanugh deal. The office breakroom tv was on cnn for a solid week (no remote) during that time period and multiple people complained to me and HR about it being bullshit that is was on CNN and never on Fox.  The compromise was to turn it turn to msnbc, but Christ people, get a old of yourselves. If you don’t like it, don’t watch it and get back to fucking work.

Presumably educated full time working white collar professional adults complaining about the television channel playing in a breakroom. 🤦‍♂️ 

[Judge Roybeanbag 11810]

12 minutes ago, Enchubben said:

It sounds like she did unless I read the post wrong. She didn’t create the ultimatum though, her son did. Do you see how that works?

My parents are pretty liberal, and I can manage to not threaten to leave or not come overif they have any number of left leaning news channels on or even mention their point of view on politics etc. it’s not difficult, it’s called being an adult.

It reminds me of a situation with my staff from the kavanugh deal. The office breakroom tv was on cnn for a solid week (no remote) during that time period and multiple people complained to me and HR about it being bullshit that is was on CNN and never on Fox.  The compromise was to turn it turn to msnbc, but Christ people, get a old of yourselves. If you don’t like it, don’t watch it and get back to fucking work.

Presumably educated full time working white collar professional adults complaining about the television channel playing in a breakroom. 🤦‍♂️ 

 My take on what you quoted is he and his kid were there in person, last Christmas, and she had the TV on Fox constantly until he told her to turn it off or they were leaving.  Then she did.  So yeah, he issued the ultimatum, but she was being inconsiderate in my opinion.

Edited November 10, 2020 by Judge Roybeanbag

[atomheartbevo 89447]

8 hours ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

It's hard to talk to someone during the day when Hannity, etc talk to them every night, and tell them exactly what they want to hear.

And when the TV is turned off, they can pick up their phone and read exactly what they want to read.

And when they wake up the next day, the cycle starts anew.  You, I or anyone else can't combat that until you remove the outside stimuli that reinforces what they want to believe.

Just tell them that one of two things happened:

1. Trump did what he said and got rid of the Deep State, and since the Deep State is gone, the elections had to be fair.
2. Trump failed at getting rid of the Deep State, and therefore Trump is a failure, and better to find another Republican who can actually fight the Deep State.

[wildcat09 29256]

Just now, atomheartbevo said:

Just tell them that one of two things happened:

1. Trump did what he said and got rid of the Deep State, and since the Deep State is gone, the elections had to be fair.
2. Trump failed at getting rid of the Deep State, and therefore Trump is a failure, and better to find another Republican who can actually fight the Deep State.

Ah yeah, no way this could go badly.

[Mdhorn 5911]

Do Liberals chain watch CNN and CNBC?  Probably why FOX has such great ratings while Lib TV does not.  

[Cacti 191]

11 hours ago, horn4life said:

How do those of us who actually enjoy a fact based discussion approach our Republican friends? 

I think what you’re asking is how can you use logic and reasoning to change someone else’s opinion; an opinion that probably has emotion as a component. The answer is: you probably can’t. Opinions based on emotion will hardly ever submit to logic, even when facts are indisputable. But that’s not a Republican-only fault—it also applies to me, you, all humans (even progressives).   

[atomheartbevo 89447]

39 minutes ago, Mdhorn said:

Do Liberals chain watch CNN and CNBC?  Probably why FOX has such great ratings while Lib TV does not.  

Liberals are too busy looking at pornography on the internet or they are out spending that Soros money.

Edited November 10, 2020 by atomheartbevo

[CooterBrown 17911]

Do Liberals chain watch CNN and CNBC?  Probably why FOX has such great ratings while Lib TV does not.  

I pretty much only associate with liberals and don’t know anyone that watches cable news.

Most listen to NPR. A few watch PBS News Hour.

To watch the election results, I had to add CNN to my YouTubeTV menu since I have all the news channels hidden.

[staboner 4959]

2 hours ago, aggie08 said:

Maybe I'm projecting, but I get the impression that most people here are just talking about the extremes--the ones who love them some conspiracy theories, sharing Plandemic "documentaries", and actually believe the words coming out of Trump's mouth--not every Trump voter. I honestly have sympathy for the ones that are just "dumb." Their life probably isn't working out how they had hoped, and believing in conspiracy theories makes them feel smart, that they know some hidden truth that they weren't supposed to be able to find out, and gives them ammunition against the liberal "elites" that look down on them and want to take what little money they do have. They should just be ignored because they're never budging off of their positions. It's the ones that should have the sense to know that they're blatantly being manipulated and conned that are disheartening. They deserve to be ridiculed. It's their own fault that they've lumped themselves in with the dumb.

 

eh.  I often feel the need to try and keep us a bit grounded in this echo chamber. because it is one as well. re: there are unretarded republicans out there

yeah I hear you. I often feel sorry for the duped and dumb. a friend of mine is one. I honestly worry about him. I should reach out to him to make sure he is genuinely ok. 

 

[Hookah Horns 3081]

12 hours ago, Nivek said:

Why? I talked to my father the other day, he conceded that Trump was a flawed man and not perfect. I stopped him there, since no one is perfect that is not a standard and a defense. He reluctantly agreed. He agreed that toddlers should not have to ask for representation and that it was cruel to split families. He started agreeing more and more, we were making headway. He asked for proof that it was right wingers shooting up the police during BLM protest. I gave it to him.

Two days later he doubled down, trump is an American hero. He doesn’t have time to research everything(but he has time to watch propaganda tv and right wing talk radio).

Election is a fraud. This man used to not prescribe to cruelty, intolerance, or tautology. My father was brain-washed.

I feel you, bro. Same deal with my parents. For them it's fear of socialism and tax increases. They don't even like Trump as a human being, but there's obviously no limit to how low a piece of shit they'll vote for because of their fear of the left. 

[Hookah Horns 3081]

5 hours ago, horn4life said:

The reason I posted this subject initially was two fold.  I had a brain flash of me ripping my BIL a new asshole with factual information just for the fun of it.  I will do that in some cases, but I NEVER am the initiator of the political banter.  So I think I am going to try with the small steps, when he inevitably brings up some stupid shit.  I can go nuclear, but I don't want to. 

I'm just glad that a lot of you seem to feel similarly in even making the attempt.  I still have a multi-millionaire guy that tends to exit restaurants/bars whenever he sees my wife and I because I laughed in his face about Trump's employment failings.  I was a dick, but he was ranting and raving at the bar and I finally just got tired of it.  I smile hugely at him ever time I see him. 

Badteammate asked the question "Why?" 

Because I know what can happen when people believe lies.  When they believe lies and insist that the lies are what we should be paying attention to instead of the truth, that concerns the fuck out of me.  I still am somewhat befuddled that people that I thought were right leaning are now wholesale purveyors of continual factual falsehoods. It's almost like some sort of warm blanket.  Anyhow if freaks me out, and I want to find a somewhat gentle way to confront the subject matter when they bring it up.  May not be a gentle option and I have to go with laughing and shaking my head dismissively, but I hope to find something in between.

My opinion is that a gentle tack only legitimizes their fantasies in their mind. Laughter is the best medicine. 

[Catdaddyhorn 3444]

7 hours ago, youdunnf'dup said:

That was the wrong way to word it. She is still probably a good person even though we don’t talk anymore. She just talks like an idiot on social media and she just regurgitates everything that Trump says. Talks shit about his sexual assault accusers. Says racially insensitive shit all the time. She gives her idiot opinion on social media way too much. I wouldn’t have even known she was a republican until trump was elected, but since then, my god. A lot of people have experienced something similar. A transformation from a few of their republican friends and how they talk.

I don’t have a problem with a lot of republicans. I have a few conservative options even though I would consider myself a moderate liberal. But I can’t talk to you if you’re spewing the same bullshit that Trump is.

Yeah, this is the phenomenon that I simply don't get. People whom I've known were conservative all my life, but they rarely commented on politics. At least not to the degree, frequency, and pure hostility that they now do now with Trump. It's absolutely stunning to see that this pure piece of shit is the one they've chosen to rally behind. Not McCain, not Bush, not any of your run of the mill, milquetoast republicans, this fucking guy. I don't understand it.   

Edited November 10, 2020 by Catdaddyhorn

[immamac 42519]

lolololol

[CooterBrown 17911]

I feel you, bro. Same deal with my parents. For them it's fear of socialism and tax increases. They don't even like Trump as a human being, but there's obviously no limit to how low a piece of shit they'll vote for because of their fear of the left. 

I’d remind them that I hope they aren’t hypocrites and accept social security and Medicare.

[Nolacycling 893]

I thought I'd turn it around and be nice, but like Ginsburg said, "he's dotard for all 4 years". 

[WhatTheBuck 28712]

It brings to mind a line from my favorite song:

We were talking about the love that's gone so cold
And the people who gain the world and lose their soul
They don't know, they can't see, are you one of them?

They don't know. They don't want to know. They are willing victims of misinformation. They want to believe the lies. In 2005, in the debut episode of The Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert coined the term "Truthiness" to describe the phenomenon of defining truth not by objective facts and evidence but by what feels true. He was right. You can't reason with them because of basic differences in how we define truth. 

When you've seen beyond yourself then you may find
Peace of mind is waiting there
And the time will come when you see we're all one
And life flows on within you and without you

They'll never learn. 

[Catdaddyhorn 3444]

7 hours ago, Mole said:

The gleeful disengagement from objective reality is the great crisis of our time. It’s a complex problem: Facebook and other social media, presidential “leadership,” me generation Boomers suffering the psychological pain of failing to self-actualize, the existential crisis by a fading racial majority facing their irrelevance (see Chapel’s monologue on SNL), entertainment merging with news, religion merging with politics, etc.

I have hope over the long haul, but the short term is bad. I don’t know a quick way out, but I hope that the end of the Trump era will turn things down slightly. Facebook and Twitter, for all of their faults, decreased the odds of violence by their censorship. Perhaps they’ll continue with this and we’ll all become more educated about the true dangers of social media. The Boomers will fade in the coming years. Trump is the Boomer id, so maybe his movement will fade as the Boomers fade away. 
 

Entertainment news and religious politics are BBs that will be hard to put back in the box. There’s lots of talk on here about the damage that religion has in politics, but the damage has been been greater the other way. Our country has traded its soul and spiritual and moral grounding for partisan politics. The church died before the country and now the zombie church is killing the country. The “nones” may have to be the ones to save the soul and spiritual foundations of our country.

And entertainment and news: we need to make the news boring again. I blame the journalists, or maybe capitalism. If your news source isn’t boring, it probably isn’t really news. If you’re a political junkie, you aren’t more informed, you are just part of a media fandom. I’m not sure how you put those BBS back in the box.

When and where exactly did we posses these things to trade? 

[Jhawkmvp 1489]

15 hours ago, TexasEd said:

Which is why the far right wants to stop teaching critical thinking skills and scientific method.  They want you to align with them based on you feeling persecuted and inferior and blaming others.

Pointing out they are stupid reinforces the persecution complex.  This leads to the "We have to own the libtards that hurt me with so called 'facts' behaviour."  To them it's all about winning, not being right so they dig into their bad positions because going home and rethinking their lives is too hard.

It is also in the Evangelical's play book. That was one of the big reason's I left the Republican party. Once I saw how in bed the Republicans had become with the Evangelicals I was gone. They don't want it taught either because it makes it harder for them to peddle their bullshit. And the persecution complex comes from their play book too. Their prove it is not true when they are asserting their unsubstantiated bullshit also comes from apologetics. That is why religion and politics are a dangerous mix. Politics should be about compromise. Religion is all about having faith you right no matter what reality says. When religion infects politics there is no room for compromise.

 

[Judge Roybeanbag 11810]

7 hours ago, immamac said:

lolololol

Anacardo is a nut.

Edited November 10, 2020 by Judge Roybeanbag

[Dnaguy 11776]

14 hours ago, RayDog said:

Most humans are poor critical thinkers. Many believe in non-physical beings or that a mind can exist without a physical brain, failing to realize that any non-physical idea is not real. Most people believe that non-physical space has physical dimensions that can contract and curve and physical clocks that can change clock rate.

From there it only gets worse.

You’re telling me that when Superman reversed the rotation of the earth and therefore time itself, it was not accurate?

IDK man. 

I need you to start showing me your work.

You can’t just come in here and throw shit around without facts and figures.