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this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2024
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Well good for her for changing her mind. It's easy to laugh at people like her but I think we need to have more compassion for these people. All the spiteful people on this website often make me more mad than these dipshit republicans.
I had a lot of shitty views indoctrinated into me during my upbringing and it's taken me years of self work and reflection to become the leftist I am today. My growth didn't happen because people made fun of me, it happened because a close friend of mine cared about me and wanted me to become a better person.
tl;dr: laughing at republicans solves nothing and just makes you feel good about yourself, which is not a horrible thing in itself but something more leftists need to be aware of imo.
We need the democratic party to be far less kind and forgiving and actually want to win elections and learn to how to properly fight dirty.
At the same time, we need the people to be far less spiteful and hateful, because no matter what happens after an election we all have to live together, and even the people who are deeply steeped in this political theater are just treating it like WWE, it's entertainment and they don't even care that none of it is real, they just want to feel safe and have a group to belong to, and you could probably take many of them out of that environment and talk to them and see they're almost the same as us. Just less aware or cognizant of what's going on the world.
We need to treat conservatives the same way we treat dumb children. We use a firm hand, we dominate them with simple, strong language they understand, while at the same time having sympathy and empathy, because they are just humans tricked by their own feelings, like we're all vulnerable to.
Now, the grifters, pundits and media stars trying to stroke those feelings and turn our neighbors against us? I have so little sympathy for those bags of pure, distilled evil that if I spoke my opinion on how they should be treated, I would probably get banned.
The democratic party is a completely different discussion. Dems didn't lose because they're too nice to play dirty, they lost because they couldn't even pretend to give a shit about regular folk and the problems that face them. They have no morals or convictions and are perfectly happy letting the republicans win if the alternative means fighting against corporate interests.
This is attitude is basically what I'm talking about. You will not convince people by patronizing them, or treating them like children. You have to treat them with respect, actually listen to their problems, and try to explain how leftist policies can solve those problems, while someone like Trump (or even Harris) cannot.
Many right leaning voters view liberals and leftists as academic elitists who have no concept of what their lives are like, and in many ways they are right. Treating them like children will just reinforce that belief and push them further to the right.
Not everyone can be convinced, but if we want to stop this horrific slide towards fascism we need to get serious about educating the masses on leftist beliefs and deprogram all the fascist neo-liberal propaganda they've been fed all their lives.
Not too long ago I was a neo-liberal, and I sure as hell didn't change my perspective by reading patronizing comments online. I happened to start watching a black youtube creator (FD signifier) who explains concepts like white supremacy, the patriarchy, and capitalism without being hostile or patronizing to viewers who disagree with him. He gave me a way out of that line of thinking that minimized my feelings of shame from having been so ignorant.
I'm not going to pretend to know what the average person should do to combat misinformation but I can tell you with certainty that treating people who disagree with you like children, or patronizing them in any way is simply not an effective at changing their minds.
By all means make fun of trump, fascists, etc, but if you're not prepared to calmly explain why these people are bad, people will just think you're saying it because you want "your team" to win.
Sorry for the long essay.
I fundamentally think you can't talk to them like adults in 90% of circumstances, and I am speaking as someone who was raised conservative and realized I had a brain around 22 because I saw too many friends die in an unnecessary war and things weren't making sense around me.
The conservative mind IS simple, you changed your mindset for altogether different reasons, and because you CAN change and adapt, you require a different approach, but for the died-in-wool, opinionated midwest conservative screaming about the bible and "killing the gays" they don't have any clue about policy, they can't form theory of mind, they were never trained to think in words and logic, they live in a world of reaction and feeling and cannot separate belief from choice when it comes to making decisions. IE: the WWF Wrestlemania Effect. They want a thing to be real, so they believe it and then believe they always believed it, because they don't have the mental capacity to hold a long-term mental narrative in their mind.
This sounds like I am being really harsh but I swear, at least for EVERY conservative that I ever grew up with, have been exposed to, and lived with, they are dumber than rocks. I am not essentializing, they are humans like everyone, but our society and system failed them, their parents failed them, and they were never given the proper perspective and tools to understand their own minds and how to look at the world the way you or I might. They have been essentially made into another species that thinks differently on a fundamental level and I cannot stress this enough, even if you haven't experienced this, either you aren't around many or you haven't had the blackpilling realization just how bad it is.
I went through some of the worst depressive episodes of my life when I realized how bad it actually is out there, and how few people really understand how bad it is.