I'm not suggesting people engaged in evil do not deserve ire. Punch Nazis. Full stop. Neither am I suggesting we tread gingerly lest we offend. I'm asserting that constructive responses toward those open to correction align with our stated ideals and that destructive attacks which merely stroke the ego of the attacker do not.

We should not want those lost to the cult of MAGA to self-flagelate and apologize because this is not about them and words are cheap. They need to see the harm they've helped cause and start actively counter-acting that harm.

This meme is specifically directed at those who are realizing they've been conned. When someone breaks from delusion, especially delusion that has been central to identity, sharing that with anyone requires vulnerability. If hypocrisy is worth avoiding at all then its value increases wildly around such shared crossroads.

Salt in the wound only benefits the salter who enjoys inflicting useless pain in others. We ought to be better than that. Inability to do so cannot justify the indulgence of cruelty.

i.e., being tired of their bullshit confers no license to vindictive prejudicial lashings.

If you're tired of dealing with them, you don't even need to express empathy as the gp post so eloquently described, just don't throw it back in their faces if they show signs of breaking away, even a little bit. If you don't have the energy to respond to them and try to expand that break, maybe someone else does, but if you are hostile you'll just drive them back into the darkness and make them that much harder to ever pull away.

None of this means you have to welcome them with open arms, or even forget what they've done. Just give them a space to be less awful than they were. As the gp post said, thinking strategically we need to break away as many supporters of maga as possible, but that doesn't mean they immediately, or automatically, become allies.