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All conservatives seem to be anymore is 3rd grade schoolyard bullies. I guess they're just as weak and insecure. Such a shame that such a huge chuck of the population will never reach self actualization. What a pitiful existence - kinda makes me sad for them.
Something President Obama said in his speech the other night - instead of making it about us and them, you try and find some common ground. And there's always something to agree on, even totally opposing sides. We're still people living our lives.
"That sense of mutual respect has to be part of our message. Our politics have become so polarized these days that all of us across the political spectrum seem so quick to assume the worst in others unless they agree with us on every single issue. We start thinking that the only way to win is to scold and shame and out-yell the other side. And after a while, regular folks just tune out, or they don’t bother to vote.
Now that approach may work for the politicians who just want attention and thrive on division, but it won’t work for us. To make progress on the things we care about, the things that really affect people’s lives, we need to remember that we’ve all got our blind spots and contradictions and prejudices. And that if we want to win over those who aren’t yet ready to support our candidates, we need to listen to their concerns and maybe learn something in the process. "
None of that is easy, and not everyone is going to change. But the other choice is to be like them, and that helps no one.
This take the high road attitude can fuck right off when the other side's concerns are irrational racist hatemongering bullshit.
The high road only works when your opponent as a sense of shame and the capacity to self-reflect, even a little bit.
MAGA has neither. The few republicans that still do, the few who are still the adults in the room, have already pledged for Harris. Any of them who haven't by now are lost causes addicted to Trumps tit milk.
I totally agree with both of you that once you see the person's true colors, there's no point in continuing. The point was, how can you know what the person is thinking without actually interacting and finding out their real problems? And perhaps introducing some solutions or directions that, without the labels of socialism or communism, are appealing to them.
If we paint all conservatives with the same brush, we alienate the few (or maybe not as few as we think) to never consider something different. How many times is it said that much of their information comes from just a single source like Fox News? Let's give them something else to consider before we blast them all as hopeless. As shown, there are those who have heard the message and seen the true Trump in reality who have flipped, but they only did so because someone helped them realize their echo chamber was just that and all lies. They'd still be Trump supporters if someone didn't open their eyes.
You're preaching to the choir on that point. In fact I got positively roasted a while back for saying essentially the same thing.
The only thing I would say is that I was referring specifically to voters themselves; those conservative leaning non-voters that may not see themselves in the current republican party.
Incidentally, its a belief that was validated by the addition of Tim Walz to the ticket since that's exactly what his presence is meant to do.
But once those conservatives identify as not just conservatives, but as republicans, there is very little hope in changing their mind unless they're already predisposed to having it changed.
I understand your point, and I agree to a degree that once you find out a person is ignorant on purpose, or worse that they know the facts and embrace them, then let them have it. But I can't see it being constructive to attack anyone before you know where they really stand, and unfortunately sometimes that takes some interaction and "good faith". Let them dig the hole first before you bury them.
I'm just trying to avoid being a false dichotomy on the issue. People are more than a caricature of red or blue. Hell, part of the Republican plan is to make the peons fight with each other and not talk to each other, it works for them to create this image of the evil liberal.
Pick your fights. Some aren't worth fighting. Some are.
Talk to more people? Presuming it was a problem with voters showing up. I can't see how me getting just a few people to vote blue instead of red or not at all is a problem leading to that scenario. Unless I miss your point.
If it's vote stealing or another insurrection attempt, certainly that's a looming danger, but I didn't get that meaning from your question.
It's not conversion, but just more getting people to think beyond what they're being fed. That I know of (or rather, what they've said) possibly two or three.
Obama was, and remains, shockingly naive in this way.
The entire republican mindset is being trained to abuse this kind of attempt at good faith engagement. Fascism thrives on that kind of naiveté.
I think he knows, he's just playing for the centrist vote.
These are beautiful and healing words and also we're dealing with the white Taliban whose very identity is not to play along with that.
Obama's approach is more preventative, whereas we're in the cancer-killing phase of things. We're trying to get back to where we can do things that way safely, if we're doing things right.
And even the preventative approach has to be fucking ballsy and loud about not letting rich cocksuckers hijack civil conversations to justify robbing everybody blind while calling it "business as usual", which is what set the stage for all this in the first place.
The sentiment only goes so far when right wing media is constantly going on about the communist antifa radical terrorist pedophile deep state Soros millennial immigrant rapist woke mob that comprises the Democratic voting base.