Genuine and serious question: Where does that get you?
As good as it may feel to call these people out for their ignorance and stupidity (and yes, they were very ignorant and very stupid), what is it actually doing to help stop Trump’s agenda right now?
Telling them off might feel good, and right, and incredibly justified, but it’s not going to win people over.
What America needs right now is a mass movement against Trump’s agenda, and a big part of building that movement is going to have to be reaching out to those people who are disgusted with the reality of Trump’s agenda and bringing them into the fold, even if they helped put it in motion in the first place.
Help them out of their ignorance. Start by agreeing with their frustrations and then continue to explore common ground from there.
And when I say “agree with their frustrations” I mean the stuff that you can legitimately agree on. Start with this tax plan, which fucks over anyone making less than about $300,000 a year. Maybe let them know that Trump instituted similar tax cuts last time around; that this isn’t a one time mistake. Maybe help them to understand that a lot of the moves Trump and his team are making right now are straight out the Project 2025 playbook; studies showed that the more people learned about Project 2025 the more they hated it. Trump had to pretend he knew nothing about it, so showing them that he’s now following it to the letter might get you somewhere.
Find the places where you can agree, and work from there.
Why would it matter what I answer? I could tell you 1, I could tell you 1000, you have no reason to believe me either way.
And more importantly, there’s no clear way to define “winning people over”. You’re not going to sit down, have a conversation with someone, and an hour later have them sign a full confession recanting all of their previous beliefs. People erode. They change slowly, a little at a time.
I can tell that by having these kinds of conversations, I have seen people change their views. I’ve watched people go from ride or die for their conservative vote to actually saying “Yeah, I don’t think this guy actually has our best interests at heart” or even just “OK, I don’t actually agree with everything he’s saying.” But a lot of the time you won’t even get that level of feedback. You’re planting seeds that you may not ever see grow. Sometimes you’re planting seeds for someone else to water, and for another someone else to harvest. It’s a process, it doesn’t have a clearly defined little victory marker. But I can tell you from personal experience that if you try, it does yield positive results.
Genuine and serious question: Where does that get you?
As good as it may feel to call these people out for their ignorance and stupidity (and yes, they were very ignorant and very stupid), what is it actually doing to help stop Trump’s agenda right now?
Telling them off might feel good, and right, and incredibly justified, but it’s not going to win people over.
What America needs right now is a mass movement against Trump’s agenda, and a big part of building that movement is going to have to be reaching out to those people who are disgusted with the reality of Trump’s agenda and bringing them into the fold, even if they helped put it in motion in the first place.
Where did I say I’m calling them ignorant and stupid?
They say, "I didn’t vote for [x]
I tell them calmly, “Yes you did, because of [y] in Project 2025. They said they would do it, they even printed the manual.”
Fair enough. If you’re actually approaching this with the goal of trying to educate rather than humiliate then we’re on the same page.
I had inferred from your use of terms like “slap down” that this was not the case. Clearly I was wrong.
So what’s your communication approach, then? Remaining ignorant piles of shit won’t exactly make them change their minds, either.
Help them out of their ignorance. Start by agreeing with their frustrations and then continue to explore common ground from there.
And when I say “agree with their frustrations” I mean the stuff that you can legitimately agree on. Start with this tax plan, which fucks over anyone making less than about $300,000 a year. Maybe let them know that Trump instituted similar tax cuts last time around; that this isn’t a one time mistake. Maybe help them to understand that a lot of the moves Trump and his team are making right now are straight out the Project 2025 playbook; studies showed that the more people learned about Project 2025 the more they hated it. Trump had to pretend he knew nothing about it, so showing them that he’s now following it to the letter might get you somewhere.
Find the places where you can agree, and work from there.
How many people have you won over?
Why would it matter what I answer? I could tell you 1, I could tell you 1000, you have no reason to believe me either way.
And more importantly, there’s no clear way to define “winning people over”. You’re not going to sit down, have a conversation with someone, and an hour later have them sign a full confession recanting all of their previous beliefs. People erode. They change slowly, a little at a time.
I can tell that by having these kinds of conversations, I have seen people change their views. I’ve watched people go from ride or die for their conservative vote to actually saying “Yeah, I don’t think this guy actually has our best interests at heart” or even just “OK, I don’t actually agree with everything he’s saying.” But a lot of the time you won’t even get that level of feedback. You’re planting seeds that you may not ever see grow. Sometimes you’re planting seeds for someone else to water, and for another someone else to harvest. It’s a process, it doesn’t have a clearly defined little victory marker. But I can tell you from personal experience that if you try, it does yield positive results.
If you’d said 1, I would have believed you.