What is the best strategy for communicating with Trump supporters?

[kentuck]

We have seen everything in the world exposed about Donald Trump and nothing seems to matter to his supporters. They only embrace him closer. Even the evangelicals have adopted a "love the sinner but hate the sin" policy.

I am slowly coming to the opinion that the best strategy is silence. Ignore everything that Trump says and does. Leave it to his supporters to explain. Don't offer any opinion at all. What would be the difference?

None of them listen to facts anyway. It is all "fake news" to them. Leave them with their conscience. If they have one?

[Aristus]

1. Simple.

Not communicating with them.

They are perfectly welcome to go off on their own and try to develop some qualities that might help them pass as human beings.

But until they do, I will be incommunicado toward them...

[Dave Starsky]

2. ...

[FSogol]

10. Perfect. n/t

[Freddie]

3. Don't even try

Just VOTE as if your life depended on it. I'm female, it does.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

4. As with all strategies, it depends on your goal.

[kentuck]

8. I think the goal is to come to a consensus about what is true and what is not?

If we cannot agree on the basic facts, there can be no communication.

[gratuitous]

15. "It depends"

Indeed. Some Trumpers are interested only in declaiming, loudly and forcefully. They're covering up their own insecurities because somewhere in some deep, dark recess of their alleged mind, they know they're incredibly wrong. Others are actually looking to persuade; it's a fool's errand, but they want to at least appear as though they tried talking sense. The good news about these knuckleheads is that you can listen, then ask a question or two designed to get beneath the carefully constructed veneer of reasonableness they're trying to project. It's pretty easy to penetrate, and exposes either their agenda or their ignorance.

All of this is for real life encounters. The dumbass trolls on line (unless you know them personally) are not worth the pixels they've slain in service of their blather.

[poboy2]

5. Logic and truth will not work. They are feral animals.

They do not care about truth, democracy, or justice- let alone any type of compassion or humanity.

[NCTraveler]

6. A sound thumping at the ballot box. Nt

[kydo]

7. Yep. It's best to leave them alone. Like a wild animal that gets in your back yard.

Don't mess with it. It's scared of you and if threatened or cornered it will attack. Best to leave them alone. Sometimes they get into things you don't want them to or they start to destroy things. Loud noises and my big dog generally stop that shit. Works the same way with orange man lovers. Just think of them as raccoons or snakes.

[FSogol]

9. Fire bad! Stove Hot.

My serious answer is to laugh at everything fucked up thing they say. Last weekend, I was at a get-together and a woman complains that a single mom with 4 kids was getting $1000 a month in food assistance. I replied that it wasn't enough and I thought the woman complaining was going to have a seizure.

[RKP5637]

13. Perfect!!!!! n/t

[eleny]

16. Considering that the max benefit for a family of four is $640

Right wingers say the darnedest things. And I love your response. Reminds me of the way I answered an abortion push poll. Yes to abortion under any circumstances and in any month. I could hear her brain going crispy on the other end of the line.

Btw, here's the SNAP benefits guidelines for 2018.
https://www.cbpp.org/research/food-assistance/a-quick-guide-to-snap-eligibility-and-benefits

[FSogol]

18. I think the city (Rochester, NY) gives additional benefits.

where I live (Fairfax County) I know they give beyond to needy families.

These crappy rw-ingers complain about minimum help and crumbs that the poor receive, but don't give a toss about corporate welfare or the rich paying nothing. I hate them all and don't mind admitting it. The level of scum that would complain about poor kids getting something to eat?

[eleny]

19. If I recall right New York State was able to raise the income limits for eligiibility

I don't know that they raised the benefit amount. But whatever it is, the wingnut you spoke with probably pulled the 1k number out of their ass. They usually do. They'd take the crumbs from a kid's mouth and mail them to Trump if they could.

[IluvPitties]

11. Ignore them and vote in November.

[dalton99a]

12. Ignore them. GOTV.

[mreilly]

14. Don't bother unless there are impartial bystanders

One on one, you'll never get anywhere with a Trump supporter. They'll lie, deny, hurl insults and name-calling, deflect - do whatever it takes to maintain the fiction that Trump is wonderful and everything he does is perfect.

The only time I would bother to engage them is if there are impartial people around who might be swayed by the lies of the Trump clan.

You know what I've been doing lately? Cutting to the chase. Some Trump supporter was ranting and raving at work the other week on how the FBI is all corrupt, they've had it in for Trump since Day One, they should all be fired, it's not fair to investigate Trump while Hillary is walking around free, blah blah blah.

I simply waved my hand dismissively and said: "You're just angry because the FBI is investigating Trump and you don't think that's fair and you'll refuse to believe anything they find anyhow. You just want Trump to be able to do what he wants regardless of the law, regardless of the Constitution, and regardless of even his own promises. You'll excuse anything and everything he does since he says what you want to hear. So please spare us with the "corrupt FBI" crap which of course you weren't saying when Hillary was being investigated. With zero indictments afterwards."

[kentuck]

17. Indeed.

[redstatebluegirl]

20. I pick my battles carefully.

I live in a bright red state, may be the reddest state Oklahoma. There are crazy Trump people EVERYWHERE I go, work, stores, friends homes for dinner you can't escape them. We even have a few at the University in staff positions, a couple of adjuncts I know, one that really surprised me. You can't argue with them, but if they say something REALLY inflammatory I take them on. It has silenced a few, I'm not mean, but I make sure they know they are ignorant.