How To Talk To Your MAGA Friends & Family

[yuiyoshida]

[Earthshine2]

1. For the most part, people vote based on emotions, not logic and analysis.

I'm sure most MAGAs don't care about internal contradictions.

What they care about is taking away life and livelihoods from liberals, people of color, and immigrants.

The entire Trump presidency and much of the republican party is founded on hate.

The way to deal with them is to outnumber them. Very few are convertible.

[Warpy]

2. I find wrong footing them helps a lot.

Instead of saying "that's the dumbest thing I ever heard," which makes them defensive as hell, I ask "where did you hear/who told you that?" That totally takes the responsibility off them and instead of immediately assuming a rigid, defensive posture, they open up just a little. Or smoke curls out of their ears as they frantically try to reboot, you can't win them all.

I've had a few people pick this up and they're reporting more success than with the confrontational approach.

A huge problem with them is that they tend to think in slogans, buzzwords and sound bites. If you can relieve them of the responsibility of coming up with them, you can often start to have them look at what they mean.

"Free Michigan!"

"Where did you hear that one?"

"mumble mumble guess it was on TV or sumpin"

"What were they gonna free Michigan from?"

"Mumble mumble dunno."

That's the beginning of somebody who is going to start wondering exactly what an ordinary midwestern state has to be liberated from.

Confronting them head on just doesn't work, no matter how much we want to slap some sense into them, physically or rhetorically. Drowning them in data doesn't work. Wrong footing them by blaming somebody else for whatever idiotic thing they just said does work enough of the time to chip away at the propagandized masses.

[PatSeg]

4. Agreed

Confronting someone is often perceived as an attack and instinctively, they will respond defensively. Responding with a question can be very effective as it actually triggers their brain to think instead of just reacting reflexively.

[Warpy]

5. Direct questions don't work.

You have to deflect it away from them, personally. That's the key.

[PatSeg]

6. Yes

Its always more effective if you don't make it personal. Most people are capable of thinking if given the opportunity.

[CTyankee]

8. When I was confronted by a republican supermarket clerk who said "You aren't going to vote for

Biden are you? He raped four women."

Then he got a sick smile on his face when I was dumbfounded.

I asked "where did you hear THAT?"

He said something about it being well known.

So I called the store the next day and reported this guy's ass.

So the upshot was he was told to never do it again and to apologize to me personally when he sees me again in the store. He never did but I noticed he was not "on the floor" as much as back in the butcher shop where he worked. So he "never has a chance" of running into me and having to apologize. He obviously knows I reported him to the manager.

Frankly, I don't want to have a confrontation of any kind with him. If I see him I just go down another aisle to avoid him.

[Roy Rolling]

3. Great Video

The debate is about persuasion and not defeating someone.

[magicguido]

7. Slower Traffic; keeps Right