Bear in mind, there’s a difference between the people doing the programming (the politicians, media, etc) and the people who have been programmed (but otherwise are decent people that think they’re doing what’s right, no matter how asinine).
The media has them afraid. Terrified, even. Assuage those fears. Be the positive comfort they’re looking for now that a part of their media comfort blanket is unraveling.
Also, always start by being genuine. I’ve found a lot of success lately by approaching people with genuine responses, even when they get combative.
For example, one discussion on Reddit, I defended Elon Musk for his community notes which have led to more educated readers, even when Musk himself gets noted. In response, someone called me a Nazi enjoyer. Instead of replying with something sarcastic like I normally would, I just replied with “I don’t like Nazis”. Genuine and to the point. It created a discussion that wouldn’t have happened otherwise.
Also, realize if things do get combative, calling them stupid or evil won’t win anyone over. A lot of times you can make the biggest point by leaving them having said the last, angry, rant filled word.
Seeing the same thing in Reddit comments.
Honestly it’s a bit frustrating that they couldn’t see past all the media BS about Trump to come to this conclusion. But in the end, however it happens, the more people we can wake up, the better.
Reddit comments have actually been kinda wild. The number of people I now see speaking up, saying they saw RFK Jr.’s press conference and agree with almost all of it, is way larger than I expected.
I still don’t like the guy’s gun control stance, but my gut feeling is that this guy is a very important piece to the puzzle, and is going to lead to some game changing things.
I tend to agree, but at the same time, realize that places like much of Reddit is filled right now of pictures of Walz’s son tearing up out of “pride” for his father.
It’s a heartwarming story being shamelessly abused across all kinds of non-political subreddits to make Walz appear like a great, relatable, down to earth guy that we’re all rooting for.
We all know voting for someone based on his son being proud of him is moronic, and we all know how easily manipulated things like this are. But normies eat it up.
So looking for cracks in the facade like this does have value, if for no reason other than it provides a counterpoint to an otherwise inarguable “feel good” moment that’s likely total bullshit.
It took 3 whole years for the entirety of the left to stop responding to the mere utterance of Trump with shouts of “insurrectionist!”.
Even now, if you go onto the Reddit or Facebook battlefields and defend Trump’s policies, you’ll be met with a reminder that you “tried to overthrow the country”.
And yet it’s already like the assassination attempt never happened.
They are clearly terrified of it. This whole “weird” shtick they’re playing at is just playful cover to distance themselves from calling Trump Hitler and inciting and celebrating an assassination attempt.
Don’t let them do it.
I mean, I get it. I have a family member’s bank account set up with mine so I can quickly transfer money when she needs it, and it’s REALLY easy to accidentally choose another account from the little drop down box where you choose where to transfer the money.
I mean, I almost hit the “Zelensky” account from the drop down just a couple weeks ago by mistake. Now THAT would have been embarrassing.
This is all just a deflection from the fact that they’ve been inciting and cheering on assassination attempts.
The left knows how bad they look lately for jumping on the Hitler / Nazi rhetoric so hard.
So, they’re trying to memory hole their rhetoric for a bit with something benign and almost whimsical to give cover for their literal calls to arms over the years.
I have the same discussion. Constantly. Even with friends who are recent self-professed converts to Republicans because of Biden.
But it’s so hard for them to break from their programming. Media says there’s two parties, so for them, there’s two parties.
Late night thoughts about this whole trend in which Dems are going around on social media saying “Republicans are weird”:
I think this is a clever attempt at deflecting responsibility for the assassination attempt on Trump.
For at least 8 years, they’ve been using violent, charged language to incite and justify an assassination (amongst other things).
Now that they’ve tried and failed, and been called out for creating this environment, they are trying to redirect to something light and whimsical.
So instead of Trump being Hitler and MAGA being the end of the world, now we’re all just “weird”. Can’t blame them for the rising temperature of the political climate, because all they do is call us weird, right?
Just one more way they take control of the language and avoid responsibility.
Good reminder that not all vaccinated are alike.
People in those first two groups you mentioned, were misled and deserve justice. I still wish they’d wise up and take responsibility for their own health, but they were at least keeping a personal decision personal.
People in that last group? Those are the ones for whom I struggle to have sympathy. Those are the ones that will march you into the detention centers and act like they are being heroes, only to claim “just followed orders” when caught.
100%.
After January 6th, it felt like I couldn’t go two seconds on news sites, TV, or social media, without being told I was an “insurrectionist”. For months, if not years!
Any attempt at discussion of election anomalies, no matter how well reasoned or evidenced, was met with knee jerk “insurrectionist!” shouting.
We are now only a couple weeks out from Trump ALMOST BEING ASSASSINATED on LIVE TV, and after about a week of leftists feeling comfortable enough to openly celebrate, now they’re all pretending it never happened.
And it feels like we (“we” being conservatives, not necessarily us frogs here) are just letting it happen.
We need to take control of the language. We need to take control of the discussions happening.
I just say “he must not be a racist dictator after all if he liked what Kamala was promising in 2011.”
And “since then, we’ve all seen what a disaster she’s been, and none of their promises were kept.”
For the normies, of course.
We all knew she was always a disaster from the start.
Then they register 8+ million illegals to vote. They don’t need them to actually cast a ballot and risk getting caught. They just need that name on the voter roll so they can pump out a fake ballot and throw it in a dropbox undetected in a few key swing states.
This is one of the only people I’ve seen acknowledge this, but it’s 100% true. The illegal immigrants don’t need to actually vote, in fact it’s probably better if they don’t.
They only need to exist, to help obfuscate census, population, and voter roll numbers.
The left doesn’t even need to not get caught cheating, they only need enough plausible deniability for the hive mind to not see any red flags.
I share your concerns.
But she’s so far proving to be an asset. And I trust her more than a very large number of supposed conservatives Trump had by his side last time, not the least of whom being Mike Pence.
I don’t trust anyone absolutely, but people can change and should be allowed to earn trust. But always with healthy skepticism.