I live in the Bible Belt so as you can imagine I interact with these types of people on a very regular basis.

I once went on a business trip with one of my [at that time] employees. We got along well although I knew he was very conservative politically and a staunch Trump supporter. I am neither of those things which he knew about me as well. We had a long car ride through the middle of nowhere and we talked for a good chunk of it to pass the time.

Eventually I asked him, “What do you like so much about Donald Trump?” I genuinely wanted to know. He told me. I thought his reasons were bullshit but I did ask and so I had an obligation to at least hear him out. He asked me why I didn’t like Trump. I gave him my reasons. We kind of politely acknowledged one another’s opinion and agreed to disagree. We chatted a little bit more and then he said something that I did not expect. “You know those people who go walking around with guns strapped on them all the time? Those guys are idiots. What kind of moron thinks he’s got to prove something so badly that he goes to the store carrying an AR strapped to his back?”

I was honestly shocked. I didn’t expect him to say that and I agreed with him. We talked a lot longer after that about politics and found that we had plenty of other things we agreed on, and plenty that we didn’t. When we finally got to our destination, I thanked him for answering my questions honestly because I genuinely wanted to understand his perspective. I could tell he appreciated that.

That’s a long way of saying that the only way to deal with extreme conservatives is to go talk to them. Its not always easy but you’ll find that you have more in common with them than you might think. Now, that’s easy for me to say. I’m a straight, white, boot wearing, bearded guy with a southern accent. I pretty much fit right in around here. If you’re a minorty, trans for instance, and you don’t want to go talk to people who think you’re some sort of abomination, I don’t blame you for a second. that’s why those of us who are not as “threatening” need to do a better job of being allies.

There’s a passage in the Bible that says “a house divided against itself cannot stand.” It’s true. A “divide and conquer” strategy is incredibly effective. It’s working very effectively in American politics today. And the only way to bridge the gap is to go find some common ground.

This is my go-to resource for living with conservatives.

https://www.healthline.com/health/how-to-deal-with-a-narcissist

I’m not joking.

I find that they have a lot of mistaken assumptions that are just lies repeated by Fox News. Sometimes they don’t even watch Fox, they’re just surrounded by people that do.

I like to focus on the economic issues, since there is hard math for the economy and I find it’s not productive to argue with someone who is terrified that a trans person might be in the same bathroom as their child. I find these people literally start foaming at the mouth over that stuff and I just don’t have the right math or words to cut through the rabies.

For example. I’ve heard Republican voters say that Republicans are better for the economy and reducing the national debt. Ask them which Republican presidents have left office with a reduced deficit?

Ask them if they know how much it added to the national debt when Reagan, Bush, and Trump passed tax cuts primarily for the rich and corporations.

Let them know that you’re also concerned about the economy and the deficits, and show them a chart of federal spending and ask them whether they want to cut Social Security, Medicare, or defense spending to pay for more tax cuts for the rich and corporations.

Then ask them why DON’T the Republicans cut ANY of those things to pay for their tax cuts? Why do those deficits just get passed on to the next Democrat and blamed on them? How are Republicans going to reduce the deficit when it’s not politically feasible with their base to cut ANY of those three things?

When it comes to immigration, ask them why they think immigrants are trying to get here in the first place. Show them Smedley Butler and talk about the war on drugs and ask them if they think the US is partially to blame for the violence in other countries that people are trying to escape from.

Also, show them the Maddox comic where he depicts immigrants “stealing our jobs”. Ask them who is hiring these illegal immigrants and why? Ask them who the managers and owners of those companies vote for and why those people might have an incentive to preserve the “illegal” status of those employees.

100% in person. You’ve got a much harder battle online. As someone else said, exposure is a big piece. Also just challenging some of their beliefs in a Socratic way

This is a story about how someone from the Westboro Baptist Church left because of the way that people engaged with her. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVV2Zk88beY

What’s worth noting from this story, people that were hostile in their interactions with her only served to entrench her further in her ideals.

What caused her to change her mind were the people that had “friendly arguments” and made an effort to learn where she was coming from.

She listed out 4 key points when engaging in difficult conversations. I extracted/paraphrased some of what she said below:

1. Don’t assume bad intent (assume good or neutral intent instead) - Assuming ill motive almost instantly cuts you off from truly understanding why someone does and believes as they do. We forget that they’re a human being with a lifetime of experience that shaped their mind and we get stuck on that first wave of anger and the conversation has a very hard time ever moving beyond it.

2. Ask Questions - Asking questions helps us map the disconnect. We can’t present effective arguments if we don’t understand where the other side is coming from.

3. Stay calm - She thought that “[her] rightness justified [her] rudeness”. When things get too hostile during a conversation, tell a joke, recommend a book, change the subject, or excuse yourself from the conversation. The discussion isn’t over, but pause it for a time to let tensions dissapate.

4. Make the argument - One side effect of having strong beliefs is that we sometimes assume that the value of our position is, or should be, obvious and self-evident. That we shouldn’t have to defend our positions because they’re so clearly right and good. If it were that simple, we would all see things the same way.

You can’t expect others to spontaneously change their minds. If we want change, we have to make the case for it.

Molly/ Ecstasy

Here is a story of a white supremacist switching views after taking it.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/a-white-nationalist-took-mdma-for-a-drug-study-and-renounced-his-racist-views/

Here is an article on how mdma can change PTSD by opening up the brain by rewriting. This is obviously for depression and PTSD, but recognize why it works for these other things. It opens up the brain to becoming reactive to different stimuli after having kept the same pathways for so long.

I think of course, community is the best long term answer. Education is hard for adults but having lived narratives around you showing you a better way is FAR more effective than just some facts thrown at them.

These people need to be taken out of their echo chamber and if possible, given a new vision

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Write a computer virus specifiy for TVs. Target the OS used by the cheapest ones.
The only thing the virus does is block Fox News on cable / app.

Befriend them. Show them instead of telling them.

Force them to interact with queers and minorities. Treating them the same as they treat us.

Honestly I don’t try to change my older relatives’ minds on things. After a certain point your views about life/politics get fixed and then that becomes part of your identity.

You absolutely want to do it in-person, but understand this is going to be a long deprogramming process. You’ll need to demonstrate how each lie they have been fed is untrue, and correct it with factual information. Once you get far enough down the right-wing rabbit hole, these people start living in a completely separate reality. Not only will you need to deconstruct that reality and bring them back to our own, you’ll need to do so in a supportive and caring way, because most people don’t respond well to their worldview crumbling. You’ll need to convince them that you care for them more than anything else, or they’ll retreat further into the fake reality that’s been constructed for them.

I’d suggest that you start by reading David McRaney’s How Minds Change: The Surprising Science of Belief, Opinion, and Persuasion. You should also look into street epistemology, and Peter Boghossian’s A Manual for Creating Atheists.

First, I think that approaching this with the idea that you’re going to “change them” is probably not the correct approach. Rather, you need to approach it as a conversation where you’re hoping that you can better come to understand each other. Beginning with the idea that you will change them has the a priori assumption that you are morally correct, and that’s not necessarily the case. Is it better to do it in person? Absolutely. You will have a very hard time reaching real understanding online. You’ll need to do is find common ground, ask questions, and really, really listen to them. You need to be able to empathize with them. It’s also worthwhile to ask if they’re open to changing their beliefs, if they find conflicting information. (And ask yourself - are you open to changing your beliefs if facts conflict with what you believe?)

What you need to get at is underlying beliefs and fears, not surface-level stuff. You need to understand that these aren’t issues that can be solved with more factual information, because people will weigh facts through an emotional lens, and will weight things differently than you would to arrive at different conclusions.

On a slight tangent, when you talk about cult de-programming–which is controversial–the important thing to do is to utterly separate a cult victim from their support group, aka their cult, and then give them only one point of view. When you talk about deprogramming conservatives, you’re asking people to commit social suicide; it’s likely that all their close friends and associates (or all of their parasocial relationships) are with people that hold similar conservative beliefs. Without surrounding them with people that are more liberal, and are willing to accept them, you’re not going to be able to have a long-lasting effect.

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