this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2025
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Unpopular opinion: if you base your arguments in political debates around morals, you'll only be able to convince people who share your moral standpoint.
I don't think the point here is "I should be able to convince you", it's "We're not friends anymore, because you're a genuine piece of shit from a moral standpoint".
Good luck with trying to improve the political landscape while not talking to a large part of the population, then. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Have you talked to Trump voters, man?
Most of them are not salvageable.
It's the same essential mistake that the Harris campaign committed this past election which may have lost us our democracy permanently - a favorite mistake of the Democratic Party seeking to fend off its left-wing by showing (or, in this case, 'showing') that bipartisanship and reaching 'across the aisle' is a winning formula. Trying to reason with right-wing voters in this country is a lost fucking cause. Reasoning with those who've tuned out due to apathy or despair is the way forward - assuming, of course, that votes matter going forward, which is far from guaranteed.
You're confusino peer to peer communication with top-down propaganda. Not the same thing, homie.
Lord.
I agree with you but Im having difficulty figuring out how to convert people who voted to place people in camps.
Step one: don't try to "convert" anyone.
Rather, listen to their worries. You gan point out discrepancies with their world view and show your disapproval if they're really bringing out the racist shit, but don't try to sell them your ideology.
Also, remember that it takes time to change someone's viewpoint. You need to be patient.
So the civility politics route the Dems have been trying for the past 40 years.
How's that worked out?
Non-sequitur much?
In what way have the Dems ever listened to any non-millionaire?
Man, that is all the fucking Dems have done for longer than I've been alive. Ass-patting rural voters and telling them how valid their concerns are, and trying to compromise and show how very 'reasonable' we are.
You wanna track how the rural vote has trended since?
We've not increased our share by validating their basic positions and pointing out contradictions in the details that they'll willfully forget a day fucking later.
No, that's what they've claimed to do while still taking my opponent's side in the class war.
...
Forget it, Jake. It's Leftytown.
Ah yes. Last conversation I had with one they insisted they saw a bus sized drone in the sky. If I’m rude or not improving the political landscape then lol oh well guess I’m not then.
Did it have FAA compliant lighting? It’s awful nice of the aliens to comply with our laws before arriving.
Great! Have fun while the situation gets worse!
The U.S. is a threat to everyone on the planet. You're in this boat with us.
Yeah, I know. I just can't do anything better to help yo^u other than post on the internet and organi'e locally.
If Trump voters could be convinced they wouldn't have voted trump, so this doesn't change my calculus.
Are you sure you're actually in favor of democracy, if you have such a misanthropic worldview?
I have so far seen zero evidence that anything Trump does will convince his voters that he's the evil shitstain he is, so what I'm not in favor of is the futility of trying to convince anyone, when 8 years of reality and headlines have failed to do the same. I have magas in my family and they will perform literally any gymnastics necessary to absolve Trump of guilt for anything he's done.
So yeah, if basing my opinions off of the evidence I'm surrounded by daily makes me misanthropic, then sure, you can call me that if it makes you feel happy.
Sorry, I don't think I'm interested in such moralistic political discussions where you constantly bring up how someone is "evil".
That's OK!
Democracy, as the saying goes, is the worst system of government ever devised - except for all the others.
People are stupid, in every fucking system.
The difference is, in a democracy, you have to (theoretically, and depending on the health of the democratic system) get a massive percentage of very stupid or very malicious people to make stupid decisions on behalf of the polity, whereas in narrower forms of government, you only need a small percentage of very stupid or very malicious people who are well-placed.
Democracy is a safeguard, not an aegis, not a panacea. All systems of government are ultimately only as good as the people who comprise them; and while I'd sooner trust "The entire adult population" over "A self-selected cabal", that does not mean the former will always make good, moral, sensible, or even self-interested decisions.
Fuck that, this is just another rendition of the centrist/both sides bad/fascist apologizer number. Everyone that voted for this deserves to be ridiculed and called out to face the reality that they have forced upon the rest of us. Maybe then the lesson will stick. We tried the polite way and millions of people spat in our face. We do not have to take the higher road.
I get the sinking feeling that a lot of Trump supporters are at a point where they simply won't trust anything we tell them.
They've skillfully avoided the truth up to this point. They've drank enough kool-aid that they'll remain resolute in their "rightness" through shitstorm after self-imposed shitstorm. It's not about facts with them; it's about their feels. Their feels tell them that they are right and everyone in their ~~cult~~ "community" agrees, so they must be correct.
The last thing that will convince them they were wrong, would be screamed realities from people they already don't trust.
Reading through this thread I understand the gist of your statement but you never said what you would recommend?
Materialist and power analysis. Trump does things because it suits him materially. Not cause he's evil. So does Elon Musk. Ask what Trump has actually done for the Trump supporter.
Everything is going to shit in the US, and instead of doubling down on "how does renaming the Gulf of Mexico lower the prices of eggs?", online libs keep complaining on how the vote turned out and that you gan't convince MAGAs.
I guess that's part of donvicts power: he causes outrage which stops effective organization against him, with everyone firefighting against his latest outrage, instead of remaining focused on his downfall.
Don't forget what already worked. After his "muslim ban", direct action did shut some airports down, which softened the blow.
As a Leftwinger (real one, not the American notion of left-of-Trump being Leftwing) this is something I've though about a lot.
For example, most people are driven to some level or other by Greed: for example, if you think about it, when people from the "Working class" demand things for the "Working class", are they driven by a pure desire for equality or is it really about benefiting themselves as members of the "Working class"? Ditto for "Positive Discrimination" being demanded by people who will benefit from it - is it really about equality or is it Personal Upside Maximization hidding behind the "group"?
Choices driven by Greed above all often collide with the whole "Greatest good for the greatest number" principle of the Leftwing.
Anyways, "screw you, my moral standpoint is different so I don't care about what you say" as an absolute rule is how the Left fragments, so indeed an absolutist take of "If your Moral standpoint is not exactly the same as mine I won't listen to you" is self-defeating in the strategical sense.
Then again, going totally in the opposite direction - i.e. no people should be shunned due to their Moral standpoint - also ends up with some weird results: if somebody has a moral standpoint that "Slavery is just the Weak being put in their proper place by the Strong, and as Strong people they're superior hence have a right to chose what others do" (I almost puked a little in my mouth writting this), should we really try to do anything else than shun people whose moral standpoint is that?
Personally my compromise is that some Moral standpoints are unnacceptable and those who hold them do not deserve any attempt at finding a middle point between me and them - in other words, even in Morality there are red lines - and whilst we should indeed listen to those who are on the right side of those red lines even if we don't quite have the same Moral standpoint, those on the wrong side of those red lines are beyond salvation and not worth the effort.
There's a difference to "greed" and "self-interest". It benefits me as a member of the working class if my class gets power. Personally, I have a moral reason behind class solidarity. But it's not the only reason.
Yeah, I didn't say that you should never disagree with someone based on moral grounds. But if you're debating with someone, then moral arguments can be very ineffective or you basically already agree with each other. The OP in the tweet chose to gloat about their moral superiority, which helps basically no one.
I think that the amount of people who are that far gone is way exaggerated. I'm sure that a lot of Trump voters are in the "leopards ate my face" cathegory and can therefore be convinced. But you don't convince people by shaming them. The others (Nick Fuentes and the likes) don't care about your moral judgement.
Famously didn’t work for republicans! Oh wait.
How are the republicans a counterexamplex o.O
By being elected into power. Clearly, it worked for them.
What do you mean by "it"?
Going all-in on appealing to those who are already aligned with them or unaligned, and ignoring or degrading the opposition instead of trying to sway them.
So... how is that strategy going to help progressive politics, exactly? O.o
You're asking how choosing to focus on getting out the vote instead of appealing to opposition voters is going to help, in an electoral environment that saw 1/3 of the country say "I don't care who wins"?
Homie, the election is over. Electoralism didn't prevent the shitshow the US is currently in. I'm talking about proper progressive politics. I have no interest in moral superiority, or being butthurt by an election in which a fascist won.
Ah, yes, opposition to the one minor thing which you could've done to prevent the current fascist regime is mandatory, on grounds of purity, but calling a literal fascist evil is unacceptable. I'm beginning to get an idea of what your politics actually look like.
Insane that you question whether someone else believes in democracy for 'misanthropism' while dismissing actual voting as not 'proper progressive politics'.
Yes, it is increasingly clear that you don't give a shit about what happens to the victims of fascism.
You want the feeling of moral superiority? Great, then call Trump evil as much as you want!
You want to understand politics and maybe improve the current situation? Then stop clouding your analysis with that bullshit!
Considering that you have zero interest in voting, well, as a self-proclaimed progressive said just recently...
Ok, so since voting is obviously the only way to enact any sort of political power for non-politicians: feel free to do nothing but feel morally superior until the next election comes around when there is no hope that things improve because people are stupid and there's no use in convincing anyone who's "wrong" and/or "evil". /s
Feel free to keep having the same exact conversations since 1950 every insular naive wannabe college leftist has had with their first-ever interaction with conservative voters in the US.
I'm sure you'll get real excited afterwards, and talk with all your buddies about how there's a DEEP wellspring of leftism just waiting to be tapped, and the mass shift in class consciousness is just around the corner. Any day now, bro. Just a few more pamphlets, a few more talks, and they'll totally be ready for socialism. We'll be looking at a whole new country.
You live with these people, in their communities, as part of their communities, and you understand on a deeper level why the surface-level "nod-and-agree" in response to politely phrased leftism doesn't mean shit.