Since tomorrow is Christmas I thought I would post this in case you have any MAGA relatives who will be over.
Had to downvote for clickbait headline.
What a load of bullshit. You cannot win an argument with facts and fact checking, when you’re talking to someone who only believe their feelings and poor sources.
- “I’ve looked into this, and it’s actually been widely debunked. Would you be open to reading a source I trust?”
- “I know this feels true, but it’s coming from a site known for disinformation. Can I share why I’m concerned?”
I tried this many times, it doesn’t work. All the fact checking sources I provide are considered false and left wing propaganda. The only source they trust is Fox / Facebook / racist neighbor / etc. If it’s about science stuff, they know better than a professor in that field. They don’t question their sources. They don’t believe in facts and science, only in feelings. And their feelings were created by populist politicians, radical groups, fake news sites originating from Russia, etc. And when they have a feeling, there’s no arguing with it anymore.
This goes for any cult member. And with cult I also mean the Christian churches, and any other religion. Anyone who blindly follows what is dictated to them by whoever they worship or follow.
I’ve seen a lot about cults. I think the only way to hopefully pull someone away from a cult is to isolate them from it, show the real world for a while, then talk about how their cult world is actually very far from normal and okay. This works only sometimes, some people get away from it, then to return a bit later. Or they fall for another cult.
But there’s no arguing with someone who doesn’t trust facts and doesn’t use any form of logic.
I couldn’t agree more. Way back when, I thought I was okay at discussing topics like public health, evolution, vaccines, and the like with the “low information voter” crowd. Then I went to university for the better part of a decade, became a Real Scientist™, then worked in research and public health.
The result? I am no better at discussing these topics with them. If anything I’m less effective as I’m now seen as part of the conspiracy or an overeducated blowhard, so they write me off even faster.
I can gently and politely correct the misinformation that comprises the core of their beliefs, complete with sources, but it doesn’t matter one bit. Most of them aren’t interested in truth so much as what makes them feel good about themselves and their place in the world. To be fair, I meet just as many liberals who similarly have many feelings-based opinions (Vaccines! Organic food! GMOs!), but much of the MAGA crowd actually makes ignorance as a core value a point of personal pride. It’s fucking bizarre.
You’re lizard people from planet X, I knew it! There are portals in universities so they can brainwash all the intellectuals and take over the world. Everyone knows that, it has been posted on Facebook.
I just don’t bother anymore with those people. I used to try a lot, but it’s hopeless. Maybe if we all laugh at them for being so dumb, they maybe eventually realize they’re the ones being brainwashed, losing touch with reality. I prefer to encircle myself with nice and like minded people. I just block and ignore anyone else. Including my family.
If forced to interact with some Maga, I just go full scorn and derisive dismissal. Follow up jokes about flat-earthers and the earth being the center of the solar system. Add in whatever ridiculous thing I can think of. I just keep it up until they don’t want anything to do with me because I’m not buying what they are selling. I’m an asshole though, and I don’t really care if some nutter likes me or not.
Fuck this article, I did this shit in 2014. They scream “Do your research!”, “What about… !!!”, or some other irrational justification. I’m out of fucks. These people lack empathy, they’ve chosen to leave social compact. It’s their work to figure it out not mine.
“Do your research!”
Their patronizing bullshit always comes off as “you disagree with me, so you must be wrong.” May I did look into the topic I’m discussing and just came to a different conclusion.
Yup. Like others have said, “I can cite sources”, never goes anywhere. Even folks who are Leopard food still seem to have no regrets about their votes.
Charisma is my dump stat, so I know better than to try and change someone’s mind when I’m dealing with irrational people on matters of values and principles.
The best way to talk to MAGA relatives… Don’t.
My nephew got a smart globe for Christmas where you tap a stylus on the globe and it talk about that place.
I told my mother to tap Israel.
Hehehe
The only way this will ever stop is for a huge muzzle to be put on mass misinformation sources and the discourse to be purified from the top down. Your well intentioned interaction over Christmas ham is not going to change anyone’s mind.
You can’t change minds over Christmas. You plant seeds of doubt, and then the Epstein files get released and the doubt sprouts. You never know what breaks the camels. Back.
My brother (UK so not MAGA thank fuck) is a conspiracy theorist.
I just ask him “why”.
“Why do you believe the moon landing is fake?”
“Because the flag is flapping”.
“Why would they build a soundstage with a breeze and not retake the footage”?
“What do you think chemtrails are?”
“They are the government trying to poison us”.
“Why wouldn’t they just put stuff in the water supply”?
And so on.
It’s hard for someone to believe simultaneously in supreme government control when you continuously point out how incompetent they are.
He’s voting Reform then?
How did you guess…
This article is such bullshit. I feel this pressure often, like I’m always being asked to empathize with people who are kicking me in the nuts.
The article says you can set boundaries, withdraw from painful conversations, and protect your peace. If you care about them, the tethers, even thin and fragile strands of connection, can be vital in their finding their way out of the cult. This year especially, a whole lot of people are figuring out that they helped put a pedofile baby murderer into the White House.
Most won’t believe it, but some will reconnect with cut off friends and family.
I’m saying I don’t think they’re in a cult I just think they’re assholes.
I also do not think they “helped” a pedophile baby murderer do anything. I think that the American people have zero power and we are living under real fascism, not the kind in the movies that a hero can defeat all by himself or that a singular revolution can easily quell. I believe we are living under fascism in real life, really for reals.
If you reconnect with these people, they will probably find some other way to be an asshole and impose their blowhard nature onto other people. Don’t cut them off for “helping” a billionaire do something (because they didnt, he was going to do it anyway, because he can, he’s a billionaire) cut them off because they like IRL trolling people and making them angry. If it wasn’t Trump, they’d find something else.
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The article means well. But, after 10 years of Trump, a lot of families don’t even talk to each other anymore if there is a political divide. Mine doesn’t. Families are literally split on this.
Yeah I haven’t talked to my sibling in several years now. When we did talk they’d always force it into some weird mind game trying to get me to say contradictory things then grill me on it, didn’t matter what we started with. Communication went downhill because I just didn’t want to have to be prepared for an unhinged debate any time we talked about anything. Finally stopped after I found out they are anti vax; now they’re a transphobe too and well I’m trans. I’m not going to try and fix that bridge they can die scared of the world
I have a side of my family I ignore because the stupid hurts too much.
Well, that, and cut the MAGA shitheads out of your will. Don’t leave a penny to fascists.
I sort of feel the same emotion when asked to sympathize with someone I have fundamentally disregarded as a person. Like, if someone robs me, I don’t want to hear about how they did it because they were bullied in middle school. I don’t give a fuck first of all, and second of all…it’s just not relevant. Dude did not rob me because he was bullied in middle school, he robbed me because he wanted my money or posessions…he’s just lying because he’s a shithead trying to exploit empathy he expects me to have in order to get away with said crime.
Maybe none of these people have Narcissistic Personality Disorder (a psychological illness which causes profound suffering to the affilicted in the form of self-distructive behavior such as eating disorders, substance use, or gambling usually in addition to acting like a douchebag to loved ones) or are in cults or are under any sort of mind control. Maybe they’re just assholes. Your Trump supporting Uncle didn’t make Trump happen. The manufactured consent makes things easier but the consent or lack of consent of an impovrished peasent population doesn’t really make a difference. It can make things easier but I can’t imagine it being much of a dealbreaker.
I mean yeah, but this approach presupposes a bunch of things that usually dont exist:
- A prior, deep relationship
- genuine care for the other party
- willingness to engage
- all parties sober
Additionally, its really hard to debate things with nutters because they’re usually well versed in their special interest while I merely rely on the advice of experts. For example, an anti-vax person might reference various studies and research. I can assume they’ve been debunked or taken out of context, but I don’t know those studies or any relevant research.
My favoured approach is to merely ask what evidence it would take to change their mind. In the majority of cases their answer is something that just isn’t practically possible, or includes caveats that would allow them to disclaim such evidence if provided.
Something unfalsifyable is not science, that’s faith. At least then you know there’s no point debating them.
I’m not trying to deprogram anyone. Fuck 'em. They can burn in the hell they voted for.
I don’t think voting for or not voting for Trump would have made any difference. Trump is a billonare and your uncle or dad or mom or whatever would probably become homeless if they were hit by a car. So it doesn’t actually matter if you deprogram them.
Secondly I think your uncle or dad or mom is probably just an asshole and isn’t in a cult or brainwashed. This is just the new thing they’re being an asshole about, because it gives them a lot of emotional gratification and it’s popular. I’ve got a relative who believes every doomsday conspiracy based on which one is trending. I think it’s like that. If I deprogrammed him from one conspiracy, he’d move onto another. If it’s not the poles shifting, it’s nuclear winter, etc, weirdly never climate change.
But yeah. I think these ‘brainwashed’ people are just people who enjoy being insufferable and if they were given a different type of reinforcement, they’d just be insufferable in a Leftist space too. They’d be the type of person who doxes teenage girls on twitter because they think a white girl learning spanish for school is cultural appropriation or whatever. How about these people are just douchebags? That’s what I try to do when I shame them for this stuff, I try to make it about how they’re being a douchebag and an attentionwhore generally, about how they’re giving the same energy as the ex alcholic or ex con who needs to keep mentioning Jesus. At a certain point even if youre a follower of Jesus you get sick of hearing about how this ex addict is morally superior for worshipping the diety that the majority of Americans also worship, but because they always deflect onto Jesus, its hard to criticize the behavior, so you’ve got to be specific about what they’re actually doing.
Jesus isn’t real and your vote doesn’t matter, so deprogramming them from the totally meaningless belief isn’t really the issue, the issue is that the behavior is unacceptable and disruptive.
The fact that the system is rigged does not mean that voting doesn’t matter, I would say. Apart from that, yes well said, and spot on.
Didn’t the electorial college elect Trump in 2016? I remember them saying that we needed a “strong Republican leader” due to the times or some bullshit, I don’t remember.
A 15 day old account spreading bullshit about disengaging from the civic process? Color me shocked!
What civic process do you think would immediately stop fascism within the timeframe of less than five years?
What civic process has immediately stopped fascism within that timeframe in the past? Violence is necessary to snuff out fascism. However, that does not imply that you cannot continue engaging in the civic process while expunging fascism. In fact, it’s necessary.
I’m sorry you can’t walk and chew gum at the same time but some of us are a bit more capable, it seems.
There wasn’t a civic process that defeated Hitler. There was a World War. The German people didn’t defeat Hitler. Defeating Hitler required outside intervention on a massive scale, the kind of intervention that the average person is literally incapable of alone or with a small group.
If fascism is removed from America, it will probably be accomplished by the US military or by outside intervention. Probably won’t be citizens.
I cut ties with my maga father the day after Election Day last year.
Same here with my MAGA parents.
The only way to defeat these assholes is to socially isolate them.
I’d argue its a moral obligation to socially isolate these fools wherever and whenever possible. If they actually loved you, they wouldn’t have voted away your future
Sounds peaceful
All my kids are grown and off on their own this year. So it will be me, my wife, and our dogs and cats. Very peaceful.
Ohhh yeah. I’m down to one close relative (the rest have died in the past 12 years - it’s been a dozen years of shit, actually) and husband and I are having our first non-family filled Christmas. Tomorrow, I’m gonna get up and throw a roast in the slow cooker, give husband his gifts and chill and play video games. Maybe even nap in the afternoon.
From the first year I shacked up with the boyfriend, (whom I eventually married) we travelled to my aunts, uncles and grandparents homes each and every year. The trifecta was one year we had Thanksgiving dinner at in-laws at noon sharp, at 2:30 we were on our way to grandmother’s in Connecticut for dinner at 5, then at 7:30 we drove up to Maine for 10:30 pm Thanksgiving dinner with auntie (they were the night owl side of the family) in southern Maine.
It was amazing and exhausting and one of the most culinary diverse Thanksgivings I’ve had.
Overcooked dry turkey at in-laws, prime rib at grandma’s and turkey and pork golumkis at aunties… Fun times… but yeah… Tonight is nice here just pecking away online with the radio in the background singing it’s holiday songs…
It’s glorious.
The one thing I’m glad of is that I’ll never lose contact with any of my kids over politics unless they’re the ones who turn crazy because compassion is the cornerstone of my parenting (with teaching them to respect their boundaries a strong second place).
You’re probably not the kind of parent that has to worry about this, because those that do feel that obedience is the cornerstone of parenting.
Good deprogramming tricks but I’m over deprogramming, if they’re still hopeless at this point its going to take more behavioral science know how than I can safely provide. Im a good shot though so I’ll be prepared one way or another.
Seriously. The issue is that if someone is still mags after all that has happened then most people probably don’t like them enough to bother with any of this shit. I was working to try in like 2018. Not anymore.
