Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/11/26/climate-change-deni-rolls.html
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#DeleteUncle by any chance?
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I think I’m just going to change the subject to the infamous Japanese soldier in the Philipines who refused to surrender until 1970 (when they sent his old commander down there to officially relieve him of duty)-- “Yeah, it was incredible, this guy hadn’t seen any planes or ships or other combat troops of either side in a decade, and yet every piece of evidence that the war was over-- old newspapers he found, radio broadcasts, his own brother coming to the island to yell through a megaphone that the war was over– was seen by him as part of some immense plot to trick him. Hard to believe rational people can fool themselves into believing crazy, convoluted conspiracies instead of accepting the obvious that’s right in front of them.”
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I have been thinking of asking on these pages if anyone had this exact thing…! The “talking points” are coming so thick and fast, I can no longer keep up with or fully remember them, and hesitation/detail/reason so often are interpreted as weakness on the other side of these arguments. 
ETA: Er, any chance of one that goes back about three years? Or is there enough storage space on the internet for that…
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I get why the Democrats put this out, but it’s counter-productive for its stated purpose. Really engaging on facts is pointless. If your uncle is driving you crazy with political talking points say something like:
I know your political views are very important to you. Getting together with the whole family is important to me. I want to have happy memories of these times. I know that’s hard when each of us feels like the other is living in an alternate reality. But please, let’s try to connect instead of fight. I don’t want to be answering ‘why is uncle X so angry all the time?’ in the car on the way home.
Or, alternatively:
Listen, your toxic, hateful beliefs are just rotten. I’d prefer to never see you or hear from you again, but there are other people here I want to see. I imagine that knowing you make me feel this way will just make you want to bother me more because you live to be cruel, but I’m not going to hide how I feel from you because that’s just giving in to your bullying. And when you die I’m coming to your funeral to say all this same stuff, because I refuse to let anyone remember you positively when you are such an irredeemable piece of shit.
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It might be the nephew.
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That’s it, I’m not going.
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“Goddamnit! When did this shit become the default?”
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some useful pointers here:
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And yet so willfully blind to the very real, very well documented conspiracies that helped put Trump into office (like Putin’s election interference).
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I just go very old school classic…
or if I want to be semi polite…
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I’m at that point. I’ve got a Trump-supporting uncle who just ignores/doesn’t understand my rebuttals to his nonsense and just keeps on with it as if I hadn’t said anything. (I think it’s a combination of not understanding and ignoring.) I just don’t see him anymore, but if I did, telling him he’s a fucking moron would be my approach now.
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That’s the nuclear option, for sure 
I’m imagining this delivered in a quiet, controlled voice, in a place where it can’t be overheard by anyone else.
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How to argue with your racist Facebook uncle this Thanksgiving
On Face$@+k, while eating dinner with people you like.
How Intolerant Libs Should Talk To Their Racist Uncles At Thanksgiving
We get these every year and they’re always directed at imaginary liberals who are faulted for not being nice enough to their big racist relatives.
I’m not sure where these fantasies stem from or who the audience for them is supposed to be, but if we’re having them, how about suggesting the racist uncle stop being a racist for 3 hours.
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This was a very interesting article to me, but it really blows my mind. I makes me feel like grabbing someone and saying, “Wait, you had no idea what you were talking about, but you didn’t know you had no idea what you were talking about, and you are willing to be more open and thoughtful now that you’ve realized you had no idea what you were talking about?!? How does your brain even work?!?”
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Awesome, thanks for sharing this technique! I wonder if the best course of action is to ignore the racist uncle and focus on influencing everyone else. I plan to act bewildered and make it obvious that whatever fox news ramblings they are smoking are not cool. I expect that will have better returns with the influenceable family members.
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Those are the moments I use a time honored rebuttal…
"You are closer to death than I am"
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Keep talking to me like that and you’ll be even closer to death.
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HAHHA. that works too.
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