Well, I don’t talk to Trumpers about what I dislike about Trump unless they ask, and if they ask I usually talk about his relationship with urban organized crime in the United States and the way he’s repeatedly stiffed American workers of their pay. I might also mention that he was a Democrat most of his life, and still has attitudes and beliefs typical of dissipated rich kids who golf, play tennis, and have never learned to weld or hunt for food.
But generally I talk to Trumpers about what their issues are, like for example rural unemployment and the problems their kids are having finding jobs, and I talk to them about candidates and philosophies that address those issues without sponsoring racism, sexism, presidential overreach, and the coarsening of public discourse. I talk to them about pollution and disease and addiction in their own neighborhoods and what can be done about that, whatever they are concerned about.
There’s more to it than just being woke to their issues - I don’t use profanity, I slip in a lot of bible quotes, I never criticise anyone’s appearance or color, I don’t mention so-called “election hacking” without a tone of open contempt, and if Putin is mentioned I express my approval of friendly US and Russian relations - but that’s the core of converting Trumpers. Show them a better way instead of attacking the way they have taken.
That’s probably a good idea. I’ve noticed that Trump supporters are often just plain ignorant. Hopefully, if you present them with facts, they will not be so ignorant.
That’s been my experience also. Not necessarily stupid (although there are plenty of stupid people everywhere!) but simply not fully informed. I tend to blame the American educational system and news media that thrive on encouraging divisiveness.
Exactly! It’s just really hard to present the facts in a way that doesn’t make them feel like you are attacking them. Most people of good will are justifiably enraged by the actions of the Trump administration and its fellow travelers, and so it’s understandably hard for us to be compassionate towards Trumpers, knowing that only some of them will benefit from it.
But I want to find out what does work, and do those things, because I want to do what I can to avoid a Trump second term. So I keep trying.
As an old guy I completely get why someone in their 50s might find the idea of retraining offputting. When you’re young you try out lots of jobs, it is even fun, but for many people at some point “my next job” just isn’t something they want to think about anymore.
You could retain coal jobs without requiring relocation or new skillsets by employing the current workers in the task of cleaning up and sealing the old plants and mines. While there are quick and cheap ways of doing this that would only take a couple of years, I expect that to do it right will take a long time, ie for the duration of the older workers’ careers.
In retrospect, one thing that might have worked would have been for the Obama admin and Clinton campaign to, through indifference, allow the coal industry to die its natural death. Trying to hasten it by a few years clearly did not pay off, unless you think Scott Pruitt running the EPA is a winning bet.
Why not use IGCC (Integrated coal Gasification Combined Cycle) power plants. It uses coal but as it is gasified a lot of the pollutants are removed. Stockton, California actually studied this many years ago.
Their ignorance is often coupled with a very primitive system of choosing which argument is best: the loudest one wins. If the argument requires any thinking on your part, it’s rejected, mostly due to laziness but partly due to the expectation that all the thinking should be done for them and all they have to do is follow instructions.
The only marginal success I have had is to not tolerate their stupidity. Call them idiots to their faces. Insult them, let them know I won’t suffer their whiny bullying any more. They will shut up, do their job or get the fuck out, or if they cannot do their job because they don’t like my politics, then I shall take my custom elsewhere. It has the advantage in some cases of being unexpected, since we are all so tolerant on the left, but also it seems to be the sort of domination game they understand. Sure, the success rate is low, but it is cathartic for me, a sort of guilty pleasure.
Josh Marshall calls it “Bitch Slap Politics”. And it seems fitting, they are not swayed by arguments but only by posturing. These are the kids you see in every teen movie, who make up the bully’s posse, and I never liked those assholes once. Fuck them.
It was with my former classmates in Iowa that I finally settled upon this. Of course they didn’t like it, but it was the only way to win a little grudging respect: to get in the face of the loudest of the assholes and act as if I was just about to punch him (I was, it was genuine anger at his ignorance).
I think he’ll keep his yap shut around me, though, and stop trying to get others to vote for his asshole. Maybe even stay home on voting day. More of a spectator sport thing, you see, the people you want to influence are not the bully, but the people who are watching.
I like to let the watchers see me as the reasonable, non-threatening one.
Showing all those so-called Christian virtues when the actual Christians aren’t doing so… it concerns me that over 50% of white women voted for the president, so I’ve been working on informing my aunts and female cousins and their church lady friends .
I really don’t care as much about what they say as I do about how they vote.
Oh, I get that, and normally I would like to be that person as well. But it was refreshing to burn bridges. I never liked those assholes in school, so let him call me names in front of his loser buddies in his backyard, I won’t be going back to that fucked up small town again. Let them rant about why I’m a traitor for leaving the God’s Country to go live in some socialist hellhole.
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