While I can understand the side that you are coming from. One of the biggest failures I have seen from my friends is demonizing anyone that may have voted for tump and these people, and refusing to have a conversation. Immediately labeling them as racist for example (which I don't think is necessarily untrue for many of them, but when we know there are black people that voted for Trump that argument as a blanket statement gets harder to make).

I strongly believe that for many people just doing this is causing them to dig into their heels and instead of examining themselves they are pushed to being on the defensive trying to say they are not racist, homophobic, sexist, whatever. Which is not getting us anywhere and is just making both sides angrier.

There are the extremes, people that have the power that are pushing things like this. But then there are the manipulated. Those that are being told lies and being encouraged to vote a certain why because they simply are only seeing part of the picture. Maybe they don't have exposure to the world. Whatever.

While I do respect someone's right to protect their own mental health and not want to engage in a conversation with many of these people, these conversations do need to happen. I truly believe that the majority of people are nowhere near as vile as those in power right now are. So we need to understand why they are enabling them.

That being said...

It is a very fine line. Too much empathy can lead to them thinking that this is ok, there does need to be some force in a push back against what is happening right now. Pushing back on the misinformation that is causing many people to hold these views.

So yes we can try to understand where these views are coming from without giving them weight as being valid.

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amanaplanacanal 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

I can totally understand that they are being manipulated. I still have no interest in trying to de-program them. Cut them off, and let them live with their choices. They'll either figure it out eventually, or they won't.

People who are trying to harm my friends and family don't deserve any of my time and effort.

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nerdjon 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

I completely respect a personal choice of doing that, I mean I don't particularly want to engage with many of them either. Especially not when I can expect that I am going to likely be called a particular F word (I am a gay man).

My biggest issue is not the lack of contact, it is the demonizing. Using blanket terms like "if you voted for trump your racist, homophobic, sexist, etc" when I just simply don't think that is a valid blanket statement and is really just a "feel good" statement for us to justify not hearing why they might have done something.

I do think that we are actively pushing them to be more extreme with blanket statements like this and it isn't not actually helping.

We can keep calling them names all we want but the fact is they are still voters that are enabling what we all have to deal with. Either we acknowledge that or we just keep repeating the same pattern we have been repeating since at least the 70's. A little bit of progress followed by a regression.

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ranger207 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's a prisoner's dilemma, or tragedy of the commons, or whatever-scenario-where-the-best-plan-is-coordinated-action-but-it's-difficult-for-individuals-to-do-so. Yeah a gay man shouldn't have to go to court to defend his marriage, but society's made up of individuals and their actions, and somebody's got to perform that action

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btilly 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

They might not deserve it, but they will take rather more of your time and effort if you don't try to exert it until after ICE is breaking down doors and disappearing your friends and family without due process.

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FireBeyond 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I agree. I had this argument here previously, that I supposedly "owe" it to "the other side" to listen to their arguments (in this case on abortion).

No, I don't. Not when the other side just openly uses lies (that they know to be lies) like "post-birth abortion" to argue their cause.

They're not discussing things in even a modicum of good faith. Saying that I have some moral imperative to engage with them as if they are is horseshit.

	▲	nobody9999 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		>No, I don't. Not when the other side just openly uses lies (that they know to be lies) like "post-birth abortion" to argue their cause. Absolutely. Although I'd point out that in many states that overwhelmingly voted for Trump, those on the "other side" (you know, our fellow Americans), often by large majorities, rejected abortion bans in their states after the overturning of Roe v. Wade. So it's not really as cut and dried as you make it out to be. Yes, there are absolutely those who despise the idea of the agency of women, and there are absolutely those who exploit that for monetary and political gain. But a majority of Americans don't and even many of those who aren't on board could be persuaded to a live and let live position. Politics is, after all, "the art of the possible." If we just demonize and "other" anyone who doesn't specifically agree with us, then nothing is possible -- only dysfunction and hate. That's not a world I want to live in.

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JohnMakin 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

[flagged]

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ranger207 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

Authoritarianism, whether Nazism, Soviet Communism, or French Revolutionary Government, is the belief that some group knows best and everyone else should allow them to make decisions, and that furthermore incorrect beliefs should be stamped out. Not engaging with authoritarian beliefs only reinforces the belief that they're correct and everyone else is wrong; after all, from their perspective nobody's ever proved them wrong.

Related to that though is the fact that authoritarianism has slowly become more prevalent over the past few decades, and it's easier than ever for people to get into cliques and echo chambers that never challenge their beliefs. That's resulted in a decrease in skills in truly changing people's minds about things, since in an echo chamber it's easier to just kick out anyone who disagrees, and if you're kicked out it's easier to just create your own echo chamber that espouses your belief than to convince people in the other echo chamber. This naturally leads to authoritarianism where an echo chamber believes that they're right and everyone else's incorrect opinions should be suppressed. When that community pops out of their echo chamber and tries to change everyone else's beliefs, it's only natural for people to respond with the best way they've learned how: refuse to engage.

I absolutely understand the desire not to engage with Nazis. But, ignoring Nazis is definitionally not going to do anything to fix the root of the problem

	▲	orwin 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		> Authoritarianism, whether Nazism, Soviet Communism, or French Revolutionary Governmentr any or any monarchy, or any theocracy, or any oligarchy. I understand why you cite Nazism, or Soviet communism (or Mao Communism), but the French Revolutionary Government lasted less than 3 years, was at war with half of europe because their King decided to declare war for no reason, and had to find who fed intel to half their enemies (and even when the King's letters to his brother in law describing eastern troops movement were discovered, 10% of the parliament voted against his destitution and 40% against killing him for treachery). I'd say that they stopped the violence and decided to free all slaves once the war ended should be a point in their favor.

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btilly 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

There are quite a few ex-nazi types who stand as a testament to this statement being false. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Former_white_supremac... for some relatively well-known ones.

I do grant that it is very hard. Just as it is hard to have a rational conversation with a cult member. But the fact that it is hard doesn't mean that it isn't worth trying.

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Levitz 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

You can't possibly complain that any ideals you stand for get suppressed then, surely?

You are refusing democratic process and arguing that media deems people unable to partake in it. This is not even Nazi ideology, this goes way, way beyond Nazism in terms of authoritarianism.

	▲	JohnMakin 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		With all due respect, this is gibberish. Refusing to engage a nazi in conversation is hardly suppressing them in any way, shape, or form. Nor is it refusing any kind of "democratic process." It's also preferable you don't yell fire in a crowded theater or bomb on an airplane.