this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2023
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Most conservatives, however deeply red, are not intentionally hateful and are usually open to rational discussion. People just don't know how to have rational discussions nowadays and the few times they do, they don't know how to think like somebody else and put things in a way they can understand.
People nowadays think because a point convinced them, it should convince everybody else and anybody who's not convinced by it is just being willfully ignorant. The truth is we all process things differently and some people need to hear totally different arguments to understand, often put in ways that wouldn't convince you if you heard it.
It's hard to understand other people and I feel like the majority of people have given up trying in favor of assuming everybody who disagrees with you knows their wrong and refuses to admit it.
You're not outright wrong, but it's really hard to have the rational discussion skills to cut through decades of propaganda. For the many deep in the right-ring bubble, brainwashing is a better term than mere propaganda.
I can agree with that. I've been part of a cult before (was born into it) and I can recognize a lot of what I went through there in far right people. I guess I'm just a little sensitive to people calling these people idiots and hateful people due to seeing myself in them. Like, to me, they're (usually) just good people being manipulated into thinking the awful things they say and do are good, and they need a rational and caring person to pull them slowly out of it, the same way I did.
Obviously, it takes more than just talking usually to pull somebody out of a cult, but I think it's still a big part of it. They've been fooled into thinking that things that are rational aren't, and unless they're confronted with the actual truth and the facts to back them up, they're not going to even start to question their beliefs.
I'm also not suggesting that every person needs to debate every republican about every issue they bring up. If you can't or even just don't want to debate somebody, you don't have any obligation to, but I don't think insulting them over it is almost ever the right response.
There's also the angle of how every cult teaches you that you're going to be persecuted for your beliefs, and brainwashes you into thinking that should reaffirm you that you must be correct. That is one major reason I think labeling all conservatives as irrational and hopeless is dangerous. When somebody who's been taught that the world is going to hate them for being "right" finds that the world does not, in fact, hate them, but instead just displays genuine concern, that's when you fully start to question everything.
I don't think every right winger is going to fling left when presented with this view. In fact, I think the vast majority won't, but it will make them a little more understanding, and a little more understanding over the course of many years and generations adds up.