Political Memes

When I have actual conversations with conservatives, I've learned how you can prevent it from becoming an argument and actually get them to change tune and try to start pleasing you. It's shockingly easy in many cases, the conservative mind isn't very "long term" and they are literally just reactionaries who can only deal with whatever they're feeling right now.

They key here is to almost strictly ask questions, questions that lead towards them and their lives and what their problems are.

When they complain about economic bullshit they're obviously parroting from FOX news, you do NOT attack their figures and statistics and facts. They don't care. Same with immigration, sex education, race issues and anything else. Remember that they're not making arguments based on facts and logic, they are repeating mental validations they've heard to justify how bad they feel.

When you keep this in mind, you will realize that calling out hypocrisy or false facts is going to have zero effect at best, and make them combative at worst because you are just dismissing their feelings.

When you ask a lot of questions about how these issues are affecting them, and be genuine about it, have curiosity about what their struggles are, you will cut right through ALL the programming and get to the heart of their problems and why they're clinging to FOX and Trump.

Then you're set up to start actually challenging their flimsy ideology, but you also have to be crafty, because again you're trying to get them to lower defences and practice cognition for a moment:

"Has any politician helped you directly?"

"What policy measure in our state right now would help you this week with this week's bills?"

"What are you most worried about happening in the next couple years?"

These are some powerful questions that should be focused on - and they're so powerful that they make people squirm and change the topic, so stay on it. Don't get distracted by weaves into social issues, come back around and ask again - "Okay, sure, but what happens to you? What happens to your family in the meantime?" or "Okay, but what have they DONE for you, like how has your life improved with these politicians representing you?"

You don't have to try to win this argument, you are just planting questions that they're not normally allowed to ask. This is a time-bomb. Check in again later (assuming it's someone you know.) Ask the same questions again. Ask them what their grocery bills are like. Ask them what happens if something happens to the family breadwinner(s), ask what happens if they have a medical bill. Ask how the system is taking care of them and what they're getting for their tax dollars.

A lot of the time, you will get concessions well before the next conversation. Often you will see them break immediately when they think about their spouse or their kids or parents. They are reactive, emotion-driven creatures who can be led to the places you want with those feelings, and then new ideas introduced. ("Sure would be nice if that huge chunk they take out of your paycheck for taxes actually went to healthcare, huh?" or "Sure would be nice if you were allowed to negotiate with your coworkers for better pay, huh?")

This tactic is very effective but you're not going to get satisfaction from it. You're not going to make anyone feel regret or pain. You have to drop those incentives for "winning" and learn to just be a good listener and communicator.