If you sit down with a conservative and explain the basic facts of the matter and show them all the ways they’ve been deceived, they usually come around to espousing a rational worldview.
What you do is you ask them how things should ideally work and they generally reinvent the left position. When you let them know that that is what the left wants then they immediately have a problem with how that idea doesn't arbitrarily make everything worse and harder or how it doesn't target certain groups for unfair treatment for no good reason. Something something, hard work abusing the system something.
"Why don't you want to vote for the party that has already proven they will fight for what you just suggested would work?"
And keep repeating the question until they answer it (without responding to any of their responses designed to distract you from getting an answer).
(And if you're feeling extra spicy) "Because they don't have the right team colours and weren't the party that your grandpappy decided his entire family would vote for?"
"Why don't you want to vote for the party that has already proven they will fight for what you just suggested would work?"
"Conservative values". They will lie and say they care about the budget and spending or family or the veterans or defense or law and order or inflation or education or healthcare or any of the other things that they pretended to care about.
What they care about is putting people different than them in their place. They want to be able to mistreat people and those people to be afraid to do anything about it and they don't even want to see those people. They want assistance despite claiming to be against it but what they really want is to withhold assistance from groups of people different than them. They might actually care about the border because politics isn't about best possible outcomes but about vulgar displays of power.
They don't care about how anything works, they just want to be in charge. They want things that they don't deserve and didn't earn, like respect and authority and legitimacy and expertise.
Oh, I know. Studying history is not only an interest but part of my profession, and that includes a nice detour into social psychology and power structures.
My point was more about forcing them to either work out that kind of thinking is the real reason why, or forcing them to verbalise the reason why.
And if they have no problem with verbalising what they know, at that point, there's nothing to be done but shake your head, laugh, and tell them they'll never be good enough for the in-group. Because if they were, they'd already be in it, and not suffering the effects of whatever they're complaining about.
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u/brothersand 14d ago
Came here for this. Where's the reply? No way he replied with, " Oh, now I understand."