I know several Republicans who will say they love trump and everything he’s doing. I say well, conservation is really important to you, and trump just cut funding to wind farms, cut tons of environmental protections, cut regulations for pollution, isn’t this against everything you stand for? And they say “well nobody’s perfect.”
Then they say rfk is going to fix our country’s health! and I say he is anti vax this is the foundation he funds to create anti vax propaganda, haven’t you been pushing for vaccines your whole life? And they say well I don’t think he’s really going to do that.
And then they say trump is going to fix the border and I say “weren’t you saying for years the problem is illegals and that we should protect refugees? Trump just canceled flights for 1500 refugees who would have been totally legal to be here” and they say well I don’t know. 1 day later they’re back to saying trump and rfk are great.
I don’t think they are faking these beliefs, it’s just as soon as a republican does it they choose to not see it. I can understand looking the other way for 1 or 2 things, but when 10+ go against their core values in the course of 3 days… it’s just really disappointing to see them value “their guy” over the work they’ve done for their whole lives.
I think mainly identity politics. When their team does or claims something that conflicts with their core values, they just dismiss it or rationalize it and don’t think about it. My FiL said Trump will never roll back RvW but here we are. To his credit, he hasn’t voted since. He’d never vote Dem, but he won’t vote for Trump either. Maybe rolling back vaccines will be a watershed moment for your friends, if it isn’t too late. Maybe not.
When you’re talking to them, it might be helpful to ask open ended questions instead of directly challenging them.
“I know you’ve always cared about conservation. How do you square that with Trump’s environmental rollbacks?”
“What makes you confident RFK Jr. won’t follow through on his anti-vax stance?”
“How do you feel about legal refugees being turned away? Do you think there’s a better way to handle it?”
And then just listen and ask for clarification when they vaguely hand wave things. This approach keeps the conversation open-ended and forces them to engage with their own reasoning rather than shutting down in defensiveness. There’s no guarantee of reaching them. They might get irritated when confronted with these contradictions. They might just shut down and dismiss the question but maybe it’ll start a process of introspection.
There’s probably going to be a lot of “I told you so” fuel coming soon. Try to avoid that among friends. Save that for cathartic Lemmy posts. Good luck.
whenever I ask clarifying questions the most common responses are them being uncomfortable and trying to change the subject or getting angry. It’s like telling someone their favorite restaurant supports something they hate, most people just don’t wanna hear it. I just didn’t realize that extended to breaking values they’ve held their whole life.
I don’t even want an I told you so, just them to say “this thing that Trump did was bad” even if they still support him after. It’s like he’s their little angel who can do nothing wrong, but if he did do something wrong well he had to or it’s not that bad or… I just hate that they can see people getting hurt that they’ve tried to help their whole life, but now it’s “a necessary evil” because their mascot did it…
I get it. 100%. But are these folks you want to reach, or folks you want to argue with? Because telling them is going to make them defensive. Listen to them. And then ask questions that get at contradictions. Don’t point out the contradictions other than to imply they seem not to make sense to you, so you need them explained. Don’t bring in outside sources, or even your own knowledge or opinion. Ask like you don’t have a strong opinion of your own and you are curious, but see a couple of things that don’t make sense.
And, no you won’t reach all of them. Probably not most of them. And none of them are going to suddenly change their opinions because of it. Because that stuff all takes time. And they have to come to their own conclusions. And you might not like them. Maybe the answer is, as long as taxes go down, or abortions stop, or no one comes for their guns, they will happily support Trump burning the world to ash.
But hopefully, that’s not everyone.
I think for me I’m kinda resigned that they will never change their mind because it’s so ingrained in them at this point, especially since every conservative I know perfectly mirrors the current fox news talking points. I guess i point things out to them because I’m talking to them as if it’s a friend, but it’s more like dealing with a cult member, which is really disappointing to me.
It’s rough, man. I’ve got family I don’t really talk to over this stuff. Just because I have an answer, doesn’t mean I have the answer, you know?
Best of luck.