Honest question: If you want environmental and labor regulations in America, how can you oppose tariffs? American businesses following those laws can't compete with countries using slave labor and toxic lakes of poison.
> If you want environmental and labor regulations in America, how can you oppose tariffs?
Environmental and labor regulations and domestic production are not the same thing. Plenty of domestic production uses slave labor and produces toxic lakes of poison.
But wait, I thought the big selling point for massive permanent tax cuts for the ultra wealthy in the "One Big Beautiful Bill" is that they would directly lead to jobs creation...?
It may feel cathartic to talk about hypocrisy and grift of right wing politics, but you should know that nobody responds to it. Saying "I told you so" doesn't work, even through snark. The people whom it would benefit you (and me, and mostly also them) to sway aren't swayed by it.
What do you think a good faith person trying to persuade should do with this information?
(Legit question, not trying to throw out a gotcha. I've been wracking my brain about this, since I spiritually agree w/ you that throwing zingers aren't gonna help us all get on the same page, but I've been at a loss as to how to actually discuss these topics with people that seemed to have been taken in by...whatever it is that's going on.)
You're probably not going to find this satisfying, but, online? For sure nothing.
Even in person, I'm not sure that there really is a way to persuade someone to change their politics in the modern media landscape, even if you get a lot of time alone with them one on one in person and you do everything right, because of what we know about media inundation and how people begin from their gut feelings and then work backwards to retcon details that align with those feelings.
You will have conversations where it seems like you've made some kind of progress, where it seems like you've earned some kind of credibility, where it seems like you've gained some kind of ground, and then the next day they will regress because the new thing they just saw will confirm their original vibes and the interpositions you created will be pushed out of mind and forgotten.
And this will happen over and over because the world is psychotically overrun by messaging from media empires that make mindbogglingly large amounts of money from outright conning people.
So, unless you have a few anti-billionaire billionaire friends thinking of starting media empires in your pocket, possibly the one thing you can do is run for local government.
I presently view that kind of cathartic expression as worse than neutral and actively harmful. That's not the same as being able to change someone's mind, but it's also still bad.
There are definitely right wing talking points being shrouded as centrist or other fascism.
Like one thing that I see often are the "they deserve this right-wing grift". Like, there's a lot of people who quickly love to do victim blaming when there's now like one near left mainstream media (NBC) and the remainder are all some right wing grooming station.
There's definitely a center that needs to be reminded that they're currently surrounded by right wing propaganda and they're all trying to move the overton window.
You're right the far right is far gone, but the rest of civil society is still drifting, from apathy or misdirection or serious grift or be grifted realities.
Ok, let's imagine that I agree with what you just said...
Given your stated premise of the major media landscape being manipulative right-wing grooming stations hiding behind veneers of centrism and the unimaginable power that carries with it, what do you think can legitimately counter the state of things you described other than an empire-shifting media effort that would take financial investments on the scale of an entire small nation state?
If they're uninformed, how much can you actually inform them against the background? If they're uncaring, still, after everything, how can you make them care? If they're undecided, still, after everything, how will you get them to decide?
All the media except NBS is a "right wing grooming station"? Seriously? CNN? AP News? Reuters? Huffpo? They're all grooming people for the right wing?
I mean, I agree that the right wing is pumping out propaganda and trying to move the overton window, but I think you are seriously mistaken about where the media is at.
> What do you think a good faith person trying to persuade should do with this information? (Legit question...I've been wracking my brain about this)
I can tell you that but it depends on what you are trying to be convincing about. You seem to assume you have all the answers and persuasion is all that remains, but as I said, it depends, you might actually need to first figure out what's worthy of persuasion.
Legit answer . . . drop the snark. That's the quickest way to take the person you're trying to persuade and just piss them off and make them double down.
No one changes their mind because someone allegedly "destroyed" or "wrecked" them; that's toxic social media-driven nonsense. If anything, snark and condescension just entrench people's beliefs because "I'm right and that guy's just an arrogant asshole."
The conservative feeling of being punched down on exists because for the longest time, pop-culturally they were. Jon Stewart, John Oliver, and that whole crew play great to a certain educated liberal crowd, but it turns out people really really don't like being the butt of the pop culture jokes.
A good faith person who was also informed would be aware that this is basically a criticism of Romney-era neocon policies, and that agenda is no longer the animating force of the GOP (and was soundly defeated despite the wishes of the great and the good of the party establishment). In the far-right circles I frequent, the sentiment is, basically, "Triple, quadruple, quintuple the national debt, and crash the economy, if that's what it takes to halt immigration and have a country again, rather than an economic zone."
It was not free-market sentiment that propelled Trump to the WH.
Great point. I don't know that I'd say people want a crash, but that they are ambivalent to a crash as long as legal and illegal immigration are stopped and rolled back.
This is the challenge. I made similar remarks around the reversal of Roe.
On one side you have people throwing arguments that even they know to be a lie, like "post-birth abortions up to 1 month", and when I said "You know, I'm done engaging in good faith with that type of argument", I found many, even here, said that that was my failing, not theirs:
> It's not really a choice but a demonstration of intelligence and empathy. Still, if you deliberately decide to remain ignorant, or simply fail to understand the opposition's position even despite your best efforts, it shouldn't surprise you when you also fail to convince people your position is the correct one.
Like huh? It is okay for them to be objectively dishonest, and have zero shred of empathy, curiosity for my position, but refusing to engage on a good faith basis is a failing of mine?
> Once you reach this stage, your commentary pretty much just becomes elaborate whining, which makes a poor impression of yourself and actually pushes people away from your position.
This is literally idiocracy in the making.
If I make a poor impression on people by repeatedly shutting down their horseshit about doctors performing "abortions" up to a week or a month after birth, or that babies are being harvested in the basement of a pizza parlor for their adrenachrome, and you're more concerned about how I should be "understanding" of that perspective, again, you're also supporting the idiocracy.
"Swaying" doesn't happen abruptly in response to any one post, good or bad. It's a process and it takes time.
A critical mass of people in the middle have shown that they'll just get dragged by the Overton window wherever it goes. It does make a difference in the big picture whether bad policy is widely praised, mocked, or ignored.
It is a process, but this isn't an effective method. People have been mocking MAGA stuff since the beginning, the response from followers is universally one of either outright dismissal or just not caring. Look at where things are now. Look at how much the mocking has any beneficial effect at all on anything.
It's a passive process, there is no method. The zeitgeist is what it is. There's room for mockery, disgust, memes, cartoons, substantive analysis pieces, dispassionate think pieces. This is a comments section.
Calling attention to emerging actual MAGA policy failure is not the same as calling attention to pussy-grabbing being poor character.
Letting any of this become seen as normal/accepted is a non-starter. Even if things do continue to not change after this window of opportunity of bad results starting to emerge, there's room for things to get worse.
Non-acceptance of his first term did result in his electoral loss.
You need to wait 6-12 months for the potential employees to be desperate enough to debase themselves for less money. That's what we learned in 2008's crash.
The housing prices and the rents are extremely high right now. Everyone who bought in the last 3 years, doesn't have much room to work for a lower wages.
In addition to that health care will become more expensive, the student loans will resume, etc, etc.
Honest question: If you want environmental and labor regulations in America, how can you oppose tariffs? American businesses following those laws can't compete with countries using slave labor and toxic lakes of poison.
> If you want environmental and labor regulations in America, how can you oppose tariffs?
Environmental and labor regulations and domestic production are not the same thing. Plenty of domestic production uses slave labor and produces toxic lakes of poison.
https://archive.is/XOxSp
But wait, I thought the big selling point for massive permanent tax cuts for the ultra wealthy in the "One Big Beautiful Bill" is that they would directly lead to jobs creation...?
lol. lmao.
It may feel cathartic to talk about hypocrisy and grift of right wing politics, but you should know that nobody responds to it. Saying "I told you so" doesn't work, even through snark. The people whom it would benefit you (and me, and mostly also them) to sway aren't swayed by it.
What do you think a good faith person trying to persuade should do with this information?
(Legit question, not trying to throw out a gotcha. I've been wracking my brain about this, since I spiritually agree w/ you that throwing zingers aren't gonna help us all get on the same page, but I've been at a loss as to how to actually discuss these topics with people that seemed to have been taken in by...whatever it is that's going on.)
You're probably not going to find this satisfying, but, online? For sure nothing.
Even in person, I'm not sure that there really is a way to persuade someone to change their politics in the modern media landscape, even if you get a lot of time alone with them one on one in person and you do everything right, because of what we know about media inundation and how people begin from their gut feelings and then work backwards to retcon details that align with those feelings.
You will have conversations where it seems like you've made some kind of progress, where it seems like you've earned some kind of credibility, where it seems like you've gained some kind of ground, and then the next day they will regress because the new thing they just saw will confirm their original vibes and the interpositions you created will be pushed out of mind and forgotten.
And this will happen over and over because the world is psychotically overrun by messaging from media empires that make mindbogglingly large amounts of money from outright conning people.
So, unless you have a few anti-billionaire billionaire friends thinking of starting media empires in your pocket, possibly the one thing you can do is run for local government.
> You're probably not going to find this satisfying, but, online? For sure nothing.
Then why tone police the original poster? If these people are unconvinceable then why not enjoy the catharsis?
I presently view that kind of cathartic expression as worse than neutral and actively harmful. That's not the same as being able to change someone's mind, but it's also still bad.
There are definitely right wing talking points being shrouded as centrist or other fascism.
Like one thing that I see often are the "they deserve this right-wing grift". Like, there's a lot of people who quickly love to do victim blaming when there's now like one near left mainstream media (NBC) and the remainder are all some right wing grooming station.
There's definitely a center that needs to be reminded that they're currently surrounded by right wing propaganda and they're all trying to move the overton window.
You're right the far right is far gone, but the rest of civil society is still drifting, from apathy or misdirection or serious grift or be grifted realities.
Ok, let's imagine that I agree with what you just said...
Given your stated premise of the major media landscape being manipulative right-wing grooming stations hiding behind veneers of centrism and the unimaginable power that carries with it, what do you think can legitimately counter the state of things you described other than an empire-shifting media effort that would take financial investments on the scale of an entire small nation state?
If they're uninformed, how much can you actually inform them against the background? If they're uncaring, still, after everything, how can you make them care? If they're undecided, still, after everything, how will you get them to decide?
> how much can you actually inform them against the background?
Depends on who you is, in the sense of how many. You seem to be unaware of that choice.
How many of me does it take to reverse https://www.pewresearch.org/chart/sotnm-cable-newsroom-spend... or https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241107961040/en/New...
What's our message? What's our reach? Are we coordinated? Are we effective?
All the media except NBS is a "right wing grooming station"? Seriously? CNN? AP News? Reuters? Huffpo? They're all grooming people for the right wing?
I mean, I agree that the right wing is pumping out propaganda and trying to move the overton window, but I think you are seriously mistaken about where the media is at.
> All the media except NBS is a "right wing grooming station"? Seriously? CNN? AP News? Reuters? Huffpo?
Ever heard of "good cop, bad cop"? Look it up.
> What do you think a good faith person trying to persuade should do with this information? (Legit question...I've been wracking my brain about this)
I can tell you that but it depends on what you are trying to be convincing about. You seem to assume you have all the answers and persuasion is all that remains, but as I said, it depends, you might actually need to first figure out what's worthy of persuasion.
Legit answer . . . drop the snark. That's the quickest way to take the person you're trying to persuade and just piss them off and make them double down.
No one changes their mind because someone allegedly "destroyed" or "wrecked" them; that's toxic social media-driven nonsense. If anything, snark and condescension just entrench people's beliefs because "I'm right and that guy's just an arrogant asshole."
The conservative feeling of being punched down on exists because for the longest time, pop-culturally they were. Jon Stewart, John Oliver, and that whole crew play great to a certain educated liberal crowd, but it turns out people really really don't like being the butt of the pop culture jokes.
A good faith person who was also informed would be aware that this is basically a criticism of Romney-era neocon policies, and that agenda is no longer the animating force of the GOP (and was soundly defeated despite the wishes of the great and the good of the party establishment). In the far-right circles I frequent, the sentiment is, basically, "Triple, quadruple, quintuple the national debt, and crash the economy, if that's what it takes to halt immigration and have a country again, rather than an economic zone."
It was not free-market sentiment that propelled Trump to the WH.
Great point. I don't know that I'd say people want a crash, but that they are ambivalent to a crash as long as legal and illegal immigration are stopped and rolled back.
This is the challenge. I made similar remarks around the reversal of Roe.
On one side you have people throwing arguments that even they know to be a lie, like "post-birth abortions up to 1 month", and when I said "You know, I'm done engaging in good faith with that type of argument", I found many, even here, said that that was my failing, not theirs:
> It's not really a choice but a demonstration of intelligence and empathy. Still, if you deliberately decide to remain ignorant, or simply fail to understand the opposition's position even despite your best efforts, it shouldn't surprise you when you also fail to convince people your position is the correct one.
Like huh? It is okay for them to be objectively dishonest, and have zero shred of empathy, curiosity for my position, but refusing to engage on a good faith basis is a failing of mine?
> Once you reach this stage, your commentary pretty much just becomes elaborate whining, which makes a poor impression of yourself and actually pushes people away from your position.
This is literally idiocracy in the making.
If I make a poor impression on people by repeatedly shutting down their horseshit about doctors performing "abortions" up to a week or a month after birth, or that babies are being harvested in the basement of a pizza parlor for their adrenachrome, and you're more concerned about how I should be "understanding" of that perspective, again, you're also supporting the idiocracy.
Abortion is just murder of people who are not convenient to have around.
"Swaying" doesn't happen abruptly in response to any one post, good or bad. It's a process and it takes time.
A critical mass of people in the middle have shown that they'll just get dragged by the Overton window wherever it goes. It does make a difference in the big picture whether bad policy is widely praised, mocked, or ignored.
It is a process, but this isn't an effective method. People have been mocking MAGA stuff since the beginning, the response from followers is universally one of either outright dismissal or just not caring. Look at where things are now. Look at how much the mocking has any beneficial effect at all on anything.
It's a passive process, there is no method. The zeitgeist is what it is. There's room for mockery, disgust, memes, cartoons, substantive analysis pieces, dispassionate think pieces. This is a comments section.
Calling attention to emerging actual MAGA policy failure is not the same as calling attention to pussy-grabbing being poor character.
Letting any of this become seen as normal/accepted is a non-starter. Even if things do continue to not change after this window of opportunity of bad results starting to emerge, there's room for things to get worse.
Non-acceptance of his first term did result in his electoral loss.
Why assume the poster is trying to change anyone's opinion? Maybe the point was to be cathartic.
I find catharsis is better in private.
If GP’s point is to be cathartic, then do so on your own time, etc etc
I kind of figured the point here was discussion, learning, development.
Isn't it exhausting playing tone police all the time? Respond to the substance of the post or not at all.
Do you find it slightly ironic that here you are trying to police the way I engage? I do.
> Respond to the substance of the post or not at all.
You might find more success with your future interactions if you don't give commands that you have no authority to give.
You need to wait 6-12 months for the potential employees to be desperate enough to debase themselves for less money. That's what we learned in 2008's crash.
The housing prices and the rents are extremely high right now. Everyone who bought in the last 3 years, doesn't have much room to work for a lower wages.
In addition to that health care will become more expensive, the student loans will resume, etc, etc.