The Unofficial Jobs Numbers Are in and It's Rough Out There

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.

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.

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.

> 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.

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.

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.

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.

I think you underestimate how wide the poverty gap is. There are still millions of people living comfortably.

I was thinking more along the lines of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labor_in_the_United_Stat... but yes, illegal hiring too (the employers know exactly what they're doing).