This would happen with my dad, years ago. We would spend hours talking about politics. I would convince him that we basically live in the Confederacy, that the Confederacy lost the battle but won the war (since slavery is still an important part of the American economy), and he would agree, and then the next time we spoke, within a few days, it would be as though our lengthy conversation had never taken place. He was back to “everything will be fine if we just get rid of Trump” mode.
These days I’m stuck for lengthy periods of time in the company of another lib. This one is younger and much more aggressive, but as usual liberalism just isn’t up for a fair debate with Marxism. I talked about slavery in the USA with this guy recently, and he told me that it’s not a big deal because the USA isn’t “explicitly” about slavery (???). After we had finished talking, I checked to make sure of something I suspected: the OG US constitution never mentions slaves. Even the 3/5 compromise only mentions “other persons” lol. It isn’t mentioned until the passage of the thirteenth amendment—when it creates, in a stroke, jim crow and the prison industrial complex. So actually, before the civil war, slavery was “implicit,” and after the civil war, it became “explicit”! I still managed to hit him with a “the purpose of a thing is what it does” and “we live in a genocidal slave empire” before we finished talking. And he just laughed. He has called my diatribes nihilistic and pessimistic. And I’m like…bro, I’m pessimistic about amerikkka, but optimistic about the world.
Interestingly enough, the Confederate constitution is word-for-word the same as the US constitution, except they threw in a few clauses about how slavery rules and no one should fuck with it. I haven’t broached the topic of politics with this lib since then because I’m worried that it’s going to cost me my job, but I just have the feeling that nearly everything I say to him doesn’t matter anyway, that he forgets every word within minutes of separating from me, and just goes back to thinking about white people music (the only kind he listens to) and how we need to get the orange orangutan out of the damn white house. He got pretty angry when he was talking about how goofy republicans are for voting for politicians who screw them…and I was like, dude, how are democrats any different?
Anyone else have this experience or know what I’m talking about? If liberals had any kind of self-introspection, they wouldn’t be liberals. The thing is, I can remember, when I was a liberal, being embarrassed on multiple occasions by people whose politics were further to the left than mine. Maybe I suppressed some of those memories, but a bunch of them still stuck in my conscious mind. Do they stick with liberals and do they just not talk about it, or was I just a confused Marxist all along?
I have found that being condescending and discriminatory gets liberals to take pause if they’ve dismissed your opinions as “woke”.
I hate ableist language, but the power of calling a condescending lib “r*tard” to their face is something that is hard to resist.
When your entire world view hinges on your intellectual supremacy (and even your genuinely superior level of education compared to conservatives), and your “realist” worldview compared to “idealistic woke communists” - having someone just straight up call you stupid - in a reactionary way - is hard for them to dismiss.
I do something similar but by being wordier. By genuinely coming across as intelligent and well-read but also insulting them at the same time the intellectual high ground they build their superiority on crumbles. They then start making demands about civility and rudeness in the conversation, I only reward people with civility when they open up to some level of intellectual curiosity and openness. Stick then carrot.
Does not always work, when it doesn’t work I just double down and hope to create such an uncomfortable interaction that they don’t do the same thing to the next communist they talk to. That way that person might have a better setup to get somewhere reasonable with them. None of our interactions happen in a vacuum, if an interaction isn’t working out you can at least set things up for the next communist on a luckier day.
Hmm yea. Maybe my problem is that I’ve practiced simpler speaking to try to communicate complex ideas to uneducated audiences.
The libs really don’t like my super simple reductions.
You don’t need to simplify for libs that have a belief in their intellectual superiority, you can tickle their “i want a discussion with a smart person” emotional response and then be rude and insulting until they mold themselves into a shape that’s easier to influence. They do this willingly if you press the right buttons because feeling intellectual is more important to them than anything else. Step one to achieving that is making them see a smart person in the first place then perforating your smartness with being rude to them for the bullshit they do/say until they adjust the way they are.
Finkelstein does this too but he does it in person directly to people’s faces which impresses me every single time because honestly you have to be really highly regarded by the other person for them to allow you to be rude to their face and still want to talk to him because they know how smart he is. It’s an impressive balancing act he pulls off.
I don’t want to break my habit and practice of simple-speaking for the sake of arguing with libs.