Debating The Right Is Worthless In 2024

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#vaush #vaushpit

[dabbingtoast]

My best friend has a father who was a staunch Christian Nationalist die hard Republican for his entire life. You know what changed?

He lost his job and had no money left because he donated most of it to the church, got divorced, his health cratered causing him to be buried in medical debt, and he became what the Republican party hates in a disabled senior with a litany of medical issues who can’t contribute to society. *It took him 60+ years and his life falling apart to realize he’s been lied to his entire life.*

[theraven]

I’ve tried this till I was blue in the face. Debating MAGAts is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter how good you are, grand master good, all that pigeon will do is crap all over the board and strut around like it just won.

[beelzebublovers]

I got sucked into a half hour conversation about Palestine with the guy who fixes my car and he was mad that I “picked Palestine’s side” because he thinks they’re the bad guys. Like literally. I was like talking about how there are innocent civilians being hurt and not everyone in Palestine is Hamas and it was just not getting through to this guy. It was so disheartening. I really tried to be polite too and end the discussion cause we were never going to agree. I just wish he could empathize with people. Because Palestine is a whole country and we cannot just write off groups of people as being worthy of killing

[Downer]

When Texas was going around breaking up homeless encampments, I ended up having an argument with a coworker. He couldn't understand that they were just gonna camp somewhere else. You know. Because they're homeless. Then he started screaming why I didn't let them live in my house.

[LimeyLassen]

I think debating the right was a good move at that time and place. Like, we couldn't just cede the space to them. But there's no reason to keep doing it. They don't have new arguments, we've already heard all their arguments.

[henrychurch]

A wise man once said: You can't reason someone out of a position they haven't reasoned themselves into.

[angryscotsman]

I just had a frustrating conversation with an otherwise-likable coworker like this (he's Republican, but doesn't seem overly invested or interested in politics). I was reading an article on cultivated meat, and told him so, to which he responded, "oh, that's scary." When I asked him what was scary, he vaguely said, "well, they'll do something with the land, like build apartments." When I pressured him to explain why THAT was bad, he just completely dropped it and declared that "meat should be meat" (the fuck does that even mean? And of course, he never even tried to clarify). And, at that point, another coworker made a stupid joke and derailed the whole thing.

How do you argue with that? This guy, who's otherwise quite intelligent and likable, was completely opposed to having anything resembling a conversation about a subject. No curiosity, no attempt to actually explain his point of view, nothing. It was, and I hate to say it, like talking to an NPC. It drives me insane to see a guy who I know is smart and well-meaning be so stubbornly close-minded.

[squiddler]

I need to see a clip of that bit in the Obama video where Vaush asks chat what unity and "reaching across the isle" looks like when the other side wants to literally put people in camps and start the largest deportation project in human history. That was the best part of the video and it's sad that it's buried in like an hour of speeches about nothing

[jessec.]

The vaush 2019-2021 debate era was peak entertainment tho

[JadeoftheGlade]

1, 000%

IF they end up agreeing with you, it's just a day or two of their YouTube feed before they forget WHY they agreed, and just revert back to the party line.

[jj]

I’ve noticed this about online conservatives since the Harris switch. They don’t even attempt to make real policy arguments anymore (if they ever did). Now it’s purely slogans and meme one liners. Sometimes, they even give a reason to support him that is flatly contradicted by Trump’s own positions.

I never compare things to 1984 (because it’s so tacky) but this is the closest I’ve seen to it in real life.

[raghavpatel]

Debating the right became utterly useless when Trump started saying he won in 2020 before the results were finalized and kept lying over and over for months.

[AUG_XZABER]

I have the same problem with my brother. Whenever we have a debate surrounding politics he's never engaged in the conversation and never committing to the points he brings up. It is like talking to a brick wall.

He talks as an a-political outsider that doesn't think much about politics, but I'm sure he has dabbled in far-right circles, though I don't think it's for ideological reasons. After one of our "Debates" he messaged me tweets from The Hodgetwins and Matt Wallace trying to back up his claims. Like, does he even know who these people are?

[literallyaptat-qq]

You can't reason with people who are not motivated by reason

[Shogun]

I believe Mark Twain once said something like, "never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience." .... and especially since the election of Trump, we know these types of people are in ample supply.

[vilgotmillton]

I especially think debates online with people watching is mostly meaningless because no one wants to look weak in front of their audience, so it'll just become a brain-dead yelling competition to see who can "own" the other the fastest and hardest. The most successful and meaningful "debates" I've had have been in a closed setting, no one listening or watching. Because there's no longer any incentive to look strong or like you have the rhetorical and political high ground. People become much more susceptible to changing their minds in this environment

[NobleHereticLP]

Peace cannot be had when one side claims that the other's olive branches are clubs.

[theupson]

never be the only honest person in a negotiation.

[tonybenson]

Yesterday I literally told a guy old people dont think well, their cognitive ability declines around 65, then he called me old (i told him im not) and kept sending random gifs like he was trying to own a libtard or something... i spent 30 minutes getting research articles to prove my point and he responds with a "haha, bet you know bc you're old [insert gif]".

You cant even show empathy to these people- I tried that, too. They act like I'm insane and that troll behavior is a rational healthy thing to do.

[magnum]

I cam attest to this. A friend of mine (honestly it feels more like a former friend now) have had many conversations dating back to the 2020 campaign. This is just one example of a myriad I could lean on, but this one stands out to me. Back when AOC was calling for a marginal tax on high income earners, like very high, he sent me a message, furious that they wanted to tax him at rates as high as 70 or 80%. I must have explained to him on four or five different occasions how a marginal tax rate would not effect middle class incomes like he and I are, but no matter how many times I explained it, the next time we had a discussion he kept bringing up that BS claim about wanting to tax people at such high rates. His rhetoric towards me personally has become much more hostile in the last year or so. I think our friendship is over in practice, but neither of us have said so, at least not to one another.