I’m dumbstruck as to what to do. The US is building literal concentration camps, and none of my co-workers care at all.
In fairness, I work in healthcare with an almost exclusively cishet white population who are financially well off.
Many of them espouse to be Christians, and no one cares at all that the American government is following the exact playbook from Nazi Germany.
What do you do? How do you make people care before it’s too late?
exclusively cishet white population
Red State? Then don’t bother, nobody would care.
Look up the specific area around your workplace and trump’s margin of victory, and you’ll see just how fucked it is.
Preaching in a red area is a waste of time, I’m telling ya.
Counterpoint, I grew up in a smallish town in Idaho and was still absolutely surrounded by Democrats. State wide, only sixty percent of the voting age population actually turned out, and of those one out of every three people voted against Trump.
Hell, Democrats outnumbered Republicans in some countries and again, this is fucking Idaho.
This means that if you talk to an a Idahoan at random, there is a more than fifty percent chance they either largely already agree with you, or they are largely insulated from and not paying attention to politics and thusly susceptible to being swayed with the right approach and concrete examples of what Trumps doing to fuck them and their friends over specifically.
Left wing ideas and policy are still far more popular among the general public, which is why Republicans have to lie about them constantly.
Look for your local anarchist bookstore, look at what your counties Democrats actually organized, especially things like local pride events, show up, and network/make friends.
As is fun to note, there are more Democrats living in Texas than New York state, so the idea you should just give up on finding any around you because you live in a red state instead of one where the numbers are reversed is honestly rather absurd.
I don’t do anything particular, I guess
I care, you care, and many of us here on lemmy care. We should work on how to coordinate ourselves together rather than try to change minds.
I’ve tried, a lot, to change minds. I started with the most difficult person, and recently a new hire at work is kinda centrist-left and I tried to convince him. No matter whether it’s a nazi you’re talking to (ahem… the first one) or a liberal, minds can only change themselves. They have to want it, you cannot hack their brain and override it.
I gave up, because even the people who are closest to me politically seem to move further to the right when faced with uncomfortable reality. They don’t engage with icky thoughts like “What if police killed an innocent man?”. They rationalize it to keep their comfort zone intact. “Well, if they just followed police instructions…” blissfully unaware of many cases like Daniel Shaver.
You point to an example that breaks their rationalization, and they will diminish it. “Oh that cop made a mistake”. Point to many examples and they suddenly got to go wash their hair. People’s psyche protects them from stress.
And that is the default mindset in this society. Avoidance of discomfort and inconvenience. Fear of the unknown. They want their life to be neat and happy and to all make sense. They don’t appreciate it when someone tries to take that away from them.
Do you think there’s something about people like us that makes us more accepting of challenging our own worldviews? I have some thoughts but I’ve written enough.
I think people tend to have a very narrow view of what goes on around them. And frankly, I don’t think that’s really a bad thing. Everyone does it. It’s just a fact of life. But we have to account for it. Talking about big-picture issues doesn’t work when people are focused their narrow view of the world. Even if they agree with the issue, they won’t be riled up and take action. I think there’s 2 takeaways to this:
First, regarding talking to the people around you: narrow your focus. Focus on things that affect them directly, or frame things in a way such that they interpret it in a way that affects them. Don’t talk about concentration camps, talk about Trump retroactively rescinding birthright citizenship and how that might affect their lives (especially effective if that person happens to be an ethnic minority or is in a relationship with one). When talking about anti-immigration policies, focus on ICE arresting American citizens because they didn’t look American enough. You don’t have to convince people of everything, you just have to convince people of enough that they feel personally concerned.
Second, regarding yourself: it’s easy to think that all Americans are similar to the people that you’re with. Society is a bell curve. You don’t need to shift the entire bell curve to the left to exact change. You just need to stretch it out leftward - pull the left leaning people more to the left. Trump didn’t win by convincing leftists to be right-leaning, he won by convincing the right-leaning moderates into shifting right. Consider the audience and pick arguments that would be most effective against that particular audience. Be more direct toward more left-leaning people. Republican? Sow seeds of suspicion toward Trump. Moderate? Make them fear for their way of life. Left-leaning moderate? Maybe we should punish the rich. Leftist? Hell yeah socialism baby
When I meet someone who doesn’t care, I work twice as hard to fix things.
Really? And what happens?
lmao are you trying to talk me out of working to help you?
No, I’m asking what happens when you work twice as hard to fix things.
when you turn 18 you will be grateful there are people like me out there covering your lazy ass lmao
Dude I’m a lot older than 18, I’ve asked you several times what you meant about “fixing” things. Apparently that was just BS, so whatever.
doubt.jpg
I sometimes wonder is Trump does a lot of crazy sounding shit to make people who speak against him sound insane.
Have you ever wondered how people reacted to the original Nazis in the 1930s? Well… now you know. If can feel proud of something, it is at least I am extremely against it and the whole ‘what would you have done?’ is basically answered definitively for me.
I think there’s a mixture of not believing Hitler-level nazi shit is happening until actual gas chambers are running, and a what can one person do anyway. Frankly, I had high hopes of Trump being soundly defeated and that it would be the turning point in the collapse of MAGA. But since not enough people could be bothered to vote against him, I honestly believe his long-overdue final Big Mac Attack is the only thing that will stop MAGA. Without him as a figurehead the self-centered opportunists running it will tear it apart as they claw at each other to get on top. Until then we just have to hang on.
Hitler also didn’t happen overnight. We all look back in history and many ask “how could they not know what was happening” and “how could they not stop him”. It’s all happening in real time, and nobody gives a shit as long as they are not the danger group being put in the gas chambers.
It will only stop when millions are death in a decade or more. If it ever stops. Hitler didn’t have the strongest military in the world and nuclear weapons to use willy nilly.
The only thing one person can do is get armed, get trained, and get ready.
I’d add “get organized” to that list but you’re on the money otherwise
Okay Rambo, have fun stormin’ da kessel.
In many ways he’s a unique figure. When he entered the political scene in his first campaign. The establishment republicans and conservatives didn’t appear to think he’d really become a serious force. They were wrong. His ideological opponents also seemed to think he was too silly, and too extreme to be taken seriously and his domination of the right, albeit surprising, was anomalous and would never translate to electoral victory. They were also wrong. He seemed not to know how to play the game properly and was too foolish even to realise it. He probably wouldn’t have been the first whack job to fail to heed his advisors and PR team and would surely fail like all of them. Viewed in that light his somehow successful manoeuvres could seem only baffling than inspired, like watching someone win at roulette by just always betting one colour. This gives his rising successes a spooky and uncanny air and not something his rivals or opponents could simply emulate themselves because when a normal person does this they just lose.
If he’d had that final Big Mac attack in 2015 or maybe even as late as 2016, his brand of politics and the movement it seems to have inspired might have died with him but sadly it looks like now, plenty of proteges will be there to pick up the reigns. For all that can be said of the man, it appears he tapped in to and unleashed something that was waiting for its time and it’s unlikely even his death will put that genie back in its bottle. The next in line might be a shrewd and clever cynic, who’s studied the MAGA playbook and will exploit it to the hilt to grasp power for their own ends with no belief in the irrational or fantastical elements of this new orthodoxy. It might be an actual true believer, straight from the ranks of the deranged and mentally disturbed that Trump previously manipulated, now believing they’re seeing the many real and imagined prophecies Trump used to rile them coming true. Maybe it’ll be something in between, someone more like Trump himself with what seems to be more of an instinctive knack for playing these emboldened fanatics rather than a geniusly thought out strategy, they’ll sometimes believe what they’re saying sometimes not, a value system infinitely malleable, but reliably selfish. Either way Trump being dead will be a relief for little more than a day and after that you can either look forward to an heir apparent who’ll keep it all going or a dangerous power struggle between dangerous people happy to expend lives and treasure to pick up the mantle.
I heard something on a radio show during Covid on how to talk to people who have “gone down the rabbit hole”. It was discussing MAGA as a cult. The guest on the show was a woman who was raised in a cult in the 70’s and she “got out” and spent her time talking with others in the cult to help them to break free. I can’t find a reference to the show, but I think it was Carrie Miller hosting.
My takeaway was that you can’t come at people and tell them that everything they know is wrong and you will show them the way. They’ll fight you. You need to deprogram them similarly to how they were programmed into the cult. Small bits, here and there to slowly guide them to questioning their beliefs. Once that happens, show them how to research and seek out information and let them know that they will be safe.
If someone found a link to the podcast/radio show, I’d be super happy.
This is as inspiring as it is terrifying.
Great comment. Trump won and the amount of people here throwing the Nazi word around still don’t realise how self defeating they are.
You can’t tell someone their an idiot or evil and then expect them to see things your way, you’re much more likely to end up entrenching their beliefs. The goal should be to win them over, not to tell them how wrong and stupid they are.
Engage, don’t alienate, no matter how hard that feels at times.
Trump won and the amount of people here throwing the Nazi word around still don’t realise how self defeating they are.
Sometimes you have to call Nazis Nazis. And people who support Nazis are Nazis. And sometimes you can’t deprogram a Nazi.
These aren’t victims. They’re intentionally malicious people.
I have the urge to help victims. I have another urge entirely in regards to Nazis.
The moderate right provide a platform for the far right but I don’t think that makes them default Nazi’s.
Besides that, I’m not suggesting that you can always deprogram a Nazi, but you can absolutely target the moderate right swing voters who may not take kindly to being called a Nazi.
Honestly, your point of view is no better than the “all Muslims are terrorists” mantra and people like you will sleep walk us in to another four years of Republican rule.
Yeah and especially when they created a system that doesn’t even allow you to really vote for somebody who you believe in.
The US is a timebomb which is going to explode.
They’re*
The thing is, a lot of these people are literally Nazis, and I’m starting to wonder if it was “people saying Nazi too much” or it was actually “there was a fuckton of Nazis and no one took people saying that seriously and now there’s Nazis around and people are blaming the folks who were warning others about the Nazis for not seeing Nazis soon enough”
Since we’re not in a .world comm, there were just a lot of fucking Nazis. The US has always been significantly further right wing than it’s contemporary nations, at least since the 1800s, but since the 1920s it basically accelerated to light speed. Every minor progressive victory was a half century or more after other countries, and immediately hated by more than half the country; hence why so many rights in the US are tenuous scotus decisions and not laws.
The rest of the world after the 1950s has viewed you guys as the next Nazis. Hell even in WW2 you were only the good guys by comparison, and even then the Soviets were the protagonists of that era with all their flaws.
Only very recently and only in aesthetics has the US really made any strides, and because you chose aesthetics over legislation that progress was easy to destroy. You had a far right wing black president people called progressive because of the color of his skin, you ‘legalized’ gay marriage without legislation, you had all other companies doing rainbow capitalism to show how open and progressive your society was, despite having the highest wealth inequality in the world – and that’s no easy feat, North Korea exists.
The fall of the US to fascism was inevitable, because both the ruling class and the majority populous has always fully supported fascism, they just hate the aesthetics.
The US was doomed from the start, it might have been better to let every state be it’s own country. We would probably see some wars with the more extreme places/states of the country.
Something I’ve had to accept over the course of my life is that the vast majority of humans will passively accept anything as long as they feel like there’s something they can do to not be killed. Only when it feels out of control whether they might be killed will the majority of people feel the need to act and no sooner. There has never been any changing this. Fortunately the vast majority of people are not needed to affect positive change. People who care need to set the tone and followers will follow as they do. Your efforts would be better served among people actively resisting or building structures that benefit people.
In the case of my mother, I instituted a no-politics rule in 2020. However, as of last week, I’m sending her accusatory emails about the various articles of his fucked up actions. I’ve decided that she is partially a bad person for having full info about who and what he is and chose not to know. I’m very angry and she’s going to keep hearing about it. The relationship might be over.
I know that doesn’t help your situation. I just needed to vent. As noted, I’m very angry. With her in particular. For choosing this again.
The Nazis started under MUCH different circumstances. Also constantly comparing everyone and everything to “Nazis” makes you sound hysterical.
How were the circumstances “MUCH different”? Do you think the Nazis happened overnight? Are you not aware of who they targeted first (trans people)?
Read about the Weimar government, the economic crash, the street battles and the Freikorps, etc. Btw they targeted Jews and Communists first.
People talking about people about concentration camps after Democrats have supported a genocide campaign in a concentration camp for more than a year.
You can tell OP does not believe any person outside of America is human.
I have just creeped this womans ENTIRE POST HISTORY back to the beginning and there is not SHIT to support this narrative you awful fucking little goblin. She has posted NOTHING that I saw even vaguely political (at a skim) to suggest she vocally supported the excesses of the IDF, sick inadequacy of the Biden administration, or anything except generic girl stuff. What the FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU. I am more of a regime whore than she is. Get a fucking grip .mls.
The fucks that left unity you assholes use to browbeat anarchists with?
To be frank I know this is a bad faith poster so I don’t value them or anything they have to say in response. This is what blocklists are for. I am pointing this dog shit out for the rest of you. WHAT IS THIS? Because it looks purposelessly cynical and divisive for the sake of keeping people down and tired. Almost state-actor like, if I may be so bold.
I did not check their post history.
I simply read the post and concluded if this is the point OP starts caring about concentration camps they have either been tuned out for the past 1.5 years or they need to rethink a lot of things.
I did not check their post history. I simply read the post and concluded if this is the point OP starts…
This is incredibly presumptuous reasoning in any context. Maybe be a little more careful throwing around accusations of genocide approval, eh, jackass? You don’t know them.
Amen.
You can tell OP does not believe any person outside of America is human.
You did a lot more than conclude they have either been tuned out or need to re-think some things, and you know it.
Get out of here with that "If you’re not vocally against every evil at all times… " bullshit. It’s got the same energy as injecting “but what about men?” into every conversation about women’s problems.
No. This is pointing out that there have been concentration camps and extermination for a year and a half and people have not cared for a year and a half.
Weird point to start noticing that people do not care.
You do understand that it’s possible to oppose genocide on principle wherever it happens and to still be able think it’s alarming when it escalates further, right?
You are entirely missing the point.
Being surprised the average American is fully on board with concentration camps and genocide should not come as a surprise anymore.
Not everything works out in life.
Perhaps you can find inspiration from Daryl Davis, who convinced 200 Klansmen to give up their robes.
