General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Wow, the Deplorables really don't like us [View all]Hortensis
(58,785 posts)THAT is how we fight this corruption of their minds. Appealing as an island is right now (my version is returning to California and seceding!), we have to rebuild and reunite America's broken center.
Not by running and abandoning our neighbors and coworkers to Infowars and Breitbart. We need to chat casually, and very courteously, about issues, about ourselves. They won't be able to believe all that hate trash about liberals if they know us. We need to share information that's not getting to them. All without a word of criticism about what we think are their views, and definitely no argument.
We can do it. The typical conservative is not nearly as far right as the wealthy extremists who are packing government with right-wing extremists who don't represent what people want. We have far more in common than than not. The great rift was created out of lies by enemies intent on dividing us.
So we do what we can to undo it. We can use news events as excuses to chat up our common ground and our lack of horns, to gently expose them to information from news sources they're avoiding, and definitely to let them know what they are in danger of losing. Like Social Security, the VA, the USPS, universal public education, etc.
Maybe join them in a little useful worrying about the future. Like, if Medicare is "privatized," who supports Grandma? And she's okay alone now, but will the day come when you have to quit your job to provide the 24/7 care she needs?
The lunch room is just one of the places in daily life where we can loosen the clutch of the likes of the Koch brothers and start reconnecting corrupted minds to reality.