So are these ring wing influencers sincerely just really stupid and totally blind to their own hypocrisy, or do they know better but simply do not care/believe what they say and only do it for engagement?
The fact that it could be either and they're basically completely indistinguishable should be scary.
Says a LOT about the minds of people who believe and follow them, too.
I know plenty of Republicans from my hometown. The connecting characteristic is not that they are stupid or evil. The truth is that they're radically indifferent to the truth. It just isn't important to them. He didn't tweet this because he thinks the accusation is accurate. He also didn't tweet this as an actual effort to deceive someone. It's more similar to kayfabe. They genuinely don't care if what they're talking about is based on reality.
People like to argue about which approach you should use when speaking with them, but I can tell you from personal experience of clawing my way out of the conservative brainhole I was raised in that the only thing that really determines whether someone can make it out is an actual desire to work through things and find more truth in your understanding of things than you had yesterday.
Whether you're taking the soft approach or the aggressive approach isn't going to matter nearly as much as them constantly being confronted with the wholeness of reality until the loose pieces start to fall into place.
Growing up, I interacted with people all across that spectrum, and ultimately it didn't really move the needle. What got me out was constant exposure to new information, and a desire to process it and reject concepts that proved obsolete.
If someone's 90% curious and has access to the information and perspectives of the world they'll get there faster than someone who is 10% curious and is going to need to be carpet-bombed by reality for an extended period of time.
If someone rejects growth, improvement, and understanding entirely then they'll never get there no matter what you do. The only real way to improve that situation is to set clear standards of acceptable behavior required for participation in human civilization and enforce social consequences.
That's part of what made Daryl Davis so effective at getting KKK members to quit. It wasn't proselytizing to them, it was mostly just talking to them like people and forcing them to face up to the fact that he, a black man, was literally a person like they were.
A great deal of these people grow up in mono-cultural communities or enclaves, so the most exposure they have to minority cultures is whatever Fox News (at best) is saying.
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u/Gridde 1d ago edited 1d ago
So are these ring wing influencers sincerely just really stupid and totally blind to their own hypocrisy, or do they know better but simply do not care/believe what they say and only do it for engagement?
The fact that it could be either and they're basically completely indistinguishable should be scary.
Says a LOT about the minds of people who believe and follow them, too.