How do you do it?
I stopped participating in a group chat with some long-time friends about a year ago, mostly due in part to the exhausting conversations over politics. Ironically, after Trump was shot, the group decided to silo the conversations into two groups, one for non-politics, and one for politics, and pinged me. We’re that kind of group where we go long periods of time not seeing each other in person due to life and kids, but it was nice to have them reach out.
But oh, that politics channel has not changed. Meanwhile, my worldview has shifted dramatically to the left of theirs (and beyond, really). The spectrum is:
- Center Leaning Republican (a Rogan, Pool, Peterson enjoyer),
- A Center leaning Dem
- A Vote Blue Democrat (they are also the only queer person in our group)
- A 3rd Party guy (basically a libertarian but refuses to adopt a label, and doesn’t vote, but also a Peterson enjoyer, rabid anticommunist, they always know a guy, or have a family member, you know what I mean).
- All white, all male
Something interesting happened when I returned, though. The topic that started this isn’t relevant, but it prompted the Center Dem friend to ask me where I get my views from. I sat on that question for an evening and then just wrote out a summary of the Marxist-Leninists view on capitalism and imperialism, without ever using “capitalism” or “imperialism”, without referencing Marx or Lenin.
It was long, but, his response was, basically, “Ok, that makes a lot of sense, actually.” I then told him that Marx and Lenin would be happy to know you agree because that’s their analysis in my own words, as I understand it.
Usually after bringing up someone like Marx, I’ll get dunked on with a barrage of anticommunist brainrot, but that didn’t happen this time.
So it got me thinking about the title of this post. How do you talk to your lib friends about their distorted world view?
Comrade, I bet collectively we could develop a play book like this, and it would be very effective and useful. I mean, even just now (before reading your comment) I engaged in a discussion with one of them on the virtues of the 3rd party, framing it around the idea that it’s simply “fringe capture” and an extension of the “Compatible Left” operations the CIA engages in, and instead of it blowing out into an argument, they just said “Yeah that’s fair honestly.” I had to do a lot of tailoring the message, make it about “People with your point of view” and not “People like you”, but it was a very civil discussion, one that has historically been rare. It was also useful because it defused a conversation that runs on a loop in our group about how “You could just vote 3rd party, you know!”. Drove a wedge right, straight through it.