American political engagement is thoroughly atomized. Americans have no immediate political vehicles for their frustrations or ideals outside of things like charity, they have no ideological struggle into which they can plug in as community or a real participatory agent. Instead, they have media “discourse”, like TV, radio, podcasts, streamers, YouTube videos, where their role is as an observer slotting themselves into the chair of some pundit and seeing how far they can agree with or defend them. They do not curiously investigate and inform themselves on a topic, but they feel desperate to have an opinion so that they can “win” and be condescending to their “enemies”. Under this thought regime, "I don’t know " is a sign of weakness and means you aren’t political and don’t care and aren’t a good person.

It’s important to understand that, accorsingly, Americans’ political opinions are usually worthless, they are inconsistent propaganda premisesed on contrarian aggressiveness and dismissiveness with nothing below the surface to back it up. This is annoying but it is also fragile, so you, as a much cooler person that does know things, can have a lot of power over a conversation and can go in basically any direction that you would like to - so long as you practice keeping your cool (not that they deserve it, it is just a valuable tool).

For example, let’s say this is a friend or family member and you want to convince them. This is actually mostly about how much they like you and whether you can get them to listen to positive cases for what you advocate for. If you make them feel good for listening to you and get them to watch some videos or read a book or attend actions, you will probably eventually win, as in get them to adopt much better positions. They may need to process this information for some time and may come back to you to tell you about them as if they made these discoveries all on their own and without your help, lol. It can be useful to debunk some of the things they say, but without a displacing narrative they will probably not have a good way to resolve the cognitive dissonance this creates. For example, why support PSL? Well you can provide your own case of course, but I might say something like, “we need to advance socialist working class organizations to build a just alternative for humanity’s sake and this is one small and easy way to do so.” You can of course say why the two genocidal capitalist parties are inadequate, but this will lead to long and rambling discussions. And while doing so, you want a calm, patient, and friendly attitude where what you really want them to do is to read Blackshirts and Reds or something. You want to get to the point of making a specific ask because them understanding your perspective is important to you and it would be a supportive thing for them to do and you will read it with them. That kind of thing. Or get them to join a propaganda action. Move them towards personal connection and involvement. Obviously there is a caveat: if the person is abusive towards you disregard all advice and take care of yourself.

Or let’s say they are an acquaintance and you just want to shut them up. Well then you can be critical as shot. They will fall apart in seconds.

Guy on an electric bike asked if I would stop funding the genocide in Gaza so he would vote for me and I told him I’m not really “into stopping funding genocides right now” and he said “that’s cool” and let me rant about means-tested healthcare but when it was over he said “that’s what you’re missing” and scooted off into the distance

I truly think libs are beyond being redeemed, and that even goes for the more “progressive” types who appropriate the label of “democratic socialist” like Bernie and AOC.

I used to think they could be moved left – after all, many did – but at this point I no longer believe that. So many of the libs who “moved left” under Trump, at least that I know, are now ride or die for Kdolf Hitler. If they won’t grow a soul and reject liberalism because of genocide, they’re beyond rehabilitating and aren’t worth my time anymore. I’d rather engage with the politically unengaged than with the politically engaged liberal. The unengaged can be woken up to the truth, the engaged liberals see the truth and don’t care.

Not sure where you live, but if you don’t live in a swing state, you’re wasting your vote if you DON’T vote third party.

Matching public campaign funds are calculated nationally. If you’re in a solid red/blue state then you’re 100% wasting your vote on a major party, because they opt out of public funds, an your vote isn’t going to change a built-in 10% difference in the tally. But if you vote 3rd party, you’re voting into a national pool that could potentially get that 3rd party automatic ballot access and matching federal funds for campaigning.

So if you’re like the majority of us, in a state that doesn’t matter, then you can just levy the accusation right back at them and ask why they’re wasting their vote.

I stick by my guns. All she literally had to do was say she was going to stop sending bombs to Israel for their genocide and to acknowledge that trans rights need to be protected and that she would at the very least work towards passing legislation for those things. That’s all she needed to do and she’d have gotten my worthless red state vote.

ETA: Fuck Kamala Harris. ACAB.

“The only wasted vote is a vote for something you don’t believe in.”

I heard this from a libertarian but it’s still good to throw out.

im really enjoying telling libs that i voted for jill stein. it’s the only way i’ve been able to get them to call me comrade

Dems chose centrist Republicans with their policy agenda. Go focus your attention on them if you can’t muster up meaningful policy to appeal to leftists.

YOU MADE THE TRADE, DONT BE MAD YOU CANT HAVE BOTH!

I’d be #khive right now if Biden stopped providing Israel with weapons. Instead, you are losing my vote forever by excusing genocide. Good job 👍 Hope rehabilitating Dick Chaney was worth it!

I voted for Claudia. Wife wrote in Rashida. I wonder what leaving it blank does to them but voting for other things? (I left the senator blank Schiff doesn’t get my vote either)

I don’t even get a vote and I’ve had to listen to american liberals talk about how I am trying to destroy the country for months, tell these dweebs you’re voting PSL for me lol

imagine being such an entitled little baby that you think you deserve the opportunity to vote against genocide 😂😂

Death to America

WOOOOO VOTE PSL. DOES EVERYONE HAVE A PLAN TO VOTE??

It’s like these libs believe that Kamala [INSERT CURRENT DEM SLOP] is entitled to our vote.

Liberals: We have to save democracy!

Also liberals: But also you don’t get to choose who to vote for

It’s not “PSL or Kamala;” it’s “PSL or sit on my ass at home.”

A thing I thought recently is that the types who will outright harass you for not voting for Harris have the same logic as anti-adblock: give me stern warnings about how I’m violating site TOS, and force me to sit through the ads, but I’m still not going to click on the ads — that is after all why I was using an adblocker! So they’ve really just wasted their own bandwidth and my own time.

Alternatively, it’s the same logic as anti-piracy, where every pirated copy of something is seen as lost money, as if every single person who pirated something Would’ve bought the thing using “legal means” If Only all the pirate sites were taken down… And so they force me to go from one site to the next, as if with just enough pressure I actually would shell out wads of cash for My Shows instead of just finding other things to waste my time on.