For context, we’re both past the 30-year mark, with myself in my mids and him pushing 40. We’ve known each other from Uni, have been best friends since, and the entire thing pretty much turned into a siblinghood, with his family sort of “adopting” me (I’m perpetually invited to all of their family events and gatherings, his parents love having me around, etc.) We’ve been there for eachother through some of our worst times, and we got along really well.
That is, until the Pandemic hit. This has been going on for a while now, but it started getting more pronounced during the Pandemic, when he went from sharing edgy memes to expressing belief in the principles behind those memes (think “I identify as an attack helicopter,” “immigrants are exclusively to blame for the downfall of countries,” 4chan type jokes about minorities, etc.).
On my end, I tried to discuss these things with him at first, trying to get a sense of why he was doubling down on these things, and the closest I could come to understand it is that it’s a relatively irrational fear, fuelled by his tendency to not really explore the veracity of the news he reads - as an example related to his transphobia, it’s like he refuses to accept that sex and gender are not inextricably linked to one another, not on a logical basis, but on a “I feel this is incorrect” basis.
Things got pretty tense back in 2022, when I felt the need to call a time off on our friendship for almost an entire year. I just couldn’t play it cool when he randomly blurted out something profoundly inconsiderate and devoid of empathy. Conversations turned from heated debates to outright arguments, I could tell that the gap was widening with every subsequent one, and his beliefs seemed to solidify.
We reconciled in 2023 after his wife reached out to me expressing regret that we would lose the friendship over “politics,” tried to get back to acting normally around one another, yet the same issues popped up again. This time, with even less empathy. The most recent example was when we both learnt that Trump got elected president again. I expressed a sense of empathy and regret for all of the people who would no longer be allowed to get abortions, the risk he posed to HRT beneficiaries, the danger he posed to all minorities, etc. The only thing he could come up with is “I feel nothing, they deserve it. Did it to themselves.” I called him out on his utter lack of empathy, we had a brief, but poignant argument, and now we’ve barely been talking for two weeks. He periodically drops a message like nothing happened, but I am beyond hesitant to reply. Everything is cold and superficial.
Now, I tried to understand him and his situation… He’s a relatively fresh father (his daughter is 2 years old), he is aware of the fact that the world isn’t doing too well, but seems to be in denial about it which I sort of understand as being a method of self-protection, but I just cannot abide by his views anymore. No amount of panic or self-defence justifies this in my opinion.
I just don’t know what to do. I mean, I do know, or at least my subconscious does, but… I don’t know, guess the age and depth of our friendship makes me hesitant to drop it, although this is just the sunk cost fallacy at play… The fact that I feel I’m past my socialite days and knowing that I probably won’t make any more friends any time soon doesn’t much help, either.
Guess I’m just looking for confirmation around what I already know is the only option…
I do hate to send traffic back to reddit, but there’s a support group back there called r/foxbrain that we don’t have the equivalent of. They can help you out more if you need, this is specifically what they’re for.
Credit to u/ThatDanGuy over there for the following. This is more about people that specifically love Trump, but the conversational techniques can be applied more universally:
Let me give my two strategies:
My current favorite approach is to be as simple and vague as possible. “I don’t trust the guy.” Repeat every time someone says anything about him or any other nutcase. Like a broken record. It gives them no where to go. If they do go into meltdown just cross your arms and repeat it.
Do NOT argue. Do not reason with them. Do not give them anything but those few words. It gives them no place to go. And it does put them in a bind. They and their dear leader will have to bear the responsibility of anything and everything that goes wrong. You bear no burden of proof or responsibly. Their guy won, so you need not defend any of your positions.
This avoids the problem of having to spend time arguing. And if you were to make a prediction, it won’t be proven until it comes true. What if something happens that mitigates your prediction? For example, if Trump only deports a few people, but makes a really big show of it. His voters will be convinced he did what he said he would (he didn’t in our scenario, but they won’t believe that) and then they will gloat over their false reality. So don’t give them anything they can win. Give them nothing.
2.: The Socratic Method.
This can be used defensively during a single encounter. It can be used to shut them up. However, it is intended more of an every time you have to talk to this person approach. Still, it may give you some tools you can use during one off encounters.
First, Rules of Engagement: Evidence and Facts don’t matter, reasoning is useless. You no longer live in a shared reality with this person. You can try to build one by asking strategic questions about their reality. You also use those questions to poke holes in it. You never make claims or give counter arguments. You need to keep the burden of proof on them. They should be doing all the talking, you should be doing none.
You can use ChatGPT or an LLM of your choice to help you come up with Socratic questions. When asking ChatGPT, give it some context and tell it you want Socratic questions you can use to help persuade a person.
The stolen election is an easy one for this. There is no evidence, and they will have no evidence to site but wild claims from Giuliani, Powell and the Pillow guy. Trump and his lawyer lost EVERY court case, and when judges asked for evidence, Giuliani and Powell would admit in court that there was NO evidence.
So, here is my interaction with ChatGPT on the stolen election topic, you can take it deeper than this if you like.
https://chatgpt.com/share/377c8a82-e6e0-4697-a9ae-a0162aa36061
A trick you can use is to ask them how certain they are of their belief in this topic is before you start down the Socratic method. On a scale of 1 to 10, how confident are you that the election was stolen and there was irrefutable evidence that showed that? And ask the question again after you’ve stumped them. Making them admit you planted doubt quantifies it for themselves. And if they still give you a 10 afterwards it tells you how unreachable they may be.
Things to keep in mind:
You are not going to change their minds. Not in any quick measurable time frame. In fact, it may never happen. The best you can hope for is to plant seeds of doubt that might germinate and grow over time. Instead, your realistic goal is to get them to shut up about this shit when you are around. People don’t like feeling inarticulate or embarrassed about something they believe in. So they’ll stop spouting it.
The Gish Gallop. They may try to swamp you with nonsense, and rattle off a bunch of unrelated “facts” or narratives that they claim proves their point. You have to shut this down. “How does this (choose the first one that doesn’t) relate to the elections?” Or you can just say “I don’t get it, how does that relate?” You may have to simply tell them it doesn’t relate and you want to get back to the original question that triggered the Gallop.
“Do your own research” is something you will hear when they get stumped. Again, this is them admitting they don’t know. So you can respond with “If you’re smarter than me on this topic and you don’t know, how can I reach the same conclusion you have? I need you to walk me through it because I can’t find anything that supports your conclusion.”
Yelling/screaming/meltdown: “I see you are upset, I think we should drop this for now, let everyone calm down.” This whole technique really only works if they can keep their cool. If they go into meltdown just disengage. Causing a meltdown can be satisfying, and might keep them from talking about this shit around you in the future, but is otherwise counterproductive.
This technique requires repeated use and practice. You may struggle the first time you try it because you aren’t sure what to ask and how they will respond. It’s OK, you can disengage with a “OK, you’ve given me something to think about. I’m sure I’ll have more questions in the future.”
Good luck, and Happy Critical Thinking!
Bonus: This book was actually written by a conservative many years ago, but the technique and details here work both ways and are way more in depth than what I have above. It only really lacks my recommendation to use ChatGPT or similar LLM.
How to Have Impossible Conversations: A Very Practical Guide
https://a.co/d/bqW9RPN
edit because I got the DanGuy’s name wrong.
Oh, wow, thank you so much! I’ll do a deep dive into this, but I stopped holding out hope for any form of change about a year ago…
I won’t make this my primary focus, though, I’ve wasted enough of my mental health on people I believed I could “fix.”