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People do understand what the midterms are, right?
...Right?
Neither Trump nor Vance are up for election in 2026. But quite a few of their GOP cronies are, in the house and senate. All of the house is up for election and roughly one third of the senate. This will most likely be our last chance to oust at least some of Trump's enablers in congress.
I would also add that the presidents party almost always loses votes in the midterms. This is particularly true for republicans since 2016 because a lot of trump’s supporters only care about him and won’t bother to fill out a ballot without him on it.
I’ll sniff this copium until the midterms
Sorry to remind you that Republicans historically do better in the midterms because more of their voters show up regardless. That's one of the things the racist old fucks love to do with their copious amount of free time. Watch Fox News and head on down to the voting booths.
For many, it's likely the only thing they have to look forward to now that many of their families have abandoned them over this shit.
they also have gerrymandering benefiting them, plus thier districts dont face anymore form of voter suppression at all.
So, I'll argue with people on Nextdoor about things like ICE and trans issues when they come up. Over the last few weeks I've been talking directly with a woman from there, after a discussion about ICE. She identifies as conservative/libertarian, but to be fair she also voted for the incumbent Democrat in our congressional district so there legitimately was some wiggle room there, not just a MAGA claiming to be moderate.
Over the long course of our conversation, she seems to see the anti-Trump point of view a lot better and even changed her mind a little bit on some topics. I also accidentally triggered what I can best describe as an introspective crisis when I explained that I'm not entirely comfortable considering her a friend when she turns a blind eye to the harm Trump is causing others, including the diverse group of friends I have (it was a more detailed, gentle explanation but that was the gist of it)
Since this is ongoing and I've been kind of surprised at how it's gone, here's what I think has worked well...
Keep things friendly. I know that's hard to do, but if you come on too strong and angry, you'll just drive people away from you and firmer in their position
Stay on-topic to the things that matter most. Things like people being sent to CECOT without so much as a trial (disregarding multiple amendments in the bill of rights)
Stay factual. Be prepared to back up with sources, and offer to ahead of time. Be absolutely sure that everything you say is bulletproofly true. Avoid getting alarmist.
Pace yourself. I'd go hours just thinking about what was said and how best to respond. We agreed this was best so we didn't get distracted from our lives too much
Listen. I can't think of anything where I've really changed my mind, but it does give a way to frame your concerns ("I hear what you're saying about the influx of migrants. I'm not sure what the data shows there, but if you let the government bypass protocol they're basically incentivized to let the mess get so big they can take away rights and that doesn't sit well with me" or "I get that you want people to go through the legal process, but ICE is picking up people in court on their way to their check-ins. They're TRYING to keep things legal and are getting punished for it"). Sometimes I've circled back to things said earlier to make a connection (don't like CECOT happening? This is the kind of thing that got us there)
Are you saying deplatforming doesn't work & open discourse matters? Someone's got to break it to the purists here.
Both. Any time radicals get their own safe space, they use it to create an echo chamber. You need open dialogue and town square areas on the internet that have a good mix of people and quality, politically impartial moderation.
You can’t. So spend your time doing more worthwhile things like landing the undecided vote.
I think the undecided might be dumber than the Trump supporters at this point.
They’re a close 2nd.
Yes, the only thing worse than not being sure if you want to vote for the fascist is being sure you want to vote for the fascist.
Just get more people voting. Study after study on US politics proves that if voting percentages were higher, the GOP would probably never be back in power.
There's a reason they focus so much on removing voters from the rolls, removing voting locations, making it illegal to provide water to those waiting in line (because they only have a handful of locations after removing them all) and making it just generally harder to vote across the board.
You need an argument more compelling than "he fucks children". Good luck.
When talking to right-wingers, convince them both parties are the same and encourage 3rd-party voting
When talking to anyone left-of-center, encourage them to vote in elections, especially primaries
When you talk to right wingers, don't say "trump is a fascist", you need to water it down.
Talk about the issues that hurt them. Inflasion. Cost of living.
Don't bother trying to convince them to vote blue, it's gonna "trigger" their brainwashed programming and they will just ignore you. Focus on convincing that "Republicans are just as bad as Democrats!¹ Lets vote 3rd party!"
¹Cuz they view Democrats as "evil"... so you need to "code-switch" when trying to Psyop against them.
You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.
Brainstorming here but you have to factor in that right wing media exists to manipulate these people. To specifically fix it, a major part is reverse engineering right wing media and crashing it.
A) prevent chuck schumer from continuing to be in office. Fascist media needs a villain, wrestling needs a heel. remove the low hanging fruit and they start infighting because how could the new guy be responsible for old problems? The "deep state" mythology exists to explain why republican policies (tax cuts) don't produce results (prosperity).
B) make the new conservative fad to be off social media - camping or whatever it doesnt matter. Get them away from the echo chamber for five minutes and see if boredom without internet causes their brain cells to start working again. At the very least this would reduce the profitability of the media by reducing view counts.
C) People in tennessee are so pilled they thought they could vote against mamdani in the New York Mayoral election. Guerrilla education would be a funny way to combat the stupidity of MAGA. Its speculated that Trump is obsessed with greenland because he thinks its huge due to map distortion on mercator map projections. A way to show how dumb this is indirectly would be to give out free globes.
Edit: I should say it would be easier to win an election with somebody in office like Mamdani who has both charisma and good values. But since the question is specifically getting trumpers to not vote, the answers are what they are.
Its speculated that Trump is obsessed with greenland because he thinks its huge due to map distortion on mercator map projections. A way to show how dumb this is indirectly would be to give out free globes.
Tech bros pulling Stephen Miller's puppet strings want greenland's minerals.
Also just a side note, Greenland is roughly 3 times the size of texas. It's not exactly "small", even if mercator maps do make it look significantly larger than it is. (comparably to africa, lol.)
They could also fund mines there without attempting to turn it into a US territory. Imo if this was just about mines they would already have done it.
My guess would be the tech bros also want to use it as some kind of utopian bioshock style project, which is the only remotely plausible explanation for pushing it so hard.
You don't. They're beyond help.
If Trump starts costing the oligarchy money, they will discontinue support for republicans.
About 12 hours ago there was an article about eu tariffs on oligarchs. About 6 hours ago Trump chickened out of the Greenland thing.
Not saying there's a direct line between these two events, but its the people making billions off Trump who are keeping him in power.
it wont undo the damage what trump has done, and what the DNC ENABLED him to do. 8 Ds were chosen as sacrificial lambs by schumers since they arnt up for rele-election this year, to shield the other 13 dems that are.
If they choose to still vote for more of this madness and the obvious damage to themself economically and socially, they're clearly in denial and there's little you or I can do to change their mind.
It is tough to convince die-hard voters. Your best bet would be to convince the doubters. So make sure YOU vote, make sure as many people as possible make use of THEIR right to vote. Campaign door-to-door or donate money to your party: 1000$, or 100$ or 10$. If you don’t have cash, donate your time.
Convince them to stay home because the election is a foregone conclusion
the repugnicans have spent years gerrymandering and changing voter access, voting locations and other tactics to void peoples rights. You guys will be lucky if your vote counts at all. I fear the ‘formal’ part of the election is about 10% of the work. The rest is using Peter Theills surveillance system ( from Palantir ) to ensure only trump votes get counted. So the game is massively stacked against you.
This is wrong take. You need to get the idiots that didint vote against him to vote. The ppl that thinks dems are lesser evil and third party is worthless. The 20 mil that voted for biden in 2020 but wouldnt for harris in 2024.
Lord knows I tried but these ppl rather wait for the progressive messiah than vote for anything less.
Cute. You think they are going to hold midterms.
I feel that Trump and the Republicans all know that the upcoming midterms are going to be a bloodbath for them and they are going to do absolutely everything that they can to either stop the midterms from happening or use every tactic they can to ensure that they hold onto power one way or another. That isn’t really an answer to your question, but it is a strong feeling that I’ve been having for the last few months.
The more I look into trump the more I see someone with no introspection, incredibly low emotional intelligence and an extreme need for attention and acceptance. He is being profoundly primal in his goals but he goes to extreme lengths to preserve a way to them. This is why I completely agree with you. His goal is incredibly primitive: to keep being the center of attention. He knows he can't keep all his avenues open because he is losing "loyalty" and supporters; in government but also in his voting populus. His goal will never be to specifically kill Americans but he sure as hell doesn't mind risking their lives for other goals, and he will grip and claw to preserve as much power in government as he can, using basically every tactic under the sun.
At least that's what I expect from him and that perfectly lines up with your overall feeling. It fucking sucks to see what we're in for, but sometimes it's nice to see how predictable he can be and sometimes knowing what will happen is better than absolute chaos, even when what will happen is generally bad.
100% agreed! It’s still a long way until the midterms a lot can happen for the good and for the bad I try to be more optimistic, but that gets harder every day. If the midterms were this week, it would absolutely be a total wipeout for Trump and the Republicans, but November is still a long way away for them to play their games and to get even more wild and crazy. Another concern with the voters is you do hear that a lot of Trump voters are finally opening their eyes and realizing how bad and terrible of a person he is, but I do feel that most of these people who feel this way will inevitably get in line and vote for him regardless.
A gun.
You'll never convince diehard MAGA true believers. But it's worth recognizing that that's not all Trump voters, it's not even the majority of them. Swing voters can always swing back the other way.
You can really only talk to those who are on the fence and willing to listen. If they're not willing to listen, don't waste your breath.
For those who are willing to listen, start with why they voted for Trump to begin. Many voters in this country were struggling to make ends meet and didn't feel like the Biden administration was doing enough for them, so they were desperate for change. Trump preyed on that desperation, told them that it's all immigrants' fault, it's trans people's fault, it's woke's fault, it's whatever scapegoat he blames next's fault, so if you vote for him he'll own the libs to Make America Great Again. A lot of people voted for him because they felt unheard by establishment politicians and were desperate enough to believe a con man who sounded like the only person in the room actually speaking to their fears.
If they are willing to have the conversation, get to the root of those fears. Ask if Trump has actually made their lives better. Attempt to deprogram anything directed to the scapegoats he blames it on. Try to pivot to Democratic policies that actually can help in tangible ways.
But again, I cannot stress this enough, this can only get through to people who are open to listening in the first place. If you try to preach at people who are not, they will dig their heels in deeper. Pick your battles carefully, figure out who is worth talking to.
Well, 2026 is easy because neither of them will be on that ballot. That's why midterms are tough for incumbents, because there's less motivation for their party to turn out, but the aggrieved opposition are highly motivated to turn out as a referendum on the current administration.
2028, who knows ~~man~~. Anything can happen between now and then. I feel like if someone voted for Trump in 2020 or 2024 then they are terminally stupid.
That's not what you should be trying to do.
if you can convince democrats to vote, they will win because there are more of them.
Its the midterms. They're not on the ballot.
Oh I see the joke. Continue.
I'm not sure it's worth putting a ton of energy into trying to convince Trump voters. Many of them only come to their senses once they are personally affected by his policies.
There needs to be focus on turning out the majority of Americans who dislike Trump. That has to be done with exciting candidates who focus on our systemic problems and actually want to change things. There's no amount of window dressing and virtue signaling you can hang on corporatists to make people enthusiastic. They must want to vote for the candidate, not just find them more tolerable.
As Mamdami showed, all you need is to give people something to vote for rather than someone to vote against.
It's been over a decade.
These aren't confused people anymore.
They. Are. Traitors.
They are traitors who will do anything, up to and including electing a felon rapist insurrectionist who regularly violates the Constitution and sends a masked unaccountable secret police force to harass and murder Americans, in order to get what they want.
That's not confusion. That's malicious intent.
If you want to know how to make traitors stop being traitors. If you want to know how to make fascists stop being fascists. Well, I'm not totally sure I wouldn't get banned for the answer. I definitely would on Reddit.
Those of us who passed our history classes have been trying for a decade to get people to help vote us in the opposite direction of this. That didn't work. Now it's happening and there's no easy way out of this.