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cm0002 @lemmy.world

Has anybody here actually succeeded in getting an online conservative/right-winger to reflect and legitimately and long term shift their views left?

As in, not known to you IRL.

I've occasionally brought it up before, but a while back in my reddit days I was in a thread where a "professional deprogrammer" had popped in and was talking about how to "deprogram" conservatives and get them to shift left in their views. It centered around restoring their sense of community and belonging with more balanced viewpoint folks IRL and away from their online echo chambers.

I asked them if they had any way to convert someone you encounter wholly online and they said that it was basically impossible, IRL you have a decent chance, but not online.

I've been thinking about that quite a bit, so now I'm curious if anybody here has actually gotten an online conservative to come to the dark side light side?

135 comments

  • I'm getting there with my coworker although I wouldn't quite call her conservative; she voted for the NDP in Canada where we live as we are both union members and that's who we vote for, but she loves Trump, but in this crumbling hellscape of the last few months and the tariffs he's hollering on about on Canada, she doesn't like that because she can't cross border shop. She says he's gone rather loony although she still likes him.

    However, she isn't stupid, and she watches all sorts of news from all over and doesn't just blindly believe in the cult. The last few days I have explained dark money to her, and how it fuels elections in the US for both parties and how basically the Koch brothers and all the Tanton network groups fund Trump. I gave her some articles to read, and she's starting to get it. I didn't put it from the perspective of hating trump, just that she should know how these things are funded for everyone (the Democrats are no stranger to dark money either and just because the groups they funnel it in under sound sunnier and less racist doesn't make them any less sketchy), and how the political landscape is manipulated that way. I am finding she's listening to this, and coming away with a better perspective, rather than trying to explain why he's totally wrong. Dark money is a topic I recommend to everyone to learn about, because these elections in the US are being bought by dark money.

  • I think contrapoints on YouTube 100% convinced me there is nothing strange or weird about trans people. They are just people and the way society treats them is wrong and we need to change that.

    Not to say I hated trans people before but I didn't know much about it and Natalie did a thorough job explaining in a way that was easy to understand.

  • Yes, and this is generally how it works:

    1. Establish that you care about their perspective, and truly mean it. Most people can sniff out insincerity.
    2. Start asking good faith questions about their position. If their beliefs are misguided, they will begin stumbling upon the flaws on their own. It’s okay to guide them gently with the questions, but don’t try to convince of them of any particular viewpoint, and don’t tell them they are wrong either directly or indirectly. That can undo any progress you made. Just focus on encouraging them to deeply analyze logic that you recognize to be flawed.
    3. Only offer your perspective / opinions if you are asked directly. If you’ve done #1 and #2 well, this should start happening. I recommend understating your opinions. You don’t have to lie, but keep rants to a minimum and use soft language.
    4. Be consistent. No one changes their world view overnight. It takes planting seeds, watering them consistently, and waiting.

    P.S. If you are doing this correctly and with an open mind, there’s actually a good chance you might change your opinions on a some things, and that’s okay (as long as they aren’t harmful). It also can show them by example that opinions are flexible and should be based on evidence, not the other way around.

  • I was raised Right. Change is a long series of events that no one person or interaction triggers. Dogma is only truly changed from within.

    • I grew up believing 9/11 was an inside job and the planes were military cargo ones with missile pods and the purpose was an auto-coup and also a heist of the gold bullion stored in the towers basement, vaccines caused autism and a range of other diseases, and I voted for Clive Palmer (Australia's cheap dollar-store knockoff of Trump).

      The turning point for me was getting off 4chan (I went via 99chan which became a nazi site before dying which is not great) , talking to more people besides just my mother and Aunt, and somehow stopping being a contrarian shitgibbon by losing the belief that all politics is irredeemably corrupt and a vote for Clive was a vote for chaos, respectively. I THINK I was looking for a world that was more interesting and made more sense than this one.

      Ironically I started my internet life on &TOTSE, which is about as left as Lemmy, but there, I was an antisocial lying troll. Now I am not antisocial anymore.

      I still believe that the moon is hollow and inhabited by ancient inbred families of cannibal Reptilians who aim to repopulate the earth but don't have the means to return, but that's fairly harmless IMO.

      • You've still got time.

        I was in Geometry class when 9/11 happened. The day stopped. The news was turned on in class a few minutes before the second plane struck. I watched it in real time. I had been in those towers 6 months before too...

        About the worst rabbit holes for me were giving any audience to perpetual motion trolls, and Brown's gas nonsense in car stuff.

        Everyone tries to simplify messy complexity and we are all tribal in scope. I've learned to only pay attention to people with academic credentials. I don't watch translated nonsense from general news outlets. The information I pick up elsewhere is more collectivised where I expect to see a bunch of people talking about something from different angles before I view the information as relevant. I also do not care for any outlets claiming to bridge some divided narrative as these are controlling where the line in the sand is drawn. If two parties are Right and Right-Jihadists like in the USA, calling one party Left is manipulating by validating the status quo and outdated perspective.

        What changed me started with stratification of rock layers and realizing deep time was not compatible with my religious narrative. I encountered a sharp personal dislike for biases and prejudice against others without logic or reason. I encountered a lot of plausible seeming arguments, but ultimately the people making those arguments had nothing to offer; they are trolls with no depth, interests, personality, community, richness in life. Look at such a person's profile and they are not real. There is no greater engagement or value they add to the world. All they do is make arguments that muddle political narratives. I learned to view these people as either getting paid to post or idiots. I care about real people and that means your politics should only ever be a small part of your person and profile. Any person that lacks a serious passion project and hobby(s) but posts their politics is a joke to me.

        In a way, I extend this to any group now. Like do people in your group include Nobel laureates that contribute significantly to the advancement of humanity. Because if they don't, why bother wasting time with fools that lack top aspirations. Live life with no excuses. Excuses are for fools. Do the best you can with the cards you're dealt in life.

  • My "deprogramming," was more a series of small hints I was on the wrong path.

    At first, people who tried arguing pushed me further toward the right. They came at me from inciting angles, making up facts to support their arguments. Yeah, the left bullshits too, and if you believe everything that supports your point of view without question - you're not that different from the people you hate.

    I remember someone asking me to a Fahrenheit 9/11 showing at university, called me a Bush supporter when I wouldn't go. I wasn't, I just didn't like Michael Moore. Still don't for the above reasons.

    Looking back, I could have gracefully immersed myself in other viewpoints if it weren't for the constant needling of wannabe academics and the automatic disdain they had for my views. I was attacked for even bringing up points because I was questioning myself. Honestly, I get why conservatives hate academia.

    I will say some arguments stuck, though. Statements that sounded like complete nonsense in the moment make sense to me now, years later. It's not wasted breath to share your views with someone, they'll remember.

    Regardless, I was still wrong and it wasn't other people's responsibility to educate me. I did that through meeting good, patient and understanding friends, actively trying to dismantle my biases, and through therapy. Oh, and some pretty intense acid trips. That shit will fast track you to a feeling of oneness with your community real quick.

  • No, because nobody is actually about discussions anymore. They want to be right. I've sat down and talked to plenty of right wingers, after and before all this crazy shit pushed everyone into tribalism, and it was mostly that we agreed on what was good but disagreed how to get there. I miss those times. Now it doesnt seem theres any middle ground to build on.

  • My family including my parents moved from rural conservative to progressive left (probably somewhere around Social Democrat).

    I've spent A LOT of time trying to truly reach out to conservatives, Trump supporters, from this angle. It requires a lot of time, but know two key things:

    1. All you can do is plant seeds for neurons to grow. Belief structures get locked in like worn paths through a jungle, and so carving new ways requires an immense amount of time. You'll never see the fruits of your labor yourself — both because the vast majority of people have an ego they protect at all cost, and because by the time something "clicks" and new neural paths build, you'll be long gone.
    2. Always recognize that your target audience is not the individual, themselves, necessarily, but the onlookers to the discussion. Always hold the high road. Always be courteous and let them throw the first punches. You'll have a much easier task convincing the fence-sitters whose egos aren't directly on the line as a direct participant in the conversation.

    You can increase the probability you'll reach these people by ending the conversation on a cordial note once you realize arguments are starting to become circular. You also know you made some decent ground if they just ghost the conversation or delete their entire comment chain without warning. You pierced their ego; they feel embarrassed. You've given them food for thought. Try to also frame how you got out of the echo-chamber so it's not necessarily an attack on them, but an example of growth on yourself.

    It's a thankless task, the victories you'll never see until we see it on a statistical level. The problem is that it's a competition for who commands their attention the most, and you'll never compete with Twitter, Fox News. You just have to hope they have that eureka moment, combined with perhaps a direct run-in with the fascism you warn about.

  • You have two options:

    1. Insist upon yourself, with presentable and short facts hard to deny
    2. Argue from their perspective and draw their ire towards the party they (used to) support with their own morals

    People change minds even if you don't see them do so directly, option 1 could pay off in the future as they shift certain narratives, understand certain topics and gain new morals or goals, but option 2 is immediately and pays off if they listen, someone who supports war would be turned off from supporting trump if you, say, used trumps incompetence to blame him for 'risking American troops'

  • Feel free to disagree but in my own experience observing people any tipe of radical thought is usually a mental health issue. You can't treat mental health through comments.

  • I've watched conservative theists unravel and admit things about themselves openly as they crash out under questioning they started by making a thread on debate forums, but they always relapsed by the next day.

  • Sort of. I have s friend who I consider a RL friend but whom I've never met face to face (he's part of an RL friend group, but he joined after I moved away so our only contact is online.)

    He and I have discussed politics extensively over the last 10 years or so, and he's gone from being a 2-time Trump voter to rejecting him outright and voting against him this time. He's not s Democrat, but I still consider it progress.

  • It's not online but at my usual bar I often get into arguments with a monarchist guy and a free-market/deregulation dude. They often tell me they'll someday manage to make me "take the red pill". It's kind of annoying for them to disregard my views like that. That's why I don't actively try to change theirs.

  • I love that you think that you are right and that it the people that disagree with you who should change their mind. Have you ever considered that maybe u might need to change ur beliefs as well?

    • Hah, no. When I look at the conservative party all I see is hate, hate and more hate.

      You hate the people that are different from you or whoever you're told to hate. You spend so much time dressing up this hate to make it more palatable for yourself and others, but if you peel it all away, that's what really drives you and your fellow conservatives and it is just shameful.

      At least with the tankies, what they do, they do because it'll bring true equality (or at least that's what they're led to believe).

      The reign pullers for conservatives tells you to vote for them, support them, spread propaganda for them to hate on a group because some group deserves your hate for one inane reason or another.

      The reign pullers for tankies have to get their support by promising good things like equality, the banishment of the rich, full unalienable human rights to include healthcare.

      Yea the reign pullers are lying, they always do that on all sides, but what they have to lie to you about to get you to do the things they want you to do MATTERS.

      And the lies they feed you, are disgusting.

      • Hah, no. When I look at the conservative party all I see is hate, hate and more hate.

        American political parties do not define political perspective globally. U can have conservative views and still hate what the us conservative party is doing.

        You hate the people that are different from you or whoever you're told to hate. You spend so much time dressing up this hate to make it more palatable for yourself and others, but if you peel it all away, that's what really drives you and your fellow conservatives and it is just shameful.

        Not at all I hate people who oppose freedom and equal ity of opportunity. Turns out thats both parties when it comes to the us.

        At least with the tankies, what they do, they do because it'll bring true equality (or at least that's what they're led to believe).

        That's the same thing as what Hitler promised. The ends do not justify the means.

        The reign pullers for conservatives tells you to vote for them, support them, spread propaganda for them to hate on a group because some group deserves your hate for one inane reason or another.

        The left says the exact same thing for the exact same reasons just they point the hate at different groups of people.

        The reign pullers for tankies have to get their support by promising good things like equality, the banishment of the rich, full unalienable human rights to include healthcare.

        Equality of opportunity or equality of outcome cos those are 2 very different things. I would argue that's its a human right to do with your own body as u choose. Its the same right that gives women the right to an abortion that also gives Nazis the right to spew their hate and wave their arms around as they please. You cannot have one without the other.

        I'm in Australia where we have free healthcare and I think that it should be a free for all. In fact I'm fighting against the right wingers of my country who are trying to make our system more like your fucked up system.

        Yea the reign pullers are lying, they always do that on all sides, but what they have to lie to you about to get you to do the things they want you to do MATTERS.

        So why align with any political group if u know they are all the same playing the same games. Pick beliefs u believe in personaly from all sides of political ideology. Tribalism for any side is just as bad as tribalism for any other side do not try justify ur team to urself simply because they are your team.

        And the lies they feed you, are disgusting.

        I never said I believe the lies I'm simply saying that the side u hate because you where told to hate have some good points. This doesn't mean I subscribe to all their beliefs nor do I subscriber to all the left wing beliefs.

        We all have far more in common than things we don't. I would encourage you to think/enquire why people u disagree with hold the beliefs they do with an open mind and you might just find u agree.

135 comments