We are seeing an essentially incorruptible billionaire with conservative instincts making only marginal headway against the entrenched interests. His election has made it 100% clear that the only path to restoration is outside of national politics. We should be spending our money and effort teaching the young to despise collectivism. Maybe they will have a chance to save themselves.
Now there I disagree with you. The mere presence of Trump has unleashed a wave of progress across the nation and world. Pro life movement is more on fire than ever, religious freedom is being protected , economy is better, illegal immigration is down even without wall, ordinary people in Europe are braver when confronting their globalist overlords, etc...
That’s my take. It’s why I frequent liberal sites. It is important to verbally fight respectfully, with dignity, and never, EVER get mad.
I just keep calling them out on their use of these four weapons:
1. Deflection - they can’t respond so they change the subject. Some are experts at this. The goal is to get you to go off topic and basically “hijack” a thread.
2. Ad-hominem - they either call you names or point out that your sources are partisan, biased or just stupid.
3. Projection - this one is my favorite. They literally accuse you of doing what they are actually doing. It’s really fun to call them out on this, especially when it is actually exposing their thought process in a very unflattering way.
4. Straw-man - rewording your response to mean something you didn’t mean (or only a subset of what you meant), and then attacking that. My typical response is to bring it back by simply saying stuff like, “That is not what I said. What I said is [cut and paste here]. You are using a straw man.
5. Red herring - They bring up something minor or irrelevant to prove you are wrong. It happened to me here today. I posted a comical video that, at one point, said nobody has ever died of a marijuana overdose. He said that is not true. Truth is, there may be two cases in recorded history where someone DID die simply by using marijuana, but two cases in modern history is statistically zero. It is a red herring.
When one realizes this is pretty much the only weapons the left has, it is easy to defend against them. But still, it is offense that changes minds. Defense merely prevents the other side from diminishing the truths stated in the offense.
We are seeing an essentially incorruptible billionaire with conservative instincts making only marginal headway against the entrenched interests. His election has made it 100% clear that the only path to restoration is outside of national politics. We should be spending our money and effort teaching the young to despise collectivism. Maybe they will have a chance to save themselves.
Frankly, there is no effective “We” to do any teaching, being oversaturated by enemedia Victimology and Givemedat Lessons. There is a tiny chance President Trump can still have an effect. He should speak directly to us in longer bursts than tweets allow, on tv. Otherwise we would need a real revolution to free ourselves from this oligarchy.