Which we should see as an excellent radicalization and growth opportunity!
It can be exhausting explaining ourselves again and again, always met with the same accusations and assumptions born from the mythos spun by our enemies.
However, we must remember these people are people, and many people change their minds given enough information, delivered with firm respect. For every belligerent person who appears like they wouldn’t change their mind for anything, there are 10 people quietly lurking who are more on-the-fence. Even those who regurgitate insults and contempt may change their mind when the stars align!
These people are not our enemies, they are victims to the greatest campaign of dishonesty in human history! It is our duty to draw out the poison and deliver the medicine!
I know many comrades here have very difficult lives and do not have the patience or energy to deal with such people. Please do not exhaust yourself interacting with liberals, and allow comrades with more energy to deal with them.
Radicalizing online is not the end-all be-all, but at this point in the psychological war for those within the Anglosphere, every victory is invaluable!!!
Hmm, I have another take on it.
Nobody wants to think they were “lied to”, even if it’s true. Westerners default to thinking of themselves as the main character of the story, and swallowing the idea of having been fooled is difficult, nearly impossible. You can’t be a victim, can you? That doesn’t fit the narrative arc at all.
Come at it from the other angle. Even those people deep in the shit pit of reaction can still FEEL when an atrocity is wrong, even if they twist it into blaming it on minorities or whatever. The right wing runs entirely on feeling, it’s literally all they have. The other side of their knife is taking blame away from the self- it’s never their own fault, and they never have to sacrifice anything. The other edge of their knife is the dulling and nullification of feeling.
When someone you know- someone shamelessly liberal- agrees with you that an atrocity is indeed wrong, embrace them and build on it. Not “No, but”, but instead “Yes, and”! They’re feeling something, and the people profiting from their suffering would prefer if they dull that feeling. Instead, link the feeling to facts- “Here is why the bad thing is indeed bad”- and turn that feeling into praxis- “You can fix it!”.
That goes both ways though. Each side thinking they are right, the main character, impervious to being lied to and definitely on the right side of history. Or can you not also be fooled? Cause I know I have been, by both sides…
The difference between us and liberals is that we not only can admit to being fooled, we also actively seek out whether if we’ve been fooled.
We realize no one is immune to propaganda and act accordingly. And we mean no one.