But in the aftermath, they’ll still be the same people. Fucking disgusting, and unwilling to grow.

Whaaaaat? Who could’ve seen this coming?!?

While I agree with you, force doesn’t work in arguments, it only makes them plant their feet even harder.

Sob stories. Seriously, they eat that shit up. Even if it’s fake, but sounds plausible. If you make it personal to you, especially if it involves a white person getting “accidentally” fucked over by bad policy. I’ve had pretty good luck getting softer responses from Rs by making up personal stories that they connect with. Even if you only get them to question one policy, you put a crack in their foundational beliefs. I avoided this for a long time for ethical reasons, but we’re past that now. I’m not above being deceitful anymore to get a point across. Most of them aren’t necessarily evil, they’re just convinced of evil policy by evil people. If I got my right wing mother to admit that Israel is committing genocide, there is hope.

The biggest thing here, is they think they can separate themselves from consequences of their choices. If they know someone they like that felt those consequences, instead of a nameless, faceless stranger, it makes it harder. Put your name and face out there as being effected by it, and the Rs in your circle will start to question their policy.

That’s worked for me on my mother and a few older Rs at work. Sure, maybe I’m being manipulative, but honestly, I don’t fucking care anymore.

Thank fucking gods. But that’s like being happy about getting some cheese on your shit sandwich.