The atmosphere is so heated, and the statements are getting more and more extreme. Let’s just assume Harris wins the election. After a campaign like this, how could you ever have a normal relationship with your pro-Trump neighbor/father-in-law/Uncle/Barber or what ever again?
Whole i agree with most of your comment, I’m not really reading any solutions. I’d my attitude is the problem, what’s the proper attitude to have to deal with these imbeciles?
The proper attitude is to treat their beliefs as real (to them) and not just conspiracy or insanity. To look at them as your brother or sister and ask yourself “how did they get this way?” and not just hand-wave away their beliefs as insanity. The proper attitude is to truly engage with those who aren’t just acting in bad faith. How to differentiate that aspect, though, is getting harder to the point of impossibility. I fear we may have reached a tipping point where it becomes impossible to discern bad faith from deep propaganda brainwashing. I’m not sure if there is still a path forward in genuine conversation and understanding, which is the only route to breed empathy, something these people both lack within themselves and are deprived of from outside. I don’t see it as their fault. I see it as a failing of the community at large, one that is more ready to shun the individual, because that’s way easier than actually trying to genuinely engage them and help them grow as a person.
I believe the way out of fascism truly is love and compassion. My fear is that it’s a cycle; the perceived distance of fascism makes our society more susceptible to being taken over by it, leading to a fascist society benefiting the few, leading to the grassroots recognition that we are one people and one humanity, leading to an uprooting of fascism and rise of empathy.
Sorry if this was a bit hard to follow, I haven’t been sleeping well and I’m awake far too early.
Yeah the differentiation is the trick.
How does one engage sometime who thinks that Harris is literally the antichrist?
I don’t know and it distresses me, hence my fear of being past the turning point. Sometimes you can’t even begin to engage without getting outright hostility in return, such as with your example.