A plea to (maybe) save us from T

Politics & Elections
1

A plea to my like-minded American friends hoping we can be saved from unimaginable doom and heartbreak…

If you feel compelled to post memes and comments for people on Facebook, or Instagram, or X (formerly Twitter), or TikTok or Youtube or pretty much anywhere on the The Intertubes, may I suggest that you actively avoid bringing up his felonies, rape trials, impeachments, etc. Because at this point anybody who is still thinking of voting for him has dismissed all of those things as being conspiracies without merit designed to bring him down and they have not only zero impact but possibly the reverse of what you want.

I believe the only thing remaining to emphasize that has any chance at all of penetrating, (and it doesn’t have a big chance but I think it has some, with a few) is to refer to 𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙤𝙬𝙣 𝙞𝙣𝙨𝙖𝙣𝙚 𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙙𝙨, especially exact quotes, and most particularly with links, dates and references, from the most unimpeachable sources you know. (In other words ABC and MSNBC will be blown off, but it’s possible PBS Reuters and UK papers will be given slightly more weight. Of course Fox is top of the list if you can find good video snippets.)

I think it also might help a tiny little bit to not call names, or otherwise denigrate these people; that’s part of the reason we’re in this fix. Just post 𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙤𝙬𝙣 𝙞𝙣𝙨𝙖𝙣𝙚 𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙙𝙨 and point out gently how they are insane, if necessary.

There’s two basic flavors of Trump insanity; the first is just the ludicrous jumble of meaningless goo that spills out of his vile mouth all the time and is much worse now that he’s older.

The second is the cruel, dishonest, STUPID, dangerous, irrational and generally terrifying things he says that make sense in terms of the English language but are fucking insane for anybody trying to become president.

I think both are good choices.

Honestly, we are down to the wire and we can’t fuck around and indulge our lesser natures. Whatever is available to you to change a single mind in a swing state-or any other state! Because just think: if you can change a single mind in any state, anywhere that person might change the mind of someone in a swing state!

And I make a special, if obvious appeal to those of you with children. I don’t have any, and I don’t have any nieces or nephews, either, so my stake in what happens in the coming decades is much smaller. If you’re afraid for your children, do the absolute utmost and best you can to bring in the votes we need to save us all and brush off the rudeness and bullshit. No one cares. Stick to the truth that is the hardest to refute or ignore: 𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙤𝙬𝙣 𝙞𝙣𝙨𝙖𝙣𝙚 𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙙𝙨, out of his own insane mouth.

Please!

(I was motivated in part to post this because of something a friend of mine posted about seeing political commercials in swing states. I don’t see them because I live in California. But it’s alarming. Everything counts now.)

2

Trump is headed for thumping defeat in November.

But also - I don’t think pointing out Trump’s insane words is going to make much difference either. It’s been eight years. As you said, bringing up all the other Trump-trash stuff isn’t going to work - but “Trump is insane and here are his words to prove it” isn’t much different. The guy was saying wacko-bizarre things back in 2016, too. He’s been saying them nonstop since. It isn’t going to be much more effective than any of the other attack methods against him.

It can’t hurt, of course, to quote Trump verbatim. But it probably won’t change his supporters minds. (I once got banned from a conservative subReddit for mentioning his statement about how he said he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and not lose any voters.) No stone has been left unturned in the effort to reduce Trump’s popularity.

Relax, enjoy the ride and watch the returns roll in on Election Night for a blue wave.

3

I wish I could. But November 2016 is vivid in my mind, and I would never have believed he would’ve gotten this far now.

I don’t think it’s appropriate for anybody who cares to sit back and relax at all. Which is not to say that everybody should be consumed with anxiety, only that if you do participate in conversations with people who could vote for him, stay nice and stick to words they can’t refute because they’re his own. It may not help but it certainly can’t hurt and other things can.

4

Also: we need to do all we can to be certain it really is an actual “thumping defeat“, meaning override any possible dirty tricks by the Republicans and make it so irrefutable that any fight against it will quickly die.

5

Regarding this:

Apologies for the thread title — it’s more acerbic than I’d have chosen.

6

I’ve given up trying to change minds, and decided to work on turnout. I’ll be knocking doors in Phoenix and Milwaukee, urging likely Democratic voters who don’t always vote to vote early.

7

“Yeah, well, of course he won Kentucky…I mean, that’s where all the racists are!”

Stranger

8

We all saw and heard him with our own eyes and ears for the four years of his Presidency, including on January 6, 2021, as well as the last 3+ years. Yet, this man today has a strong possibility of regaining the Presidency. Somehow, the Republican party and their propaganda arm have convinced a huge number of people to disregard what they saw and heard and instead pay attention to his opponent’s laugh. In fact, they have made what he said and did selling points of his candidacy, and people have bought it - the crazy of this guy is a feature, not a bug!

At this point, I’m sorry to say, reminding people of his actual words and deeds will only strengthen the position they have for him, for or against. You’ll have to be looking under rocks to find someone pliable enough where this approach may make an impact.

11

It’s always worth repeating…

“But what a fool believes, he sees
No wise man has the power to reason away”

-Doobie Brothers

“You can’t reason a person out of a belief that they didn’t use reason to hold in the first place.”

– [Paraphrasing] Jonathan Swift

12

This! It is all about getting out the vote on our side.

13

Moderating, clarification:

This OP fits the new definition of the rules. In the past it would not have. From the Terms of Service:

Calls to action. Political advocacy and other calls to action are permitted on this board, subject to the rules below:

  • No advocacy of harassment, violence or lawbreaking. Do not advocate or encourage harassment, violence or lawbreaking (including civil disobedience) as a form of protest or for any other reason. See Harassment and abuse.
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14

All good points thus far (I’m gonna continue ignoring the “don’t worry, it’s over, she’s got in the bag” comments until I’m reassured by someone other than our two like-minded friends around these parts who have horrible track records with their “guarantees”).

I’m a big subscriber to the “we’re not trying to bring the red hats over to our side, but we’re trying to get through to the fence-sitters” philosophy.

I think abortion is going to be the kryptonite that their side has no answer for, that we need to keep hammering on (just like “everything is so expensive now” is their ace in the hole).

Keep bringing up examples (with cites and receipts) of these pregnant women in red states like Texas and Georgia who are dying because they can’t get the healthcare they need.

Hell, in Texas I think we’re moving towards monitoring pregnant women who want to travel out of the state on vacation.

Remind folks that that’s what we’re headed for in all 50 states if TFG gets re-elected.

I agree with the OP notion that him continuing to somewhat “skate” on all these charges against him is more a “feature than a bug” for a lot of people, so I’m not sure how effective that tact is either.

But for all the “do we really want a repeat of these last four years” comments, refute those with “do we really want a repeat of 2016 - 2020?”.

President Obama left a humming economy that got driven off a cliff and into recession. 22 million out of work, fighting for toilet paper, store shelves empty, and refrigerated trucks being brought into red states like TX and AZ to hold all the dying Americans.

Another approach I see used effectively is the same “cite?” one that I’ve seen here over the years.

For all their bullshit claims of “10 million”, “20 million”, “100 million illegals”, and their bullshit claims about hurricane relief and FEMA money going to illegals, continue to hammer them with “cite?”.

When they can’t produce one (narrator : “and they never can”) point out to everyone else “oh, okay, then I guess we can’t take what you have to say seriously”.

15

I’m not sure this would work. The narrative of quite a few Trump supporters I know is that Trump gave America a red-hot economy but then Covid, an outside event over which Trump had no control (and which may have even been a Chinese bioweapon, in their view) unfairly robbed Trump of his great economy just in time to deny him his rightful reelection.

There’s no changing their minds, but I wouldn’t be surprised if even some centrists/swing voters think similarly - that 1) the hot economy was actually Trump’s, not Obama’s and 2) Covid was an outside event that would have plunged any president’s economy into recession, no matter how well-managed the pandemic was.

16

I’m surprised to find that almost every time I see anything about Trump online, it’s the official Harris account on Twitter just posting his own words (KamalaHQ if you’re interested).

17

I guess I’m one of them. Yes, Trump’s response and previous actions made it worse. But all the shutdowns, the “six weeks to slow the spread”, the massive shifts on masks, all sorts of restrictions, lengthy school closures, and so on were mostly from the local level or sometimes the CDC. Once nobody could go anywhere or do anything of course the economy was going to go to crap and I got very tired of the laptop class that made it a point of pride how they never left their houses and put all the risk on others so they could get their crap delivered to them. I have friends who caught a bad case while working 12 hour shifts five or six days a week at the post office so those people could get their precious crap.

This is not a thread to rehash the pandemic response and I’m not trying to. But what I will say is that I ignore most of the “economy was in the shitter four years ago” arguments that are made. Trump should not be president because of his personal behavior including actions that would have landed anyone with a clearance in a cell for a very long time. I’m not convinced he really did anything domestically involving policy that wouldn’t have been within the norms of any other Republican. Hit people with that sort of thing, not that he’s a shitty person. We all know that; it’s baked in.

18

The only people still undecided are too stupid to live much less to vote, and as a result likely to vote for Trump. It can’t hurt to try to convince a couple of them to do the right thing so thanks for trying. The month ahead of us is scary to consider.

19

Yeah, I think you’ve got a point there. Maybe that’s not the “magic bullet”, but man it just feels like there’s gotta be one out there that we can capitalize on and really drive home over the next four weeks.

I still think it’s the abortion / women’s rights issue, but I’m a mid-50’s single guy with no kids so what do I know how much that resonates with women.

I wanted to cry yesterday when a gal in my local Democrats group on Facebook posted that she has a 16 yr old daughter who is all-in on TFG, and them mom’s trying to figure out how to reason with her before she turns voting age. How any young gal could vote against her own self-interests like that is one of those mysteries of life, I guess.

As far as the “undecideds” factor that @TriPolar alludes to, I can’t imagine there’s more than a few dozen folks in the country left who - given the ability to securely push a button on their phone - wouldn’t do so for one candidate or the other in a heartbeat. Certainly they already “have their mind made up one way or the other”, right?

It’s just the “meh, I don’t really care one way or the other, so what’s the point of going and standing in line, since I’m only one vote among millions” crowd that we need to figure out the magic words to get them off their asses.

(I’ve admitted a few times here in the past that it took until April 2016 and I was in my 40’s to finally have somebody that got me off my ass to register to vote against them - it helped that I’d hated the fucking guy for 30 years, going back to his appearances on Letterman).

We need to figure out how to reach that “what’s the point, anyway” crowd in the next four weeks, so I appreciate OP starting this thread to see if we can come up with a solution.

20

Using Trump’s own words might work for some. My MAGA mom doesn’t listen to Trump speak but instead reads transcripts and summaries in articles. But then using Trump’s own words won’t likely change my mother’s mind. At least it hasn’t worked yet.

21

I get really frustrated at the degree to which people give the president- any president- credit for how the economy and/or markets perform.

22

Yeah. I despise Trump. But covid wasn’t his fault. Our lack of preparation was mostly due to different Republicans, most of the major screw ups were from the CDC and the WHO, and his refusal to wear a mask isn’t going to make him enemies among the undecideds.

His treatment of the border (children in cages, separated from their parents without even keeping the records to reunite them) and his supreme Court justices (abortion) seem like the most likely emotional appeals against him.