What do you do when people don't care?
What do you do when people don't care?
I'm dumbstruck as to what to do. The US is building literal concentration camps, and none of my co-workers care at all.
In fairness, I work in healthcare with an almost exclusively cishet white population who are financially well off.
Many of them espouse to be Christians, and no one cares at all that the American government is following the exact playbook from Nazi Germany.
What do you do? How do you make people care before it's too late?
call them american
I dont want to be another i-dont-care-ican
What are we gonna do Franco, Franco Un-American^((franco unamerican - NOFX)^)
I had some very similar feelings after the 2020 election cycle and COVID stuff. This VSauce video came out around the same time and, unironically I guess, helped convince me of some stuff I'd started to realize with regards to changing people's minds. https://youtu.be/_ArVh3Cj9rw
exclusively cishet white population who are financially well off.
...there's your problem.
Why would they care? At worst they're unaffected. At best they're benefitting. What is their impetus for change?
You’d like to think some sort of empathy, compassion and solidarity at the very least.
But I guess those are traits the US has very effectively diminished from generation to generation.
I don't live in the us so I can't comment on any change that has been or not been.
I do know that privilege itself obscures experience. Compassion and empathy are built on experience. Therefore expecting someone who is privileged to have compassion or empathy to those without the same privilige is unrealistic. They have to be shown, or brought to a point where they can align their experience with others.
Where's the profit in empathy?
If the concentration camps were started during the Obama administration and (nobody cared), then were operated during the first Trump admin and (the only caring-concern was performative) then they continued to operate under the Biden admin (while still nobody cared) then why would people suddenly start caring now?
BTW I'm referring to the immigrant concentration camps near the border. What ones are you referring to?
You don't.
A large swath of Americans have made it clear they don't care to pay attention and won't care until it personally affects them.
So we're simply going to have to watch our nation decline until the majority of Americans have personally been affected. Then we'll begin a long, difficult path to gaining back what we lost, just to get back to where we were before the decline happened. Then we'll be happy to be back in the same shitty situation we were before and probably let things slide back into a decline again.
Americans are stupid. And there's nothing you can do to change that.
Have you ever wondered how people reacted to the original Nazis in the 1930s? Well... now you know. If can feel proud of something, it is at least I am extremely against it and the whole 'what would you have done?' is basically answered definitively for me.
My (great)-grandparents were part of the Dutch resistance during WW2. Along with a full 1.5% of the population.
Most people will not do anything, even if they are literally rounding up people for a genocide.
On the more positive side, a lot of people will support the resistance in small ways.
The number of people who actually, whole heartedly collaborated with the Nazi's was quite small.
Even some of the German soldiers stationed in their village would turn a blind eye. Some of them realized they were on the wrong side and they just did the bare minimum of what they needed to do to not get in trouble and not get killed.
I sometimes wonder is Trump does a lot of crazy sounding shit to make people who speak against him sound insane.
Perhaps you can find inspiration from Daryl Davis, who convinced 200 Klansmen to give up their robes.
Not everything works out in life.
I had a conversation with my second grade teacher on Instagram the other day. I posted Matthew 25:35-40 on my story with the comment “I can’t believe so many Christians I know support a president and a government that would willingly and forcefully kick Jesus himself out of the country thousands of times.”
She replied saying that this verse doesn’t apply for the same reason that I don’t allow just anyone into my house: because there are people who shouldn’t be there. There’s just so many things wrong with her logic AND her premises that I barely knew where to start, and that’s part of the problem. Fascism works by sowing doubt in the fabric of credibility. All she really knows is that her idea of Jesus comforts her, and so finding comfort somewhere probably means she can find Jesus and righteousness there too. You can’t really teach someone to care because they probably already do care, but you have to teach them to see the things that are actually happening, to trust the real experts, and to see the connections between themselves and the people who need care.
In Luke, when Jesus says (again) to love thy neighbor literally the next question someone poses to him is "but who is my neighbor?" Jesus responds with the tale of the Good Samaritan. In this story there is a man, a traveler from a foreign land, who was robbed and beaten and left on the roadside, suffering and ignored by passing strangers (including a priest). The Good Samaritan feeds him, fixes him up, and puts him up at an inn.
There's two laws... two. The first is to love God, the second is to "go and do likewise" as the Good Samaritan did. I'm a godless commie and I know this shit.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=luke+10%3A25-37&version=NIV
It's also worth noting that at the time, Samaritans were seen as an enemy. "To the Jews, a Samaritan was more revolting than a Gentile (pagan); Samaritans were half-breeds who defiled the true religion."
So when it was written that a good Samaritan was an example of a neighbor, it was more impactful than the phrase implies today. Part of the point was to say that even those perceived as "enemies" are ordinary people that should be treated with the same dignity and care given to one's own tribe.
A good Christian would let people stay in their house, though. If they were robbed, they would still have treasure in heaven.
More Christians faith is paper thin at best.
I would say that the initial problem here, is that people give a single shit what a 2000+ year old, bronze-age sex manual, has to say about literally fucking anything.
If they claim to care about it then it can be used to point out their hypocrisy.
Sure, but part of the problem then is that you have to convince them of that, and that’s even harder than arguing and using the Bible as at least part of your premise
You could start by engaging and reaching out. For example, assuming someone doesn't care because of their race, gender identity and job is kinda shitty. Maybe look into those internal biases.
The next part would be finding out how they are and will be effected by this new presidency. Sometimes people have a hard time caring about a problem if it doesn't affect them directly. You might have to get to know your coworkers rather than make assumptions about them to learn this.
Being polite and nice to them also helps, no one wants to hear from someone who's screaming at them.
I heard something on a radio show during Covid on how to talk to people who have "gone down the rabbit hole". It was discussing MAGA as a cult. The guest on the show was a woman who was raised in a cult in the 70's and she "got out" and spent her time talking with others in the cult to help them to break free. I can't find a reference to the show, but I think it was Carrie Miller hosting.
My takeaway was that you can't come at people and tell them that everything they know is wrong and you will show them the way. They'll fight you. You need to deprogram them similarly to how they were programmed into the cult. Small bits, here and there to slowly guide them to questioning their beliefs. Once that happens, show them how to research and seek out information and let them know that they will be safe.
If someone found a link to the podcast/radio show, I'd be super happy.
This is as inspiring as it is terrifying.
Great comment. Trump won and the amount of people here throwing the Nazi word around still don't realise how self defeating they are.
You can't tell someone their an idiot or evil and then expect them to try seeing things your way, you're much more likely to end up entrenching their beliefs. The goal should be to win them over, that won't be accomplished by telling them how wrong and stupid they are.
Engage, don't alienate, no matter how hard that feels at times.
Trump won and the amount of people here throwing the Nazi word around still don’t realise how self defeating they are.
Sometimes you have to call Nazis Nazis. And people who support Nazis are Nazis. And sometimes you can't deprogram a Nazi.
These aren't victims. They're intentionally malicious people.
I have the urge to help victims. I have another urge entirely in regards to Nazis.
They're*
The thing is, a lot of these people are literally Nazis, and I'm starting to wonder if it was "people saying Nazi too much" or it was actually "there was a fuckton of Nazis and no one took people saying that seriously and now there's Nazis around and people are blaming the folks who were warning others about the Nazis for not seeing Nazis soon enough"
I don't do anything particular, I guess
Don't waste your energy on people who won't listen.
Look for people, places and groups that support your own beliefs.
If you can't find those people at work, then just be nice to them but not too close. Them in your free time, use your energy to support those people and groups you believe in.
Don't waste your time on those who won't listen.
Look for the helpers.
What do you do when those people are your family?
Easier said than done (though recent events have made it a little easier).
Not impossible, look into cult deprogramming. My mother a few years back had a media diet of Steven Crowder and talking heads alike. She has very different views now. Her social life has improved, she dissects political news and generally became a more stable person.
You can stop using stupid shit like "cishet white" for starters. Statistically, most people who do not care will be cishet white. Those who care, will also mostly be cishet white. With this type of exclusionary discourse bordering on racism, no one will ever listen to you because from the start, you already sound like you have nothing important to say. There's three types of people in the US: Slaves working 2 and 3 jobs to make ends meet, middle class being pit against the slaves by the third group, the capital. By using exclusionary discourse, assimilated from bougie fake activism, you're promoting infighting within the classes that should be hunting the capital like animals, the French way!
Edit: your country has sacrificed countless children to never eschew the right to bear arms. Well, stop bitching online to make yourself feel good and use them.
By using exclusionary discourse, assimilated from bougie fake activism
This is a totally normal, relatable sentence
Ah yes, mob "justice" always works so well.
Nobody is advocating for cross burning. People need to rise against the first steps of a totalitarian government that only serves the oligarchy.
I spend a good amount of energy trying to explain the merits of Marxism-Leninism and Leftism in general on Lemmy (and IRL, though that's much trickier). Ultimately, you can't make someone care. You can't convince people of something they choose not to want to believe, either, no matter how much evidence you throw at them. Roderic Day wrote a great article titled Masses, Elites, and Rebels: The Theory of "Brainwashing" that perfectly encapsulates this process. People license themselves to believe whatever it is that they believe benefits themselves, regardless of evidence or empathy.
What you can do, however, is explain the merits of that which you believe in, and this is far more effective with people already targeted by the current system. Those closest to the edge, those radicalized by their conditions but not yet organized or versed in theory, are the perfect people to talk to. The effort required to gain an ally in that sense is far less than someone who is convinced that the system is fine, but just needs a little tweaking. Building strength through organization helps legitimize your positions and expands the circle, so to speak, by moving the "line of radicalization" further. Person A, who believes the system is fine but needs tweaks, goes from comfortably mainstream into the new line of radicalization, one step away from working to supplant the system, when those who were radicalized near them organize.
Further still, as conditions deteriorate, more people are impacted and more people are radicalized. This is both good and bad, bad in the sense that more are affected by the evils in society to a greater degree, but with the good being further chance of organization.
Just my 2 cents as someone who has spoken with many different people about Marxism.
Thank you.
No problem!
Lots of good answers here already. I'll just add that Jon Stewart recently did a great segment that touches on this. Basically, he says if everything the government does is "OmG nAzIz FaScIsTz TrAiToRz!!!" then people who aren't already paying attention will continue tuning it out. I forget at which time in the video he gets to this point, but honestly the whole 20-minute video is worth a watch.
IMO 'comedy' does a lot more to further political debate & informedness than it gets credit for.
I remember watching a congress inquiry or something into something like student debt or subsidies (iirc) where comedian/tv personality Hasan Minaj was included in the panel. He was a bit out of place next to the usual gov office types cracking jokes half the time (although never inappropriate) and serious the other half and i think someone even noted his presence there being strange. I forget if it was someone in the video or just a comment below the video but they pointed out that they wouldn't have even been watching this legislation discussion if it wasnt for him and his occasional humorous answers or comments and i realised i wouldnt be watching either. Im not even american.
If comedy is the gravy you need to put on some veggies to make them more palatable for people to consume them then by all means, pour that shit on and get people interested and engaged with the issues at hand.
The every day person doesnt have to agree or change their mind, they just need to be aware and informed so when it comes the time to vote or support a choice they are given then they at least have some further knowledge beyond 'my political team is going this way so i suppose ill do that'.
I love Jon Stewart but I think he's a little off base with this take. Are we supposed to not call out the overtly fascist stuff the government is doing? Will that get more people to listen the next time we have to call out an overtly fascistic act or will we have to hold our tongue then, as well? How many grannies need to be eaten and impersonated by wolves before we're allowed to move past the "ooh what sharp teeth you have" crap?
With fascism especially, if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. The people going through life like everything is fine are implicitly supporting the fascism. I'm not going to stop yelling about how a pack of wolves has taken over the government, just because some people think the word is overused.
Yeah, it's kind of a bad take. Maybe we should teach people what the word actually means so that they can understand that the applies to everything they're doing*
The first thing I would ask is, have you made any attempts to really understand what motivates them and why they believe as they do? Given your flippant dismissal of their belief systems, I suspect you have just mentally bucketed them and, instead of really trying to understand them, you fall back on your per-conceived notions of what you think they believe. Without that understanding, you will never be able to "make people care", because you are not treating them as fully formed people with their own beliefs and priorities. You expect that, if you just yell at them loudly enough, they will come around. They won't and, if anything, they will just dig their heels in further. To them, you're this guy:
Not everyone has the same priorities you do. What you see as "the most important thing in the world" may fall much further down the list for someone else. They may not even see it in the same framing you do. Maybe they do care about your thing, but they have their own "most important thing" and if your thing and their thing are in contention, they are going to pick their thing. This is part of the reason we have politics in the first place, once you start dealing with other people and trying to decide what and how things should be prioritized and run, you are going to run into differing beliefs and priorities. It's why most government polices generally suck and don't get everything done. Because those policies are the result of compromise between people with different and often competing priorities. And yes, it may be that some of those other priorities come from bad information, though more often they will come from radically different base beliefs. And not understanding what those beliefs actually are means that you will not have any sort of basis for convincing them of anything.
Changing peoples' minds is hard. But, it starts from a place of understanding people and not dismissing their beliefs. Step back from your outrage for a moment and try to really get in their heads. You may not agree with their position, but you need to understand how they got there before you have any chance of getting them out of it. And, maybe you can't. It may just be that they have some foundational beliefs which are completely at odds with what you want to convince them of. But, if you know and understand that, it becomes much easier to walk away from the situation and not waste time and energy on a hopeless fight. And while it feels good to yell at people, that basically never works and only serves to push them further away.
Most of the folks I talk to hear agree with me that things are going wrong, or that x,y, or z is a problem, but not enough to do anything about it. I have heard a few times that, " I want to do something, but I have to protect myself."
Most of the folks I talk to hear agree with me that things are going wrong
That's not surprising, though be careful on what the definition of "going wrong" is. For example, Emerson College recently put out the results of some polling part of which found that 67% of voters think the US is on the wrong track. It's highly likely that 67% includes voters from all over the political map. But, while both a hardcore Trump/MAGA voter and a Bernie Bro voter might each say that the US is on the "wrong track", we'd probably have trouble getting those two voters to reconcile on the color of the sky, let alone what the "right track" would be. Also, be wary of coworkers who actually just want to be left alone and will "go along to get along". They will tacitly nod and agree with just about anything, so long as you go away and let them get back to work.
or that x,y, or z is a problem, but not enough to do anything about it.
Ok, but what is the ask? What are you expecting them to do? And why do you believe that they should be the ones doing it? Again, going back to my previous comment:
Maybe they do care about your thing, but they have their own “most important thing” and if your thing and their thing are in contention, they are going to pick their thing.You may view things as so bad that everyone should be out in the streets protesting 24x7. They may not see it that way. They may put "protecting themselves" at a higher priority than protesting whatever it is you are upset about. This might be especially true if they have families to care for and that can drastically change how people prioritize things.
Once again, I'd go back to understanding their beliefs and priorities. Why won't they do the thing you want them to do? It probably comes down to those beliefs and priorities being more important to them than whatever it is you are promoting. And again, I would note your complete dismissal of their point of view. They have given you some insight as to why they aren't taking action:
" I want to do something, but I have to protect myself."It's clear they prioritize their personal well-being over the perceived value of whatever you are asking them to do. Why is that? What is it that you are asking them to do that they see it as risky? If your goal is to organize something, can you work to provide them the perceived safety that would get them over that hump? Do they have other issues and their answer is just a proxy to avoid an argument? I'm afraid I'm just repeating myself here; but, you need to really understand them if you want them to change their minds.
So they do care, just not enough? What should they be doing about it?
Do you want people to care or do you want to lecture people who don't agree with you. People like to give lectures on politics, but no one listens to them. If you want people to care you have to care about them.
As someone who admittedly is guilty of "lecturing," many do enjoy it and have DM'd me or replied thanking me for it. Different people respond better to different approaches, be they the walls of text I am frequently guilty of or shorter questions trying to get them to elaborate on their own understanding.
Idk I listen to politics lectures all the time, most of which I don't fully agree with, many I disagree with outright, listening to other takes, especially opposing ones helps me scrutinize my own reasoning and critically analyze what's what.
It's not really the lecturer's fault he was lecturing, if he was right and so he should be lecturing others on truth. Much like any subject really.
This idea that all opinions are equal are how we ended up in a post-truth world.
Thought-terminating clichés of "everyone likes different things" or "people believe different things" are not just signs of a lazy intellect, they are the harbingers of our doom.
You can have beliefs that aren't facts, in fact - you have to, but you can't just believe whatever, you need to be able to justify it, and to do that you need to understand logic, you need to understand evidence, you need to understand the scientific method and how to reason.
Bingo. This is the fundamental disconnect I encounter on a daily basis. All anyone wants to do is lecture me about how they are right, and I am wrong if I think different than them. And if you don't give into them they simply start insulting or shaming you, hoping they can emotionally abuse you into compliance with their beliefs. Or they just think you are evil and divide the world up into hyperbolic terms.
That isn't how you learn or win people over to your side. All it does is promote ignorance & alienation, and that's what we have an overabundance of in our current society.
I'm apparently old-fashioned/out of date, but I went to college to learn how to understand, assess, and communicate with other people... seems like that is no longer what people are taught or at least, no longer value it.
All anyone wants to do is lecture me about how they are right, and I am wrong if I think different than them
The only relevant question is - are you wrong?
Is your take actually valid? Based on sound imperical data? Is not fallacious? Does your reasoning stand up to scrutiny? Is it fact, or a belief? Is it a justified belief?
Ultimately you shouldn't need to be coddled if you have any allegiance to the truth.
It's one thing if a 3-year old gets 2+2 wrong. It's another when it's a 33 year old. Would you waste energy on that, or would you assume that the 33-year old doesn't care enough to bother no matter what approach is used?
The unfortunate reality is that democracy as a vehicle for progress is a failure because not enough people have an allegiance to the truth, nor have the basic epistemological tools for determining what's knowledge, what's belief, what's a hypothesis, what's theory or what's valid evidence or any idea of what the scientific method even is, or what an axiom is etc.
They favour their delusions (I don't mean religion specifically) over truth.
I think there's a mixture of not believing Hitler-level nazi shit is happening until actual gas chambers are running, and a what can one person do anyway attitude. Frankly, I had high hopes of Trump being soundly defeated and that it would be the turning point in the collapse of MAGA. But since not enough people could be bothered to vote against him, I honestly believe his long-overdue final Big Mac Attack is the only thing that will stop MAGA. Without him as a figurehead the self-centered opportunists running it will tear it apart as they claw at each other to get on top. Until then we just have to hang on.
Hitler also didn't happen overnight. We all look back in history and many ask "how could they not know what was happening" and "how could they not stop him". It's all happening in real time, and nobody gives a shit as long as they are not the danger group being put in the gas chambers.
It will only stop when millions are death in a decade or more. If it ever stops. Hitler didn't have the strongest military in the world and nuclear weapons to use willy nilly.
In many ways he's a unique figure. When he entered the political scene in his first campaign. The establishment republicans and conservatives didn't appear to think he'd really become a serious force. They were wrong. His ideological opponents also seemed to think he was too silly, and too extreme to be taken seriously and his domination of the right, albeit surprising, was anomalous and would never translate to electoral victory. They were also wrong. He seemed not to know how to play the game properly and was too foolish even to realise it. He probably wouldn't have been the first whack job to fail to heed his advisors and PR team and would surely fail like all of them. Viewed in that light his somehow successful manoeuvres could seem only baffling than inspired, like watching someone win at roulette by just always betting one colour. This gives his rising successes a spooky and uncanny air and not something his rivals or opponents could simply emulate themselves because when a normal person does this they just lose.
If he'd had that final Big Mac attack in 2015 or maybe even as late as 2016, his brand of politics and the movement it seems to have inspired might have died with him but sadly it looks like now, plenty of proteges will be there to pick up the reigns. For all that can be said of the man, it appears he tapped in to and unleashed something that was waiting for its time and it's unlikely even his death will put that genie back in its bottle. The next in line might be a shrewd and clever cynic, who's studied the MAGA playbook and will exploit it to the hilt to grasp power for their own ends with no belief in the irrational or fantastical elements of this new orthodoxy. It might be an actual true believer, straight from the ranks of the deranged and mentally disturbed that Trump previously manipulated, now believing they're seeing the many real and imagined prophecies Trump used to rile them coming true. Maybe it'll be something in between, someone more like Trump himself with what seems to be more of an instinctive knack for playing these emboldened fanatics rather than a geniusly thought out strategy, they'll sometimes believe what they're saying sometimes not, a value system infinitely malleable, but reliably selfish. Either way Trump being dead will be a relief for little more than a day and after that you can either look forward to an heir apparent who'll keep it all going or a dangerous power struggle between dangerous people happy to expend lives and treasure to pick up the mantle.
I agree with your analysis of Trump's surprising victory. His fellow republicans didn't expect it because they don't understand his charisma. I don't think he does either, he just thinks he's irresistible and that his critics are irrational. But no one in his party will be next in line. Being VP won't give bestow that on Vance, except procedurally if Trump croaks in office. No Republican all-star has Trump's weird Pied Piper quality, and he will never anoint a direct successor because that's not in his personality. Trump gives people his blessings to help them into subordinate positions, and that's all. When he's gone I think it will be a wild scramble, every man for himself - which with any luck will disorganize the party enough for a well chosen Democrat to win the next election.
The only thing one person can do is get armed, get trained, and get ready.
I'd add "get organized" to that list but you're on the money otherwise
Okay Rambo, have fun stormin' da kessel.
I care, you care, and many of us here on lemmy care. We should work on how to coordinate ourselves together rather than try to change minds.
I've tried, a lot, to change minds. I started with the most difficult person, and recently a new hire at work is kinda centrist-left and I tried to convince him. No matter whether it's a nazi you're talking to (ahem.. the first one) or a liberal, minds can only change themselves. They have to want it, you cannot hack their brain and override it.
I gave up, because even the people who are closest to me politically seem to move further to the right when faced with uncomfortable reality. They don't engage with icky thoughts like "What if police killed an innocent man?". They rationalize it to keep their comfort zone intact. "Well, if they just followed police instructions..." blissfully unaware of many cases like Daniel Shaver.
You point to an example that breaks their rationalization, and they will diminish it. "Oh that cop made a mistake". Point to many examples and they suddenly got to go wash their hair. People's psyche protects them from stress.
And that is the default mindset in this society. Avoidance of discomfort and inconvenience. Fear of the unknown. They want their life to be neat and happy and to all make sense. They don't appreciate it when someone tries to take that away from them.
Do you think there's something about people like us that makes us more accepting of challenging our own worldviews? I have some thoughts but I've written enough.
People won't care until negative things start effecting them. Even at that point, many will still deny negative things are happening or they will put the blame somewhere else. This is why I believe things are going to have to get bad, really bad, before they can turn around. The biggest thing to go bad would be the economy. An economy so bad would be hard to deny and live with. Unfortunately, the more money you have, the longer you can "deal with" a bad economy, and still think everything is okay.
Even at that point, many will still deny negative things are happening or they will put the blame somewhere else.
My daddy is good, he would never hurt me, he only hurts people who are "illegal" 🤡
What would you like for them to do? Have they discussed how they vote with you? Or how they spend their money? Maybe they just don't want to talk about it at work?
I mean, I care, but what can I do about it? There isn't a CEO I can shoot to make it stop, nor can I make voting day get here any sooner. All I can do is stamp out ignorance when I see it.
I think what we're dealing with, in part, is a collective action problem. There's a lot of people who want to do something but either don't know what to do or don't agree on what to do. It's one way that a minority population can stay in power.
What an individual can do is miniscule compared to a crowd. Also, some people are willing to break laws to make change and others are not.
There is so much you can do about it, here's a simple suggestion: promote open censorship-resistant communication systems like Lemmy.
If you are trying to make them care or discuss it at work then that is where you are failing.
Very few people want to or are willing to discuss politics at work. Many will report it as harassing behavior and you run the risk of getting fired.
You need to talk to them outside of work.
This is correct. Leave this shit out of work. I agree with OP but I don't want to talk about religion or politics at work.
How do you make people care before it's too late?
none of my co-workers care
You can't force another to care. We can educate them with facts and reason while trusting them to make their own choices. And, that isn't done in a workplace, instead one on one in presence of a human relationship.
But, if you insist, then there's always a way. Read the Bible as part of a Bible study to develop a nuanced understanding of its message. Relate that message to social democrat, socialist, communist, and anarchist ideology. Determine the relevant Bible passages useful in the specific situations you encounter with specific Christians, then memorize those passages. Then, in full context of Bible and situation, in the moment, quote the passage. Finally, shut up and wait.
People talking about people about concentration camps after Democrats have supported a genocide campaign in a concentration camp for more than a year.
You can tell OP does not believe any person outside of America is human.
Suburban white trash thinks they won't get hurt by this lol
They think they are on "the team"
But George Carlin called decades ago... There is a club and these idiots are too stupid to figure out they are not in it.
In the case of my mother, I instituted a no-politics rule in 2020. However, as of last week, I’m sending her accusatory emails about the various articles of his fucked up actions. I’ve decided that she is partially a bad person for having full info about who and what he is and chose not to know. I’m very angry and she’s going to keep hearing about it. The relationship might be over.
I know that doesn’t help your situation. I just needed to vent. As noted, I’m very angry. With her in particular. For choosing this again.
To help you find an answer i'll return you the same question: why did you not care about US building concentration camps and following the fascist playbook until now?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detention_camp
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indictment_and_arrest_of_Julian_Assange
They’ve been doing this shit for decades. Why all the sudden are you in such a frenzy?
The US has always crossed lines when it comes to treatment of prisoners, but this is different and you know it. Traditionally the US has always been an oligarchy masquerading as a democracy in order to claim legitimacy. Now in under two weeks the Trusk regime has completely restructured everything in an effort to turn all instructions into a manifestation of their will. Mark my words, if you don't see the difference now, you will soon.
Now it's even worst ok but we are discussing why people don't care and my suggestion to find an answer is to think about why you didn't care in the past when it was bad already.
What a fucking stupid, useless reply.
less stupid than the one you just made
When I meet someone who doesn't care, I work twice as hard to fix things.
Really? And what happens?
lmao are you trying to talk me out of working to help you?
I think people tend to have a very narrow view of what goes on around them. And frankly, I don't think that's really a bad thing. Everyone does it. It's just a fact of life. But we have to account for it. Talking about big-picture issues doesn't work when people are focused their narrow view of the world. Even if they agree with the issue, they won't be riled up and take action. I think there's 2 takeaways to this:
First, regarding talking to the people around you: narrow your focus. Focus on things that affect them directly, or frame things in a way such that they interpret it in a way that affects them. Don't talk about concentration camps, talk about Trump retroactively rescinding birthright citizenship and how that might affect their lives (especially effective if that person happens to be an ethnic minority or is in a relationship with one). When talking about anti-immigration policies, focus on ICE arresting American citizens because they didn't look American enough. You don't have to convince people of everything, you just have to convince people of enough that they feel personally concerned.
Second, regarding yourself: it's easy to think that all Americans are similar to the people that you're with. Society is a bell curve. You don't need to shift the entire bell curve to the left to exact change. You just need to stretch it out leftward - pull the left leaning people more to the left. Trump didn't win by convincing leftists to be right-leaning, he won by convincing the right-leaning moderates into shifting right. Consider the audience and pick arguments that would be most effective against that particular audience. Be more direct toward more left-leaning people. Republican? Sow seeds of suspicion toward Trump. Moderate? Make them fear for their way of life. Left-leaning moderate? Maybe we should punish the rich. Leftist? Hell yeah socialism baby
Work in medical too, but work in the lower sections with the blue collar workers while living in the bible belt. They're all Trump fans and think this is all great.
The best advice I have is find your people, the ones you know who've been against this (not the non-voters, they folded to apathy, and will fold when the going gets tough) and start working on survival plans. Gardens, mutual aid, mutual defense, how to hide those in danger ESPECIALLY if you're the cishet white guy. Build the community as best you can.
This is not some big overall "Fight the bastions to overthrow" but right now as a regular schmuck in the middle of nowhere, right now this is what we have.
exclusively cishet white population
Red State? Then don't bother, nobody would care.
Look up the specific area around your workplace and trump's margin of victory, and you'll see just how fucked it is.
Preaching in a red area is a waste of time, I'm telling ya.
Edit: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/us/elections/2024-election-map-precinct-results.html
I think this works. Look it up.
Edit 2: Oh wow, my Precinct is more than +50 Harris. Go Philly! I'm glad to know that if a nazi is walking around doing the salute, they getting them ass beat.
Edit 3: HOLY FUCKING SHIT. I looked up my old place in NYC, and wtf a RED WAVE. +20 felon, +30 felon change from 2020. Jesus Fucking Christ. Glad I'm outta that hell.
NYC is so cooked, especially Brooklyn.
As someone in a similar environment, there are others who care. It just isn't worth the risk to my job & professional relationships to talk about. Most people who don't care I won't sway anyways and anyone who does care doesn't need to talk to me. So, for the betterment of my family, I stay quiet at work. Outside of work though I'll talk to my friends & anyone who will listen about the risks of the current regime.
You have more control over your attitude than over politics, or other peoples' opinions. Don't exhaust yourself and don't strain your relationships uselessly. They want to bring you down and push you out. I usually reject stoicism, but this is a good time to be stoic and keep your energy reserves, and your attitude, fresh.
Lecturing others anonymously online isn't exactly caring either.
I'm not lecturing, I'm asking for help on how to approach this. This is closer to frustrated bitching than lecturing.
I think a better question is, how do we make our elected representatives care? (The answer, of course, is by not electing a**holes, but that's not going to happen until people really start to suffer).
The Nazis started under MUCH different circumstances. Also constantly comparing everyone and everything to "Nazis" makes you sound hysterical.