this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2026
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I agree with this argument but you probably won't convince a conservative with it. Though facts and logic probably wouldn't work either...
Many people operate primarily on the emotional level. That's a polite way of saying they're stupid. Idiots. Like a child who'd rather have 4 shiny pennies than one tiny dime.
If we're not going to round them up (which, give me the infinity gauntlet and...) then we need to appeal to their idiot emotions. Find something they consider in-group, and frame whatever reasonable policy they're opposing so their benefits are foregrounded.
This is a game you won't win long term. Authoritarians and idiots go together like peanut butter and jelly. And there are so many idiots. You'll never outdo a fascist demagogue talking to idiots. They don't give two shits about lying to the idiots to get their way. And the idiots will never question the lies because they are fucking stupid. And this is the quintessential tension: The people smart enough to engage the fascists have so much better shit to do with their lives than accumulating political power by lying to idiots. So essentially politics becomes keeping the fascists out instead of whatever else it should be.
I have this really conservative uncle(doesn't everyone) who said at a family dinner once that we should just deal with it because it "happens every month" and we should be "used to it". This was in regards to the idea of schools providing them for students.
It's been around 5 years since that happened and I have not, and will not ever forget it.
These people are assholes. It's who they are and we need to find ways to get rid of them because you cannot convince them to care about others.
Get rid of them?
I work closely with a woman who describes herself as conservative. She is staunchly against benefits like free school lunches and period products. Her argument is that it is the responsibility of the parents or the woman herself to work hard and buy those things themselves instead of taking from others.
She absolutely believes that being poor is an indication of laziness and lack of work ethic.
It’s the most infuriating to hear her speak about these things as if her middle-class white ass didn’t get built in societal benefits that allowed her to succeed despite her worth ethic or lack thereof.