I'm not downvoting you. You are engaging in good faith, and I appreciate your instinct toward kindness to them.

When conservatives are shown definitive proof that their thugs are harming innocent people, they do not change their position. They simply say, "well, I don't know about that". But that is a lie. They DO know about that. They do know what is happening right now and they are absolutely not interested in changing or stopping it. Their representatives hold both chambers of congress. Conservatives can stop this anytime they like and they are actively choosing not to. They completely understand the situation at this point and are choosing evil.

I agree that they are trained to see empathy as weakness. Growing up in south Texas, living there my whole life and then retiring there, I was told empathy was a grotesque weakness my entire life. Every person who told me that was a conservative who could not experience empathy. Because I am able to experience empathy, their lies could not work on me. But the lies worked very well on my friends, neighbors and colleagues who could not experience empathy.

I have been nothing but kind and supportive of them my entire life, mostly because I didn't want to blame them for their biological shortcomings. It's not their fault they can't experience empathy. But it is their fault that they choose to harm others and celebrate that harm. Their inability to feel guilt or empathy does not absolve them. They choose to be the very definition of evil.

I have never talked down to them. I have always been supportive and have used the Socratic method and genuine, patient curiosity to try to reach them. I mourn the loss of my friends anf family that I have disowned. No amount of patience and kindness has been effective in changing them from being a deadly threat to the vulnerable around them. Their choices result in concentration camps and the loss of human rights. And they still celebrate it.

Conservatives will never stop harming others on their own. No amount of patience or love can make them stop. This is the sad reality of conservatism. It is cancer. There is only one way to stop cancer.