Ask Lemmygrad

I've had some luck by working backwards to things you agree on, then stepping forward until you start to diverge. You need to be genuinely engaged in their thought process, though, so prepare for psychological damage.

E.g. for immigration, you can start from "this is super fucked up and I don't think we should do it. Why do y'all support it?"

It make take a few "why"s, but I think their reasoning will ultimately end up at:

1. Lots of people are struggling financially, that's bad, and we need to fix it.
2. Because of supply and demand, having more people in the US lowers wages and increases prices
3. If we have fewer people in the US, wages will go up and prices will go down
4. There are lots of people here illegally. Kicking them out will fix the fact that people are struggling financially

Which is wrong, but at least is a logical progression that you can challenge. They believe that the social benefits of deporting people outweigh the human costs of doing so. It's "for the greater good" and "you gotta break a few eggs to make bread."

You now get the privilege of talking about the real cause of low wages and high prices being capitalism. You're in your element and should have a DEEP bag of examples. As usual, tailor to your audience, make it simple, and try to avoid trigger words like any -isms.

If you convince them that capitalism is the problem, not supply and demand, then there's no longer any benefit to deporting people and it's only a fucked up thing to do.

They'll have weak, residual arguments like "but they're breaking The Law" or "but maybe it's a little supply and demand too, as a treat?"

At that point, you've won. You can provide weaker pushback on these, and start looking for a way to end the conversation.

There is no world in which it ends in "oh. actually you're right" - our brains take time to change. Your goal is just for them to think about it by themselves.

For me, it's necessary to sometimes just retreat into a leftist bubble to remind me that there are sane people around. Lemmygrad helps with that.

Being politically active helps as well, because it makes you feel like you are combatting the propaganda and capitalist power at least a little bit, which puts your mind a little more at ease.

If you're interacting with the same people over and over again over a long period of time, being consistent and being unapologetic (but not necessarily hostile unless you have a good reason to be, especially in the real world) goes a long way. People will notice that you have a backbone and are committed to upholding a different vision from the mainstream, genocidal ideology. The cracks will build up in others' worldviews as they're confronted with information that emotionally affects them. Don't expect facts and logic to just convince others that they're wrong, you gotta make use of ethos, logos, and pathos to convince someone, and that's a process that takes a very long time.

It also can be useful to read this essay so you can gain a better understanding of the function of propaganda and learn to pick your battles. If the people you're arguing against have a reason to buy into the propaganda even when it's obviously false, you can only get so far by questioning the propaganda on its face: actually convincing them will require you to get them to confront that root cause, which in many cases is really difficult because it requires them to recognize they benefit from imperialism and genocide.

It really really helps to have friend circles that share your ideology.

my secret? i can't keep my sanity together lol

like i know that the liberals in my life will be like that due to propaganda, and that trying to help them when they do not even feel like they want to change is like trying to tell a donkey to take a shit in the urinal

anger doesn't help me, and trying to help libs is the sure-fire way to piss me off