I had dinner tonight with a very good friend of mine, who’s celebrating his 70th birthday. It was a big to do, for various reasons, we went to a very nice restaurant. There was a guy there who brought a lot of wine and whom I made right away for a douchebag. About halfway through dinner, he started in on politics, about how the two sides didn’t talk to each other enough and how Obama was an idiot, though he didn’t like Romney either, both sides do it. He was a bit aggressive and asked how many of us had actually watched the Republican debates enough to judge the candidates, were we just repeating stuff we heard in the big hippie echo chamber (he didn’t use those words, obviously). I told him I had watched nearly all of them, so I had some evidence to back up my opinion — that Romney’s not a great politician, so Obama may win even in a weak economy. Then he said something about extremists on both sides. I turned and said to my friend, I think under my breath, but people might have heard “see, I knew this guy was an idiot” (he’d already said a lot of stupid, verifiably untrue things about wine and American history which I’d disproved to him via my Wikipedia earlier in the evening).
This happens to me a lot, where I act in a socially inappropriate way when people say really dumb things about politics. It’s not a right/left thing, mind you, I probably lose it more with Burkean moderates than with anyone else.
How do you people deal with this? I feel like I’ve tried everything, from leaving the room to cool off, to having another drink, to trying to change the topic, but nothing works. Either I do something inappropriate or I sit there stewing all night.
David Koch
I usually cover they head with a pillow until they stop breathing.
redshirt
Embrace your inner asshole. That’s the answer.
David Koch
BREAKING
Walker had baby out of wedlock and then abandoned his child.
http://wcmcoop.com/members/integrity-the-child-scott-walker-left-behind/
Nellcote
It’s not like you overturn tables or actually punch the guy (I’m assuming) so I don’t see the problem. More people than you realize are probably glad you speak up.
Spiffy McBang
I don’t spend time with people like that. If it looks like I might, I do whatever is in my power to escape the situation before it escalates to a problem level.
This, of course, assumes someone other than me will catch some sort of hell if I’m a dick to such a person. If that’s not the case, I let rip with precisely what I think of them.
smintheus
With anybody who can be persuaded to change their minds, I try to ask basic questions to draw out how little actual evidence they have to back up their misinformed ideas. With unrepentant douchebags I just head straight to ridicule and absurdist mockery of their pet stupidities; it tends to shut them up quickly.
Spiffy McBang
@Nellcote: This, also, too. When you know you’re making sense in your head, more people than you might think will agree if you make sense out loud. But you’ve said in the past you have a lot of these Burkean idiots for friends, so I guess you may well know that and not be able to put it to use.
jharp
“How do you people deal with this?”
I call them out on their dumbass remarks. Being silent for the past 30 years didn’t work.
And I do not give a fuck if I lose friends over it. It is too important.
James E Powell
I used to be much worse than what you describe. Now I pretend that I don’t know what anyone is talking about. Or go to the john and hope that by the time I get back they’ve moved on to other subjects.
Metrosexual Black AbeJ
@Spiffy McBang:
I don’t have any Burkean idiots for friends, but many for acquaintances.
Hill Dweller
I got into a huge fight with a couple of family members(both have advanced degrees) about politics during Christmas. Both are smart and successful, but they become complete f’n morons when talking about politics. No amount of evidence would dissuade them.
It’s tribalism. People support Democratic policies, but vote for Republicans, because shut up.
Spiffy McBang
@Metrosexual Black AbeJ: My mistake.
Martin
If a student said something wrong in the classroom, you wouldn’t let it slide – you’d correct it because you know that something wrong repeated in public, uncorrected, becomes increasingly accepted as correct, simply by virtue of not being corrected. The only thing you can do it call them out, tell them they’re wrong, and not back off.
Cacti
I just avoid my wife’s wingnut family whenever possible.
It’s just a matter of time before one of them opens their gob and says something cretinously stupid.
I once called my brother in law a bigot at the dinner table when he opined that you couldn’t be muslim and be a good American.
And a shitstorm ensued.
Brachiator
I don’t think that there is a socially appropriate way to deal with idiots.
BTW, I have no idea what the label Bukean moderate means, or how lumping people into categories is meaningful or useful.
But I try not to get upset in a social setting, especially when it’s really someone else’s event. On the other hand, I can understand wanting to go after someone you think is clearly and demonstrably wrong.
Tim in SF
I wish I could be in that scenario occasionally. Here in San Francisco, conservatives don’t dare open their fool mouths. It sucks. I like fights.
piratedan
I think you do the right thing by trying to discuss and back up your positions based on what you know. I’ve tried to do the same and I’ve had mixed results. I’ve had some people tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about as they know that Obama is personally responsible for raising the fees on independent truckers and when you press them for just how they know that you get into “just shut up, that’s why” territory and how can you continue to have a civil dialogue with these folks if you don’t left them retreat into their own personal fantasies of what they believe to be the truth.
Others.. well others you try and insert a wedge and try and let reality and facts do the rest. Something that has worked for me is that I go ahead and point out the flaws in my candidate and I welcome them to do the same for their own. If they say that they’re perfect then I say its obvious that they don’t know enough about them, because nobody is perfect.
patrick II
Sometimes I say something, and sometimes I don’t. I seem to regret it either way. We are watching this country go down the tubes. Propaganda is just killing us. The country is like a crazy person — there is a reality, but there is a this voice telling us its not true, that scientists are grifters and big banks will do better next time if they just have less regulation and our President was born in Kenya, and we have the best health system in the world if you just ignore the 47 million without insurance and the 45,000 people who die yearly because of it. You can’t change the mind of someone who has listened to thousands of hours of Fox or Limbaugh or Beck. They are so filled with lies you can barely hold a conversation.
I met a guy from Ohio yesterday. We were sitting on on adjacent benches on Virginia Beach watching the Blue angels(They’re spectacular by the way). Nice guy. Emailed me some pictures he took with his smart phone as we sat there. A young lady with sign-up cards for the Sierra Club came by, and I signed. He didn’t. He said his father worked for a coal company. He didn’t believe in cleaning up the air — bad for business. He didn’t believe in global warming. His kids (whom I talked to and were very nice) were being home schooled because of “social problems” in the public schools. Nice guy, nice family. They’re going to be the death of us. I considered counter arguments, but this time I didn’t make them. It would have done no good. Whether I engage or not, I have regret either way.
Warren Terra
Dammit Doug, it was bad enough when at a whim you’d change your handle to anything you liked but would keep the “Doug” so we’d know it was you. This new handle keeps just the fricking “J”!
John Cole
I confront them, tell them I used to be an idiot, too. If that doesn’t work, I tell them to go fuck themselves, ignore them (because most of these fucking douchebags try to win debates by being the loudest and most aggressive filibusterer in the room), and then tell everyone in the room why this jackass has no clue what he is talking about.
This only really works if you hate people and don’t give a fuck about losing friends. Since that is not an issue for me, I use it frequently. Nothing focuses a room’s attention like a “You’re full of shit and this is why.”
hhex65
If someone goes on a rant what I have been doing is to stare at them, let them finish, never respond and then usually there’s a long silence after and I just keep staring at them and usually someone else will change the subject, YMMV…depends on the group dynamic. I really try and avoid social situations where I might run into more than one lunatic.
My wife has no problem just dealing with everyone simply as a human being, on the other hand, no method involved. She’s from the future, I hope.
cay
Move to Santa Monica, CA. I have a basement until you find a sane place to live!
Chris
@Hill Dweller:
It’s an unfortunate fact of politics that everyone feels qualified, even required, to have an opinion. I mean, you’d never see these kinds of fights breaking out on the topic of nuclear physics, or shipbuilding, or most spheres of human activity, except between people who’re actually exposed to these things. But politics – every last idiot in the country thinks they have something grand and profound to add to the conversation, no matter how completely ignorant they may be on the subject. And don’t you dare point out that they don’t, in fact, know shit from peanut butter. That’s elitist, you liberal meanie.
YellowJournalism
My uncle and I used to have long political “discussions” when I was in college. He was on the cusp of becoming a Fox News believer, so not entirely wingnutty yet. I remember how it used to piss me off when his tone would go from adult conversation to “how adorably naive you are with your liberal college notions,” I stopped having these conversations wih him not long after his son-in-law asked my husband if he was sure he wasn’t an Aye-rab and my uncle tried to defend it because 9-11! He says he misses our “debates,” but I just can’t talk to someone who uses o’reilly talking points as absolute proof of a point.
My husband got into it once with another uncle of mine who also happened to be a Roger Ailes follower. I have too many relatives that watch that shit. My husband has some that are really prejudiced against Muslims, and it’s gotten to the point that we end up leaving the room or try to change the subject before it gets awful. I love it when he points out how fucking stupid some of their points are, though.
freelancer
I’m guessing the OP is Doug?
My batshit wingnut aunt has come to visit, dragging my grandmother along the way to hock pseudo-science bullshit in Sedona. The funny thing is, she can’t have a human conversation without bringing Fox Nation/Breitbart bullshit into the conversation. She brings up the Civil War in the context that blacks had it WAY better under Slavery and the more she talks, the more she sounds like the SCV’s. She mentioned that once her kids are out of school, she’s gonna move to Texas because Texas was the only state that declared that if the US declared martial law, that they would secede rather than comply with such an evil federal order.
What if Texas SECEDES?! and anyways, so that’s where my batshit aunt would go. This is my aunt on my mom’s side, and so I mentioned that my paternal grandfather’s grandfather was part of the 17th volunteer Army of Ohio, and he helped burn the South down for treason against the USA, and if Texas felt like repeating the mistake, we’d burn it down all over again.
Most of my relatives (on my Mom’s side) were intrigued and wanted to hear more about Joshua Jones and my grandmother’s cache of bayonets and Confederate cash, and it pretty much shut her the fuck up.
Right or left, most people are trying to get to the end of the day with their sanity intact. The Overton window moving so far right helps the left in cases like this, and makes those who feel that, because they watch Fox News and buy every book being promoted, that even though they feel the most mainstream, the most patriotic, etc.; that even those who might share their dispositions and prejudices, well, they might look at them a bit sideways before embracing all that Hannity/Glenn Beck/David Barton/McNaughton blend of fringe and fascist horseshit.
Chuck Butcher
considering how many people I think get it wrong… I don’t indulge myself that much.
Shinobi
I usually find myself using the phrase “The plural of anecdote is not data” and the word “Delusional” quite a bit. (Especially with people who have bought into the whole Bootstrap mythology.)
But I am a TOTAL bitch about it, this comes from endless familial arguments that consist of my republican father saying he just doesn’t understand how his daughters could turn out to be liberal commie hippies, therefore we must be stupid. I pretty much use up all my putupwiththisbulshit points to keep the family peace. Everyone else better be prepared to throw the fuck down.
BobbyK
I’m 50 and I’ve come to the conclusion it’s not inappropriate to tell an asshole s/he’s an asshole. It’s one of the things I always admired about my father, he was never afraid to do it.
Steve Crickmore
John Cole, you are right about losing conservative acquantances or friends or some of these bat shit crazy conspiratorial freaks, and often of the extreme left. A friend to all these people is normally someone who doesn’t disagree, with them, publicly, and is like-minded, even tacitly, of their tribe, and not a critical thinker who carefully weighs the evidence.
The point is to try and not make it personal..until they do; then, you go for the jugular. I suppose there is some satisfaction in wiping the grin off their faces. On the other hand, it will probably spoil your dinner and your guest’s. Better to do it at the bar!
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
At my last high school reunion, after avoiding South PA politics all night, I got cornered by a former track/field colleague who I actually like, who went ballistic when he figured out I was an an Obot, so I did what I’ve done for years, made a funny to defuse the situation and poked him in the chest:
“Transfer the wealth? Sure, I’m gonna transfer your wealth to me!”
Sadly, this was a year before Occupy. Now I would have poked him in the chest and said, “Schmuck! Of course we’re transferring the wealth. We’re transferring yours and mine to the rich assholes on Wall Street. Turn off Fox News and get a clue!”
Dave
Where the fuck do you find these people? Honestly, I know plenty of right wing cretins, but “both sides do it” whiners don’t actually exist in real life, unless maybe we’re talking abou the most poorly informed Sciences people or university administration.
I dunno, man, if you seriously are plagued by neo-broderites, and honestly I don’t believe you are, tell them to read a fucking book or something. Or shoot them in the head, what do I care.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@Tim in SF: Get out of Frisco and come on over to the Dark Side. Plenty of fighting to do even in the Blue States. Hell, go canvass OC or Bakersfield this fall. Or Fresno or Visalia, closer to home. I’m sure there are a few Democrats who’d be glad to put you up.
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
its a two sided interaction. is the person saying stuff because they know where you stand, and are attempting to piss you off, or at least take advantage of your politeness?
are they unaware that some one in close proximity actually disagrees and may in fact not like what you are saying?
who has the power, what are the loyalties.
i am guessing few of us ever fully get it right, hell fill a room, or comment section with liberals, progs, obots, firebaggers etc and you can stir shit up.
everybody trolls, sometimes.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@John Cole: ‘
I’m almost there, but being the smallest guy in the room I still have to avoid creating pissed off big drunk guys.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@Chris:
Oh hell yes you would. Are you kiddin’ me?
Or closer to my line of work, every asshole with a driver’s license thinks he/she is a traffic engineer. No, you’re not. You don’t have a clue what it takes to keep you moving.
Oh, and on another note, quit throwing your bagged dogshit down the storm drain. It goes straight to the creek, not the wastewater plan. Asshole.
Jess
Socratic method works for me: “Is there a way to test the theory that Obama is a soshulist?” “How does he compare to other presidents in that area?” Sometimes if we’re focused on a specific topic, such as the deficit, I’ll ask something like “how would you feel if you found out that the deficit increased faster under Reagan and Bush II than under Obama?” or “what if the average person’s taxes actually went DOWN under Obama?” I try to remember that I’m not really speaking to the wingnut, but to the other people listening who could still be convinced either way. That’s why it’s important to keep your cool and focus on the facts and evidence rather than making it personal. Try to channel your inner Obama…
Riilism
I’d probably let them expound on their nonsense for awhile, then, trying to sound as innocuous as possible (perhaps by using an almost sympathetic tone), I’d say, “You know, I think I read somewhere that individuals who are overly aggressive in presenting their political opinions may be suffering from a personality disorder” (FYI, never read that anywhere, I don’t know it to be true, and, frankly, I don’t care if it’s true or not). Best, I think, if presented as an aside to someone sitting near you but loud enough for everyone to hear.
Let the fool prove it by opening their mouth and, if necessary, let everyone around you know how much of a fool you think that person is….
bobber
I actually cut off ties with 3 otherwise really good friends of mine (one of which I’ve known for 4 years, the other two for 11). It really sucks, but they just became so insufferable regarding politics that I had no choice but to stop associating with them.
Some times, it just can’t be helped. Sad to say.
Xenos
@Jess: I have tried this many times. Whether it is ‘sockialism’ or birtherism or muslimism or whatever. Let the wingnut set the terms for proof, then prove it within the standards they set.
It has never, never worked, at least not right away. The friends in question change the subject, drop the issue, and then start right over again a few days later.
The Ailes followers have deliberately decided to believe propaganda, no doubt because it feels good. Like religious converts they feel the need to evangelize, but when you let the Jehovah’s Witnesses into your living room, debate the finer points of the New Testament, and invite them to pray with you that will never get them to change their minds. It will get them to leave you alone, and to know better than to convert others with you in the room, but the Witnesses don’t care about dogma, not in the end. They care about being in with the right club of people, and having support — emotional, psychological, spiritual, and physical.
The point of propaganda is not to persuade. It is to lock people in, to make them unpersuadable. We have developed it to an artform, unfortunately. I have written off the older generations and concentrating on the under-20s. They can recolonize the wreckage if they want to.
Riilism
@Jess: My experience with the Socratic method is that it frustrates the hell out of people (not necessarily a bad thing and can come in real handy for shutting up dickwads). There’s something about asking a series of questions (often in response to the
victim’sperson’s last response) that, in my experience, frequently puts people off….Spectre
Being quick to anger over politics is a sign of a bad conscience, and that you aren’t really secure in any of your opinions. Also sexual frustration.
Remedy: Try to educate yourself more and get laid, IMO.
Jess
@Xenos: When you say it has never worked, do you mean it hasn’t changed the wingnut mind? Well, of course not! That’s an impossible goal. A more realistic and attainable goal is to expose the wingnut’s lack of credibility to others, and to encourage the others to start thinking about doing their research and thinking more critically. (Can you tell I’m a teacher?)Also, it’s pretty entertaining playing Socrates–gets your opponent quite riled up and ridiculous looking…
cokane
i think if someone chooses to discuss politics, and says factually untrue things, its your duty to call em out. they don’t have to discuss politics, and people can change the subject if they dont like what you have to say. i wouldnt worry too much about being an ass, frankly.
Xenos
@Jess: You sound like an evil contracts prof I once had.
Socratic method is excellent for sorting out principles and the logic behind doctrines and rule-based systems (thus its use in common-law subjects but not in administrative law subjects). Once you walk the wingnut through their various mobius-strips of tautologies, what is the value? They will just declare you stupid for not accepting their authorities when they cite authority, and then the discussion is over.
People need to want to learn before they can be taught.
russ
You can’t push a rope
I change the subject
don’t need the brain damage
asiangrrlMN
I’m with the majority, AbeJ. Call him out. It’s too important to let that shit slide. You may not (and probably will not) change his mind, but there are others who might be silently wavering whom you can reach.
I understand the conflict, though. Personally, I try to steer clear of politics in real life because I run into many leftwing ideologues, and I simply don’t have the patience to deal with their bullshit. The minute I hear, “Obama is the same/worse than Bush,” I see red. Then, I get shrill, and I regret it afterwards, even though what I’m saying is factually correct.
In addition, the minute I realize someone is just ranting and not interested in a discussion, I disengage. I have no interest in being the recipient of a one-way monologue.
Bottom line: I don’t think you did anything wrong, Doug.
Allan
Embrace your inner asshole. You weren’t ruining anyone’s party; he was.
Point and laugh
Point and laugh. That’s it, just point and laugh.
Jess
@Xenos: The value is 1) the example/lesson you provide to the others at the table, and 2) the entertainment you provide to yourself.
Pat
1. Remember there are always THREE sides to an argument or debate:
You,
Him and
Everyone Else
Everyone else can be persuaded. Your goal is not to confront your opponent – your goal is to persuaded “Everyone Else”.
2. Be exceedingly polite. Your goal is to make the other person lose their cool first.
3. Be oblivious to personal attacks or innuendo. Be “social naive” make the other person insult you directly before you “get it”.
4. Always ask loaded questions and ask for “clarification”.
5. Pick pick pick at their arguments and use simple math to find holes. But always use questions to ask for clarification.
For example, “You say that unemployment insurance should be cut off at 99 weeks, because the 99ers are not really trying to get jobs. I am confused about what they should do when the 99 weeks are up. Unemployment is after all over 10%.”
Him: _______(some answer) _________
“I completely understand about suffering the penalties of their decision. However, since many are families aren’t we running the real risk that many kids will not finish school as a result?”
(keep on stating issues as questions – not certainties – make your opponent try to solve the problem or announce that he doesn’t care.)
Older_Wiser
Why is it only liberals like us think we’re becoming “assholes” because we have the chutzpah to disagree with hateful politics?
I’ve yet to have a rightwinger of any description, close relative or friend or even stranger, apologize for attacking me politically, yet I’ve tried to make amends because I valued, at least my family and good friends, very much. Unfortunately, a large majority of these folks don’t “forgive and forget” when they know you’re actually right.
I don’t start out disrespecting people themselves because I see all human life as valuable, but at 71 yrs old, I refuse to tolerate outright racism, sexism, homophobia or any other “bugaboo” bigotry otherwise sane people endorse. And since I live in a region that is very much infected with this kind of thinking, it’s hard to make friends who respect a different way of thinking. It’s a herd mentality here, with religion propping up the politics and vice-versa, and to be an atheist AND a liberal is to write your social death warrant. To keep a level of dignity with neighbors and people I have to come in contact with and might carry on a conversation, I don’t bring up politics, but am not shy about confronting outright bigotry if people have the gall to be obvious about it. I should get used to it, but it’s hate and it’s wrong.
As a result, I spend most of my time trying to get some kind of reinforcement, some kind of relief, some kind of sanity, being online. Being working class and with no financial underpinning in my old age, it’s the only way I can really communicate anymore without totally blowing my top.
Clark Stooksbury
I don’t know how old you are, but part of the answer might be getting older. I used to never be able to keep my mouth shut. It’s much easier now.
rageahol
you know how i deal with it?
mace.
rageahol
but seriously folks,
i’m pretty practiced at arguing wingnuts back to their self-reinforcing mobius strip of appeals to authority that they call principles. and yeah, thats fun for a little bit, but really the only appropriate response is ridicule. and the best kind of ridicule is the stuff that goes just a little bit over their heads, so that they know they’re being ridiculed but they’re incapable of responding.
it reinforces the “elitist” meme, but what the shit, it’s the only reasonable response other than smashing a bottle over their fucking head(s) and winding up in jail.
harlana
you know what’s funny, i can spot an so-called “independent” a mile away. embarrassed republicans, i call them. i pegged my boss and turned out i was right and he was oh so proud of calling himself such, as if that made him the adult in the room. anybody else get that?
i just clam up, nothing i say is going to come out right, too much passion.i clam up b/c i’m afraid i’ll get myself into big, big trouble.
harlana
@Older_Wiser: i know how you feel! it’s bad here, btw. i just try to cherish the few people in my life who understand. actually, they are the ONLY people in my life b/c i can’t really hang with the clowns being discussed here. and i know, if the subject comes up, the only way i can deal with it is to say i can’t discuss politics. if i don’t, the passion will come out and it scares people. i don’t know why, but i guess they don’t expect that out of a little blonde southern belle-type (i guess that’s how people see me, i don’t know, but it’s far from the truth) who’s not supposed to have a thought in her head beyond how i’m going to renovate my kitchen (which, btw, i could never afford to do! but everybody else seems to be doing it. how?)
i began looking to the internet to get better information when we started ramping up to invade Iraq and then, after that, same as you, sought some kind of confirmation and affirmation of my fears, concerns and anger b/c everyone around me thought it was just a bitchin’ idea.
harlana
@BobbyK:
WORD. my dad, too. i don’t know how much longer he will be around now, but i’m so proud of him for that, esp. b/c of where we live. my mom said one day she thought somebody was going to punch him in the face at the gym! my 70+ y.o. dad (at the time)!
btw, he told the guy that if Bush was going to go to war, he should make his daughters enlist. i’m like, damn, daddy.
Baud
Doug, the problem I see in your situation is that you were on the defensive. The axiom that “if you’re explaining, you’re losing” also applies in personal settings.
The best defense is a good offense. If you really want to drive them crazy, start talking about how great the Democrats and Obama are, all the good things they’ve done, and why they’ve earned your support — and make the wingnuts try to make you explain why you’re the idiot. It’s substantively the same conversation, but you’re in the driver’s seat rather than the wingnut.
Wingnuts know that liberals like to criticize rather than praise, and that is the source of much of wingnut confidence.
donnah
I work in a women’s fitness club set within a community of middle class, Catholic, mostly white women who are in their late fifties and up. Guess what I hear? Yup, GOP talking points, Limbaugh-speak, with lots of disdain and anger for Obama.
I can’t say much in response for fear of losing my job, but the other day one of the ladies said something about Obama raising the price of gas, and I said gently, “Now Kitty, you know the President doesn’t control that, remember? Speculators do that” and she mumbled something and then another woman chimed right back, “But he’ll take credit when the prices come back down!” and I went back behind my desk so I didn’t pull her hair.
Fortunately there are a few Dems in the group and we often talk quietly among ourselves when the outrage is too high to ignore, but in a work environment I just remind myself that it’s not worth losing my job over.
MTiffany
Happiness is a silent, empty room.
tjmn
I’m still trying to figure out who the far-left liberals are that my Dad keeps talking about. Fair and balanced faux news my ass.
fdbrightly
I think as we get older, our ability to shut our mouths in the face of obvious bullshit diminishes. Personally, I think staying quiet in the face of obvious bullshit is the worst of the two.
harlana
@donnah: it’s just too bad you can’t just put in the old earbuds like all your clients that aren’t flapping their jaws and just tune them out
harlana
@Baud: good point. i really don’t see how trying to reason with people like that accomplishes much. i think they enjoy it because they think they can bully you.
bully back. in a smarter way, of course, but hit them where it hurts. they’re used to us trying to be nice and reasonable. why not? they’ve been attacking us for decades. fuck ’em.
donnah
@harlana:
I know! it doesn’t happen all that often, and I usually hush them up by saying we are a safe space without discussing politics and religion. Most of them attend the same churches, so there’s not really much said about religion anyhow, but imagine what would happen if I told them I am an atheist. One older woman confided in me that she was praying for a family who was going through hard times and she didn’t know how people survived without praying. I just smiled and patted her hand.
Hillary Rettig
It’s an important question, and I wrote about it a lot in my first book, The Lifelong Activist. Basically, you can only state your truth, and live your truth, as best you can, and hope that that influences people – and it will influence some people, probably more than you realize. But the minute your ego NEEDS to influence or change them you’re in trouble. That’s basically an impossible task, and the likelihood of failure is strong enough to shame and disempower you.
Focusing on how YOU want to feel during and after the interaction rather than what you want to accomplish in another’s mind is useful. I want to exit challenging interactions feeling like I stood up for my values but did no harm to either my own values or the other person, for instance, by making the other person feel stupid or narrow, or like I’m a jerk.
More here: http://lifelongactivist.com/part-v-managing-your-relationship-with-others/12-the-best-activists-do-this-part-ii/
and
http://lifelongactivist.com/part-v-managing-your-relationship-with-others/11-the-best-activists-do-this-part-i/
Alinsky and other experts in activism and persuasion (like Dale Carnegie!) are clear: the best way to influence someone is not to attack or lecture them but to question them Socratically:
http://lifelongactivist.com/part-v-managing-your-relationship-with-others/10-the-primary-requisite-of-effective-activism/
I’ve seen countless activists do that and it is really can work miraculously.
If it makes you feel better, even having written about all this I still struggle. I have a young relative (young = 35 now) who is a Paulist, and beyond that, a lot of what comes out of his mouth is a deep disappointment. I was there when he grew up neglected, and so I know where the stupidity comes from. But it’s still hard to cope with. I’ve given up trying to influence and basically let my non-responses to some of his awful, intolerant, naive, compensatorily macho comments tell him what I think.
negative 1
@Xenos: If they change the subject it’s working.
I work for a union (the actual organization) – care to guess how many debates I’ve had on the subject with ignorant wingnuts? But if I fight back too hard I’m risking some actual employment consequences. I try to bear in mind that on any issue you are not just arguing the position, but representing it. So is the other guy. Ask questions until he says something ridiculous, then you’ve won.
Jeff Boatright
@piratedan:
I heard this one yesterday. Where the heck did THAT come from?
Baud
@tjmn:
If you’re wondering, then you are that liberal.
Waldo
This is one area where I think Mittens has the right idea: all you need to win is 50.1 percent. That means you can happily ignore 49.9 percent of the idiots out there.
Mark S.
Tell them that since we all know that the world isn’t fair that it just as easily be unfair in your favor, then thank them for making it so easy to solve your disagreements.
Jon Radin
I try to understand and empathize with the emotional content underlying the stupidity. The fear, anger, frustration, anxiety motivating a desperate attempt to vent feelings by denying parts of reality and channeling those feelings in a direction self serving rich and powerful interests desire. Occasionally you can get someone to admit they have been ignoring reality and are being manipulated. Occasionally you will have some sincere sympathy for why they are saying such stupid things. But at least people who disagree with you won’t dismiss out of hand everything you say as stupid. And who knows sometimes planted seeds sprout.
Just Some Fuckhead
I laugh at them.
wonkie
I don’t thinnkyour response was inappropritae. If he gets to say stupid things in public, then yu get to callthem stupid. The only reason to hold back that I can see is consideration for your host.
If you don’t want to call him stupid, then reveal his stupidity by calmly contradicting him and give your sources. Your contradiction does not have to be directed at him. You could turn tothe person next to you and say, “I don’t think he is correct about about that because …”
Matt McIrvin
@Dave:
They exist! They’re comfortably well-off software engineers in Massachusetts. Their inclinations are basically liberal but they’ve spent their whole adult lives around wannabe Randian supermen with neckbeards, so they fall back to this anodyne position. You can sometimes actually convince them of stuff just by saying “actually, no, I’ve looked into this and it’s not true.” It’s fun.
Matt McIrvin
…anyway, the last uncomfortable political conversation I had was actually with an Obama supporter who was in favor of current counterterrorism policy. It was like Balloon Juice in real life. And it made me realize how far we really are from any kind of situation in which there could be a political consensus against, say, extrajudicial assassinations by flying robots.
Omnes Omnibus
Billy Bragg. Cool.
RossInDetroit
One-on-one it’s fine to challenge them in any way you want. I like a good fight as much as anyone. But in a group of other people who might not feel like having a pitched political battle with their nice dinner engaging in conflict makes the event suck for everyone else. So don’t do that.
If I have to, I find something to agree with them on, then STFU about everything else. Then I add them to the list of people I shun. It’s a long list.
r€nato
Believe it or not, I dislike conflict. I think loudmouth boors like the one described in Metro AbeJ’s story are, well, boors. Hicks. Assholes.
I try to change the subject but if I’m in their home, I just suffer in silence. It’s his house and he can be an asshole if he wants in his castle. I just won’t go back there again.
But, if it’s on neutral ground, and changing subject doesn’t work, and arguing from facts doesn’t work, I just start mocking them. Subtly at first… agreeing with their idiotic opinions and then one-upping them just a tad more, then a tad more, until finally it sinks in that I am mocking them. It usually takes a while til that moment arrives. I excel at sarcasm and when pushed far enough, I got no problem getting in someone’s face.
The thing you have to remember about boors like the one described, is that they are not used to being called out. That’s their vulnerability; they don’t know what to do with someone who calls them out.
One such boor got visibly angry and actually kind of snarled back at me. I asked him not to hit me. “Please don’t hit me. You look really angry.” That just pissed him off even more but he didn’t know what to say to that; if he reacted in (even more) anger, it just would serve to make me fucking right in everyone else’s eyes.
Tyro
@Brachiator: BTW, I have no idea … how lumping people into categories is meaningful or useful.
This is what pisses me off about my fellow liberals. Categorizing and classifying is one of the most useful things we can do to get greater understand. No, everyone is not a unique and precious snowflake that is too special to be understood using mere human words.
superluminar
then of course, there are people who write this…
kay
I don’t start political fights anymore at social events, but I still get into them.
Bring other people in. It’s less rude and more interesting for everyone else. I also find out a lot. I have a sister in law who lives in California. I see her twice a year. I had no idea she was a really passionate liberal until she weighed in on my side during a birthday dinner a couple of months ago.
I didn’t have to do anything after that. She just took the whole argument and ran with it. I think she’s been waiting for an opening for ten years :)
Stuck in the Funhouse
I’m so sweet and deep, I pull out me hanky and point them to the lovely sunset
Slamhole
Fuck them. Don’t mumble under your breath. Do not be polite with them. Get them as mad or madder than they get you. Don’t let them win. It’s very easy to make them look foolish if you supply them with facts. Most of them get all of their news from opinion that goes against their own best interest. When a member of the working poor argues against Obamacare and for austerity measures you can take them down in no time by pointing out their unawareness of how those policies will hurt them personally. Sure they won’t admit it. But those new facts will be somewhere in their tiny brains. Sorry, but I do hope this country splits in half. And once they live under GOP policies and see how wrong headed they were, we might be able to unite this country again for the better for once and for all.
Teresa
I spend more time with my dog Acheron.
When I was in NC, my father, brother-in-law started going on about how we’re turning into a socialist nation and that people really do need to have more respect for the rich, then they tossed in some racist comments. I got the “oh you’re a liberal” comment too.
Tossed in with some “Limbaugh says some really smart things.” from my sister no less.
I grabbed my smokes and went outside. I spend more time with Acheron. lol
Valdivia
I am digging the new name. Even before my cup of morning coffee.
ETA: Haven’t read the thread but I am pretty much in the same boat as you. I don’t tell them that they are idiots, but I give them a rant about politics that leaves them stunned into silence mostly because they never figure, sexist pigs that they are (somehow the idiots are always men) that such a ferocious rant would never come from a smiling youngish lady. :)
Patricia Kayden
You could have addressed each of his points in a lucid, rationale way. Doesn’t sound like what he said was anymore shocking than what the average Repub/T’Bagger spouts on the internet. They say the same things over and over again, so Dems/Liberals/Progressives should know exactly what to say when you have to deal with them.
I guess as a Black woman in a very Blue state, who hangs around with Black liberals most of the time, I’ll never run into your problem.
Stella Barbone
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason:
Yep, everybody knows how to do my job, too. They learn it from the TV.
I live in Orange County which gave the world Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan as well as many other assorted pests. Recently I had a screamer with a patient who decided to lecture me about health care. Seriously. Not the Middle East or economics or anything that we were equally uninformed about. Instead he lectured me about the industry I’ve worked in for 20 years.
I haven’t figured out the answer to the original question. It’s hard to argue with these people anyway, because presented with reason they just change the topic. You give them some unassailable fact about health care from their own lives and they respond with a comment about Katie Couric’s brass knuckle beat-down of Princess Dumbass of the North Woods.
nick
I’ve spent too much time over the past dozen years angry about politics and while I want change, I’m not interested in feeding my anger.
It’s been a real learning experience for me–about politics, about my anger, about my view of the human race. Too often it’s been a struggle to avoid becoming a misanthrope.
RedKitten
If I’m in a setting where I don’t want to start a shitstorm, I just tend to look at the person with one eyebrow raised and a look of utter amusement on my face. If they ask me what’s so funny, I just smile and say, “Oh, nothing. Nothing at all,” and then turn and ask someone else at the table or in the room a question about art or music or travel.
It tends to fluster them, but they can’t really accuse you of DOING anything.
Ash Can
@DougJ, I don’t see what the problem was. From the way you described things, it was Loudmouth Wine Guy who was in the wrong, by bringing up what people know to be a touchy subject in the first place and pressing the point himself. The ideal situation would have been for Wine Guy’s wife to turn to him and say, “Oh, knock it off, Elmer, nobody wants to talk about that,” and then turn to everyone else and start talking about what was on sale at the local grocery store that week. As it was, all you were doing was giving Wine Guy answers to the questions he was asking you. Chances are, everyone else there wanted him to shut his fucking pie hole too.
Brachiator
@Tyro:
Categories, especially political categories, are artificial, capricious, and arbitrary. Most people use them not to understand anything, but to satisfy a primitive urge to tribalism, to determine who is a member of the club, and who can be excluded or dismissed.
And, like doofus Polonious in Hamlet, they love categories so much that they fall in them and can’t escape:
The best actors in the world, either for tragedy,
comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical,
historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-
comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or
poem unlimited: Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor
Plautus too light. For the law of writ and the
liberty, these are the only men.
gaz
One of my queer superpowers is that I can deflect any political conversation attempt by a wingnut into one about teh buttsecks. Sometimes being trans has it’s advantages.
Clime Acts
Just engage and speak the truth, and keep speaking the truth, in a calm but unrelenting manner. There is no need for sarcasm or insult; the content of your words should take care of that.
If you proceed in this manner and still find yourself upset and “seething,” then it is because you are feeling insecure and defensive despite the truth of your position.
THAT is the issue you need to address. Whence the insecurity? Why the defensiveness?
Work on that, directly thru counseling and exercises (incidents like the one you describe are a perfect opportunity to exercise your new-found approach) and your entire life will improve.
Tokyokie
@Hillary Rettig: I guess I’ve always used your approach without appreciating that it had been codified in book form. For instance, when the substitute lab teacher started railing about Obama when I was staying late working on something, I asked what exactly his beef was. That Obama’s incompetent. How so? Well, Nancy Pelosi’s incompetent as well. To which I pointed out that the Boener’s recent reneging on the debt-ceiling compromise indicated that he was unable to shepherd his side of the aisle, whereas Pelosi was able to muster enough votes to pass every major Democratic initiative of her term as speaker would tend to indicate that she was a highly competent speaker and Boener is otherwise. And so forth. Never insulted him, just drew him out and then offered concrete counterexamples. (I eventually determined that he was deeply embittered over losing a six-figure-salary job and had been reduced to teaching at a junior college and was looking for somebody to scapegoat outside his own tribe, and I pretty much pitied him.)
Thankfully, I don’t get into these arguments in family situations any longer, but then, I never bothered to give my new e-mail address to the wingnut aunt and uncle who kept routinely forwarding right-wing screeds that had been routinely forwarded to them.
However, whenever anybody accuses any contemporary Democrat of being “far to the left” or a “socialist,” I just ask them to give me one example of when this individual called for workers’ ownership of the means of production. I rarely have to go to step 2, which is asking them to distinguish the substantive differences between the policies of the contemporary GOP and Francisco Franco.
Clime Acts
Also too: Eliminate/restrict contact with idiots and bigots and morons. Again, your quality of life will immeasurably improve.
Stuck in the Funhouse
Wait a minute. This post was written by DougJ? Jeebus, I thought it was Cole in his Incredible Hulk phase.
Kent
You have to embrace your inner concern troll. I’m a middle aged white guy living in Central Texas. Therefore it is presumed by nearly all I meet that I am a Republican. I’ve given up correcting people or even arguing with them. Now I just have the time of my life playing concern troll.
Examples? Try this with a conservative white Baptist Republican acquaintance!
“My biggest concern about Romney is that he’s not a Christian. I don’t think I could vote for someone who’s not a Christian. Have you actually explored some of the bizarre cultish nonsense that those Mormon’s believe? It’s very troubling to think that the Mormon church would be controlling policy at the highest levels of government”
And then watch your Baptist neighbor turn themselves inside out trying unsuccessfully to defend Mormonism.
Or here’s another example:
“I’m really concerned about how much Romney has flip flopped on key issues. It’s troubling. Abortion? Taxes? Gay Rights? I’m not sure if he really has any core values. Do we really want to roll the dice with this guy or wait another four years when we can put a real conservative in the white house?”
Or…..
“I’m just not sure we can trust him. I think I’m going to sit this one out and wait another four years. If we let the Mormons take over the party it might be another generation until we get it back”
It’s just so much fun
cosima
I just had a two-part interlude with a neighborhood fix-it guy — I see him often, as he does work around a friend’s house regularly, and I walk her son home from school most days. It went something like this: day one, ask him & his helper if they’re registered to vote (they are outside by vehicles talking, I’ve been doing voter registration volunteering a lot lately, so I ask random people often). The young boy says yes, I vote every time, the guy in question, about my age, mid-40s, says no, doesn’t vote, launches into usual rambling anti-gov stuff. He had some crazy ideas about Soros, vote-counting in Spain, deficit under Obama, etc. We talked for probably about 20 minutes, then parted ways, it was quite civil, because neither of us went to the “you’re an idiot” default that many people go to.
So, I went home, looked up some info, printed it off, with the intention of giving it to him when next I saw him. I printed off some financial data from a CBO report. I printed off the snopes debunking of the Spain/voting issue (that’s a doozy), and one of the financial discussions here on BJ about massaging of deficit numbers by right side to ensure that their position is supported, the one with commenters of said right side piece screaming about what an idiot the author was/is.
Anyway, gave them to him the next time I saw him. Another long conversation ensued. When he saw the snopes piece he said “you know Soros owns that” and I said that actually there’s plenty out there on the internet debunking that too. After much discussion he finally gets to his end-of-times rant.
And I was thinking “WTF! Why did you not start there?????” There is no possible way to have a reasonable conversation about politics with someone who is end-of-times, none. But what could, and did, happen with this guy and me is that we were respectful of each other. I told him that my peeve with political discourse is that people do not respect that the opinions of one person have as much legitimacy as the opinions of another, even if they differ. We can talk about facts & try to educate people, but we cannot dismiss their right to have an opinion (no matter how stupid that opinion is).
Maybe you need to have some questions that you begin with, such as 1) Where do you get your news?, 2) End-of-times, are you on board with that? Gently suggest that people who get their news from Fox get it elsewhere. Realize that end of timers are not rational, and discussions futile.
Along the lines of the comment by Tokyokie, any conversation about socialism could be shepherded to discussions about services that are already socialist, and have been for some time (school, police, fire, roads,water, etc), why do those work so well in other places but not here (not socialist enough?), and would socialism net CEOs tens of millions of dollars in salaries? Have textbook definitions of socialism and fascism stored in your brain to trot out for those discussions and say it over & over until they realize that they do not know what those mean, otherwise they’d have to restructure their entire belief system.
I’m going to visit family in rural NY next month. Dreading it. They forward anti-Obama emails. I reply with a 2-second google search debunking the bull. It’s going to suck being around many of them.
gbear
Would it help to change the subject to bring up the many fascinating studies that have shown that Fox News viewers are the worst informed people in the country? How amazing is that? How do you suppose that happens, Mr. know-it-all?
Jamie
Echoing Tim in SF, well, I also live in SF now (Tim, we should get a drink). So either embracing one’s inner asshole (ew) leads one to move here, or it is easier here, but:
Ask simple questions. “So, you believe Romney has more interest in helping the middle class than Obama?” “If you were going to buy accounting service, say, from someone who changed their mind literally daily, depending on what was in the press, well, would you?” “Regardless of what you think of Obamacare, how do you feel about the transparent legalistic dodge from someone who instituted the blueprint for it suddenly calling for it to be dismantled?”
If anyone brings up birth certificates, ask them if they really admire The Donald. If they do, find new friends.
Cassidy
I’m a dick to people in public. I have no problem telling them they’re dumbasses.
cosima
Kent rocks — I would have love to have done that. I moved from Texas to Colorado recently. Lovely here in many ways. I hated that in TX everyone assumes you’re a Republican and every political discussion is premised on that. At least that was the case in our shit fundie-phony town/city. Anti-Obama bumper sticker on one side of the bumper, jesus sticker on the other. Truly vile.
Corner Stone
“It’s not you I hate, Cardassian. I hate what I became because of you.”
Lynn Dee
@Kent:
I love this! And it really does sound like great fun. :)
Corner Stone
DougJ, feel blessed you have a chance of this not happening every single time you leave your house.
In wingnut central we’re currently having a repeated fight about teacher pay and admin levels in our local ISD. And you simply can not run up against another human being here who isn’t batshit wingnut. Neighborhood parties, council meetings, lunch with a friend, grocery shopping – it doesn’t matter where the hell you are.
So I basically treat it as good humor. Keep a light smile on my face and watch as they get progressively more and more red faced and tongue tied. They start sputtering after about three levels into their talking points. Because that’s all they’ve memorized and just can’t think independently outside those bullet points.
Needless to say, I’m a big hit at parties.
Corner Stone
@harlana:
Exactly.
Oh, I nail them with this constantly. They’re the type who say they “vote for the person and not the party!” and yet it’s funny how the best person always seems to have an R by their name. It’s great fun watching them deny their 20 year Republican voting track record.
Steeplejack
@Corner Stone:
Well, we knew that already.
|:-)Corner Stone
@Kent: I do a little of this too but not so sublimely. I usually go with the “as long as they keep us safe!” vector as that was the most widely used defense for any GWB action during his presidency.
Because now every single rightie I know is once again scared to death of Big Brother Govt. It’s a lot of fun to bait the hook with the “keep us safe” dangle and then set it nice and hard when they bite.
On the other hand, and in a moment of “both sides doing it”, it’s not so much fun at all when I see people on the nominal left making the same arguments now, but for real.
Ruckus
I have found that telling people they are assholes with a smile is the most disarming. The more heated they become the more civil I become. Not agreeable, just, well gracious. Gets em every time. They look like jackoffs and I look reasoned and sane. Old debating trick actually.
Corner Stone
@Tim in SF: Go to hell! You go to hell and you die!
I’ve long considered moving to a little enclave inside 610 that’s similarly to SF in a few ways, at least potentially in politics. But then what would I do for free entertainment?
Stuck in the Funhouse
@Corner Stone:
LOL, who did you vote for last presidential election, grasshopper?
Shakes the Clown? A republican by any other name
Barry
Metrosexual ..:
“This happens to me a lot, where I act in a socially inappropriate way when people say really dumb things about politics. It’s not a right/left thing, mind you, I probably lose it more with Burkean moderates than with anyone else.”
That *is* a right/left thing, unless there actually are Burkean moderates (as opposed to right-wingers invoking Burkeanism).
Billy Bob Tweed
This passage makes you look less like an asshole, than a wussy – a totally insecure Beta-man – and condescending, not only to the “idiot,” but also your friend.
If this alleged “idiot” had such obvious idiocy written all over him, then why did you feel compelled to explain this to your friend?
Do you think your friend – to say nothing of your fellow table guests – is not so clever as to figure out the obviousness of this “idiot’s” idiocy for his-or-herself?
Next time, try to build rapport. Be confident in your own convictions. Stand up and be a gentleman. Show some class. Even if it’s in private afterwards. Talk about things that might be of interest to this person, casually integrate their ideology into the conversation, and permit them to ensnare themselves into their own tortured logic, without having fellow guests at the table discussing in taxis afterwards how thin-skinned and peevish liberals are.
If we’re truly confident in our beliefs, then we can argue them persuasively, and without resorting to insults. Try to be the bigger man. You’ll feel better, and might just change the minds of your adversaries instead of reinforcing negatives. Otherwise, the more obvious conclusion is that you are either doubting the authenticity of your beliefs (cognitive dissonance), or have anger management issues.
J R in WV
Well, I have a grey/white beard and a baldy pony-tail, AND a Veterans for Obama bumper sticker, no one ever assumes I’m a Republican.
They usually assume I’m a typical coastal liberal, which is also not the case – I’m a pro-Union, pro-Government, Pro-Social Security, Healthcare, pro-regulation moderate with a CCW pistol permit.
One of my favorite questions for these kinds of people is, “So you’re not in favor of clean air and water for your kids”.
Another good one is “So you are in favor of pesticides on our food?”
Some more:
“So do you have grandparents?” “Do they receive Social Security benefits?”
If they’re my age, I always ask them what kind of health care they have. 99% of people past their early 60s have Medicare, which is of course a liberal-passed social program from LBJ’s Great Society. Mostly they or their parents (or Grand parents, adjust for apparent age) have Social Security, which was passed by the New Deal Democrats of FDR.
FDR saved the nation and the world from Nazism and Imperial Japanese conquest, pretty much single handed – compare and contrast this to the actual accomplishments of Rush Limberger!
Socialism IS defined as state ownership of productive assets, not “Social Security”! Ask people like this if they’ve ever heard a Democrat make a speech in favor of the government permanently taking over giant industries.
Then make the point that after saving GM and Chrysler, without taking over ownership or management of either company, the government is making back their loans to those companies by selling the stock they took as collateral in the rescue program at a fair profit, just like other capitalists.
On the other hand I hired a guy to do some construction work for me, and he asked if I really believed my bumper sticker, “Veterans for Obama”?
I said sure I do, I think he’s doing a great job in a very tough situation, saved GM, etc. Richard went with the Socialist Muslim from Kenya schtick, and (needing the construction work done) I just said, well, I believe he was born in Hawaii, and where he was born didn’t matter sinceeverhyone agrees his Mom was an American Citizen, which made him one too. Then I told Richard we would have to agree to disagree and get back to work, so he did.
If the situation was different I might have told him I couldn’t have someone who was deluded working on the job and sent him home, knowing that there was plenty of work out there for him. But then my sheet-rock wouldn’t get done, would it?
But he knew where I stood, and he didn’t bring it up any more, maybe he saw that I wasn’t really into putting up with it on my job.
Liberty60
Why do we reserve special rules of conversation for politics?
If I was at a dinner party and started braying demonstrably false statements about, say, car (“Y’see, the 1965 Mustang was the first American sports car ever built,and was the creation of Buckmninster Fuller…”) no one would hesitate contradicting me, openly, and flatly saying my statements we ridiculous.
Most of what we are talking about are not statements of opinion, just fact.
Social Security is NOT in crisis;
The Postal Service DOES offer the equivalent service at equivalent prices to Fedex;
Most climatologists DO agree on global warming.
Obama has NOT raised taxes on anyone.
When arguing with rightwingers, I always feel like Jamie Lee Curtis arguing with Otto in A Fish Called Wanda; having to tread lightly because pointing out they are stupid sends them into a murderous rage.
Stuck in the Funhouse
@Billy Bob Tweed:
I bet you got hairy knuckles. Amirite? Amirite?
Tyro
@Billy Bob Tweed: f we’re truly confident in our beliefs, then we can argue them persuasively, and without resorting to insults.
I disagree. People respond to force. No one wants to be the next target of a bully, so they side with him. That is what conservatives realize and you don’t. No one sympathizes with the target of a right wig asshole’s rants. They just feel sorry for the poor sod who is too pathetic to stand up for himself. Even moreso for the pathetic guy who says, “I’m not a liberal! Don’t label me! We shouldn’t label people!”
Jebediah
@Tokyokie:
I have a friend who used to routinely forward those moronic wingnut emails. Like a lot of forwarded wingnut emails, every single email address was just sitting there, unhidden. Writing a reasonable but firm response and hitting “reply all” can be an effective way to stop getting such crap forwarded to you. (You also sometimes find out that not everyone on that list is wingnut-sympathetic.)
In my case, it was some stupid jape about union workers being unfire-able and never doing their jobs. I simply said that I am a union member, and if I did not do my job, I most certainly would get fired, and I did not appreciate the implication that I am lazy because I am in a union. I stopped getting the silly crap forwards.
smintheus
@donnah: You do know you can put people on the defensive simply by laughing when they express stupid opinions? A gentle, dismissive laugh is basically unanswerable while being almost unobjectionable.
Keith G
Calm persistence and humor. You are most likely not going to change the mind of that one person, but you are in room with (many?) others. They are your target audience.
Ask clarifying questions: “So you think that…?
Let him comfortably climb up the stupid tree before you casually bring out the chain saw of truth. Then, watch the audience nod with a smile as you rev the engine.
gaz
@smintheus: Just to drive the nail in, you can follow the laugh with “awww, you’re adorable”
PoliticalHack
Unfortunately, my reaction to these things is generally to declare “Oh, Jesus Fucking Christ… you can’t actually believe the bullshit that’s been spewing from your mouth, can you? Nobody is that fucking stupid.”
I don’t get invited out much.
Corner Stone
@Tyro:
For the love of Jeebus, please don’t label Brachiator a dreaded “liberal”. He hates those fucking people.
Corner Stone
@Keith G:
This sounds like an awesome gag for a WWE wrestler. I like it.
Corner Stone
@Jebediah: The “reply to all” thing only needs to happen one time.
They drop you off their lists like a scalded cat. And others of their suasion see the warning shot and generally stop forwarding shit to you as well.
john fremont
Lots of good and humorous suggestions here.
For me it depends on the situation. Sitting at a bar with a stranger that starts getting his Tea Party on , I’ll try to read him. One guy began griping about the individual mandate that Obama is forcing on us, and I responded “Well, look how much uninsured drivers will cost you if you get into an accident with one? Why do you think state gov’ts mandate liability coverage for all drivers?” I went on to mention that hospitals and first responders have to render assistance by law to stabilize your condition, should there not be a means to compensate them for their service in a timely manner? He changed the subject really fast. He also saw my air medevac T shirt on and I asked him if I should keep working for free? I’m an aircraft mechanic for an air medical transport company and most of the time we don’t ever get paid for transporting uninsured patients. Ground based ambulances deal with this problem too. What do you think should be done I asked? The conservation came to a grinding halt.
About a month ago , I had a discussion with young dittohead bartender who had all of the talking points down, I.e. “punishing success”, ” I ain’t never got a job from a homeless guy” , ” gov’t doesn’t create wealth”, ” Social Security is a ponzi scheme filled Fed IOU’s” etc . Being a former dittohead I threw everyone of those back at him and continued to hit em with questions. I first agreed with the sentiment behind the saying but then draw him out onto different turf. Socratic Jujitsu. Thom Hartmann is good at this IMHO.
Jebediah
@Corner Stone:
Yeah, I can’t recall ever having to do that twice to the same person. And it’s good for the blood pressure to have less noxious crap in the inbox.
Tokyokie
@Jebediah: Oh, I thought of replying to some of that crap with information rebutting it, but they’d have taken that as a personal affront (they’re fundies who do so with ease), and it was easier just to not give them the new e-mail address once I switched ISPs. It’s not like their agnostic nephew who married an RC foreigner wasn’t already damned and therefore devoid of any possible line on the truth anyway.
JGabriel
DougJ @ Top:
I just sit around feeling regret and humiliation, until I think of something to do that’s distracting enough to transform the constant loathing into more intermittent pangs.
That probably doesn’t meet anyone else’s definition of “deal with this” though.
.
Desert Rat
I recommend ridicule. Not of the person, but of the stupid things being said. It works for me, and they either shut up (the real goal), or go find someone else to talk to (good enough for me).
That said, unless I have some profound reason I have to deal with this person on a regular basis (business colleague, idiot uncle at a family gathering I maybe see once a year), It will also be the last time I socialize with them.
Hell, I don’t talk to some family members for doing this blowhard crap.
Ben Cisco
I usually take whatever premise they’ve run with and take it to its Pythonesquely(?) absurd conclusion, at which point one of two things happens:
1. They get embarrassed and we can head back toward sane territory.
2. They go all in, and I give them the look Spock does before raising that one eyebrow, while resolving NOT to get into another discussion with that individual again.
Brachiator
@Corner Stone:
Not true at all. Thanks again for demonstrating my main point.
JGabriel
Desert Rat:
I think Doug knows how to use ridicule. The problem is dealing with the later guilt over beating up someone dumber than you are, i.e., feeling embarrassed that you’ve acted — by your own standards — like a mean, rude, socially inappropriate asshole.
How do you avoid situations that put you there, or deal with them in a way that doesn’t make you feel like a dick later?
.
catclub
@Tokyokie: “which is asking them to distinguish the substantive differences between the policies of the contemporary GOP and Francisco Franco.”
I was about to volunteer: ‘Much less power for the Catholic church’,
but that does not seem like such a big distinction.
J R in WV
I also used to get wingnut email about one thing or another. I Always looked up every statement of error, documented where the actual facts were, put together a doc with the original message broken into specific claims, interspersed with the real data with sources.
I rarely got return messages trying for rebuttal, and eventually they stopped giving me an opportunity to present the reality of the situation.
Jeff Foster
I had the same situation AT A PASSOVER DINNER IN A TEMPLE recently. I did lose my control a tad, but exasperated or calm, the bottom line is that you should embrace the opportunity to debunk all the specious crap guys like that spout.
After debating Hannity face to face on his radio show (live from a park festival) I concluded that to have an actual debate with these types is that you’d have to pay them for, say, a 2-hour debate. To get the money they have to follow 2 rules: a) when asked a yes/no question, they must answer as such; b) when told to stop talking, they must.
Film it and put it on YouTube
Haydnseek
Sometimes it’s fun to just out-wingnut the wingnuts. Take positions that are even more extreme and see if they agree. Keep going until they start to disagree with you, then question their patriotism. It works.
Snarki, child of Loki
Ask them if they know that Jimmy Carter “endorsed” Romney, and what do they think of that?
Romney might be a secret-Democrat. Ratchet up the paranoia!
evodevo
You were lucky enough to have an Ipad or something with you? I’m usually stuck with NO evidence at hand. Like on Friday nite when an old hippy-type friend from Colorado turned up to dinner with her hubby who is a Mary Matalin/Michele Malkin-type conservative if there ever was one, and I was stuck at that end of the table making “conversation”. OMG.
PS – you were lucky he didn’t come up with that winger-zinger “but Wiki is left wing and I don’t believe anything it says”.
maskling
doug, we are living in the age of conservative conformity:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2012/05/24/americans_tend_to_represent_themselves_as_more_uptight_and_conservative_than_they_actually_are_.html
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/the_hidden_brain/2010/12/walking_santa_talking_christ.single.html
when a single person in a social situation stands up to a nonsense-spewing conservative, it gives other people in that setting license to say, “yeah, bullshit! i agree with doug/obama/liberals! Fuck off!”. And when no one stands out the group is bullied into silent assent and more conformity.
it is important to confront nonsense. but i don’t know how to not be an asshole either. i just accept my inner assholedom and go for it.
John M. Burt
You would hate the asshole you would become if you remained silent.
Another Halocene Human
@Older_Wiser:
{{{{older_wiser}}}} *hugs*
Thanks for confronting open hate. I think sometimes there’s such a shock factor it’s hard to know how to respond (at least for me) but people need to know that’s not okay. I come online for reassurance too. I talk about politics too much already and I don’t want even those who agree with me to run away when they see me because of my monomania.
What I’ve noticed at work is that the only people I feel safe bringing up politics with are either Black or a few younger whites (but I’ve gotten paranoid, even when they signal to me that they’re “cool”). There are some very lefty white people at work but they’ve retreated into crazy firebagger fantasies, like the coworker who loved Edwards and is furious with Obama over NDAA (reads: totally uninformed and in la-la land) or the former coworker who feels Obama stabbed her personally in the back and now does weekly 9/11 troofer conference calls (sweet lady, but damn… it’s like losing a friend to a cult).
Another thing I’ve noticed: the lazy people at work (the shirkers) are not necessarily wingnuts, but the loudest loudmouths are NOT the most industrious workers, not by a longshot. Some of the laziest, most disingenous, bullying, “gold-bricking”* employees worship: O’Reilly, Boortz, or Jesus (this was last was a black female, whereas the talk radio lovers are white males: she got religion and made sure we all knew it… actually, a lot of the bullies at work are very vocal about being Christians). The ones who are conservative but don’t blab about it all the time are very hard workers. Actually, I don’t entirely know their political views… because they don’t blab about it all the time.
I’ve got one guy, he’s not lazy but just sucks at the job and doesn’t seem to mind that he sucks (Dunning-Kruger, perhaps?) who is constantly talking shit about women’s reproductive issues. Another coworker (female, of course) called him out one night when he announced to the whole room that he didn’t give to United Way because they give to PP and PP does 98% abortions (PP in our area does ZERO abortions) and a woman with a close acquaintance with poverty shouted him down and told him about how they do gynecological exams. This was a couple of years back, before this recent Komen kerfuffle, which should tell you how pervasive the “98% of what they do is abortion” meme is.
*-one coworker accused some others of being “gold-brickers”. This was an odd term to me so I had to ask what it meant. Anyway, it turns out he is the biggest gold-bricker around. IT’S ALWAYS PROJECTION.
Soonergrunt
I turn to the guy (almost always a guy) and just loudly (not yelling, but with a strong voice) proclaim “that’s the fucking stupidest thing I’ve heard in a while,” and then I turn back to dinner and drive on.
dcdl
What I find is that I think of the perfect response afterwards. I normally spam people with information if they send me conservative or just wacko emails. If in a conversation with them with no tablet with me I will email them facts if I have their email. What they do with that info is up to them.
Jamie
Tim in sf: email me. [email protected] (yeah, I lived there for a while.). I live in SOMA.
someofparts
“It was this same lack of ironic self-awareness (or rather, this absence of any sort of mockery-avoidance technology) that led my generation to pillory the hippies and progressives–that’s why we were South Park Republicans before we were Daily Show Democrats: because back then, standing for liberal values meant something, and that made you look lame.”
“I’ve come to the conclusion that this has been the Great Dream of my generation: to position ourselves in such a way that we’re beyond mockery. To not look stupid. That’s the biggest crime of all–looking stupid.”
http://exiledonline.com/the-rally-to-restore-vanity-generation-x-celebrates-its-homeric-struggle-against-lameness/
Stewart Dean
Molly Ivins and Ann Richards would have told you that the only way to deal with pinheads/rednicks/bigots/assholes is to make them look like fools in front of God and everybody. Rational discourse fails, every time. Of course, you have to a wicked comedic instinct and a real willingness to go for the jugular. But. It Is The Only Thing That Really Works. I grew up in the South, I know.
Art
If they talk shit, and it flies by completely without being rebutted, the assumption is that everyone agrees. Half of the people in the room could be about to pass out because of the blood loss incurred by biting their lip but all of them assume they are surrounded by people who, at some level, agree with what was said.
A comment, made so everyone can hear it, that, with all due respect, the speaker is wrong on most of what he said. Gets out there what other people are thinking. I’ve done it a few times and found allies where I thought I was alone. Depending on the nature of the bloviator, it may disabuse them of the idea that everyone agrees with them.
Knowing that people are skeptical and demand well reasoned arguments, and that they will be called on their errors, tends to make idle regurgitation of right-wing talking points a whole lot less fun. Limbaugh gets away with it because the show is structured to prevent dissenting views, critical thought, and any admission of error from being represented.
A lot of the right-wing rhetorical victories are a result of liberals simply failing to show up and register an alternative world view. The GOP, good propagandists all, understand this. The “You lie” comment shouted at the president was a signal telling their followers that they can discount everything Obama said and no matter how Obama’s speech might make them feel cold and alone that there was an ally off camera who agreed with them.
Rebutting talking points, just letting everyone know that not everyone agrees with the loud guy is tremendously powerful.