Separate the Wheat From the Chaff
Hear me out. I am about to make a case for reaching out to the liberals in your life--those who will listen, anyway--and treating them especially well in the next few months.
In many cases, it will be difficult because liberals have treated conservatives very badly, and many of the most prominent liberals will continue to do so in the most vile ways.
But the truth is that this is a teachable moment for people willing to listen, and as you can see from the political revolution that has occurred over the past year or so, many liberals are willing to listen.
Think of Trump's dream team and something stands out: many of them are former Democrats, as is President Trump. Joe Rogan was a Bernie Sanders guy. Elon Musk leaned Democrat until the censorship culture took over and alphabet ideology became dominant. Tulsi Gabbard was a Democrat Congresswoman and candidate for president. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was a Democratic Party presidential candidate THIS YEAR.
Lots of intelligent and decent Democrats crossed over to the Trump team because their eyes were opened up over the past few months or years, and in many cases, it wasn't that their values changed, but rather their channels of information did. They were good people before the switch and good people after. Their trust in the system and the people who tell us about it changed, and they woke up.
We all love to read The Free Press, realizing that many or perhaps most of the writers were or remain Democrats. It's a breath of fresh air to read or talk to Democrats who are not brainwashed or indifferent to the truth.
Many liberals are unreachable, of course, because that is how people are and because it is impossible to penetrate the bubble in which they live. It's nearly impossible to be a Republican or conservative without being bombarded by liberal messaging, so building a conservative bubble is nearly impossible; it's almost impossible for a liberal to escape their information bubble unless they are actively trying. They read The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, and watch the news, and think they are getting informed.
If that were your steady information diet and you believed that everybody sane believed these things, you might be a liberal, too. The truly evil people are the ones who create and maintain that bubble.
Now it is true that there are genuine character differences, on average, between liberals and conservatives. In many cases, the divide cannot be bridged because we value different things. Some people are more rational, while others are emotional. Some people value unity, while others value individuality. Some err more towards equality, others toward individual freedom.
But in many cases, the divide is smaller than we assume, and the next few months may be a good time to build bridges with people who may be more open to seeing reason.
There are lots of reasons to think so, not the least of which is that after a campaign of total vilification against Trump and his supporters, a majority of the nation backed Trump and rejected the brainwashers. Trump's electoral college victory without gaining a majority of the votes in 2016 gave Democrats a wedge to create a false impression that a small hate group elected Donald Trump. Haters, Russians, hackers, and dark forces artificially put Trump over the top.
Not this time. Can't say that, and now almost everybody knows a Trump supporter and at least previously liked them. And Trump's supporters seemed joyful in a way that the media claimed they were not.
People have been propagandized to the point where they are incapable of distinguishing reality from the Truman show. That is the mission of the Pravda media, and it has worked on many people. It's our job to help them see what is before their eyes, not mock them for failing to grasp what seems obvious to us. Mockery doesn't work.
The Pravda media left it all on the field, and they lost. And in doing so they fatally wounded their credibility with a whole new tranche of viewers and readers who couldn't help but notice that they were distorting the truth and spewing hate. People noticed that the media lied about Biden being sharp as a tack, and that helped them see many of the other lies.
Kamala Harris in her concession speech, talked about unity and a peaceful transfer of power, which, of course, is a good thing, but it is utterly at variance with the Democrats' rhetoric that Trump is Hitler and that he is an existential threat. Democrats and the media are in a tough spot because they painted a dire picture of execution squads, internment camps, and forced pregnancies.
Suddenly, with Trump victorious, they will have to walk that back or explain why they are allowing it to come to pass. Few Americans seriously believed any of it, but the fear stuck if the charges didn't.
We can use that. "Do you really believe Trump is about to execute his enemies?" Most people don't. If somebody criticizes Trump or complains, you can ask them calmly, "Do you really believe that?" You don't have to argue, which makes people defensive. Just make them consider whether what they say is what they believe.
That will erode the hysteria over time.
"Trump is Hitler." Really? Do you REALLY believe that, or do you just dislike him and his policies?
I think the fever is ready to break. It was raised to such a fever pitch that the Salem witch trials looked mild in comparison. That level of emotional incontinence cannot survive forever.
Some of the people I love most are liberals. They are good people, and my elder sister is perhaps the most decent person I know. She also reads Scientific American, The Atlantic, The New York Times, and The Washington Post.
The problem isn't her; it's who she trusts. Our ire should be directed not at the good people who have bought the hoaxes, but the hoaxers. No mercy for our enemies, but not all liberals are our enemies.
So hug a liberal if you can. We need more Elon Musks, Tulsi Gabbards, and RFK Juniors to come over from the Dark Side. We don't have to be gracious to people who have been awful to us. We don't have to forgive the bad people who did bad things.
But let's recruit as many of the good people as possible. We can let the left have the Cheneys and we'll take the Gabbards.
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