In order to get people over to our side one can't throw contempt and insults at them.
But my God, they make it so hard. They're the most hateful, self-serving and idiotic bunch there is. They leave me wanting to personally strangle each one of them.
What do?
I haven't a clue. There's never been a time in my life when I understood the right wing. It's literally fighting for selfishness and the ability to trample the less fortunate underfoot so you can have as much power and wealth as possible at the expense of others. I do not even understand why anyone beyond Porky votes for them, let alone why anyone would be ideologically committed to their ideals.
Why don't you? It's a noble cause!
I'd really like to know what exactly is wrong with their brains.
How do people become like this in the first place?
Anyone who wants more people here, wants to associate more with reddit, wants to "convert more American democrats", and simultaneously, convert American Republicans (notice, only American political parties), by means of nothing short of jokes and mental masturbation of accelerationism. To not work on ways of managing to improve their conditions in Capital, but to throw "well crafted arguments or jokes" at them
Is perhaps not intentionally, but probably cointelpro.
This goes also for "raiding", or targeting specific individuals or members of websites, that draws the ire of the "other side", which draws the ire of us.
So, if you see any of this shit you should probably, not nod your head in agreement.
But actually demand our user base come up with solutions, solutions that don't involve conversion by jokes and not requiring us to be someone's personal army.
Know when to stop talking, walk away when you want to punch them. Don't expect them to become reds overnight - but plant the seed of doubt in their head, make them question if the rich are on their side, and expose them to a worldview which reflects their material reality far more closely than their current one.
It's not easy desu, I used to do it a lot more than I do now, but it gets frustrating. I know it's doable though; I've converted a couple in my time.
Make them question how meritocratic things really are. Make sure they realise 'the rich' aren't 'that petty bourgeois guy with the nice car'
Being self-seving is good. If anything the problem is that they aren't self-serving enough, or rather that they have difficulties discerning their self-interest long-term.
In my experience as long as your narrowly focus on economics people will listen and keep discussing even if they disagree. It's social/societal issues that make people permanently close down.
Find a thing to agree with them on, and slowly try to direct them to it.
I have right wing friends, and even I've been able to convince them that Capitalism isn't all that great.
they still call it crony capitalism tho
Life without self sacrifice isn't good, regardless of what you're aware of, you live and you die, and you do so in service of the better whole of people around you.
Internally, you can justify contradiction any which way, but life inherently sacrifices itself for the betterment of its future.
I don't think there's a form of social vertebrate that organizes on an aware level that it must only serve itself. Even if it thinks it is, it is almost always acting in the benefit of the broader scheme, even if it seems contradictory to them.