How to talk to a Trumpeter

Trump’s supporters don’t care about whether or not he lies. Don’t bother with calling him a liar.

Instead ask what they think about the media. Get them to tell you it’s all Fake News. Then ask “Why does that bother you? Why does Fake News matter?” Let them tell you that they don’t like lies. Then say, “I’m confused…if you don’t like lies, and truth is important, why doesn’t it matter to you that the President has been caught in over thirty lies a day in the last few months?” If you like, you can carry on and not let them answer.

They don’t care because they don’t know. Most of them can catch one lie or maybe two, but not all of them at once. Because they don’t like that they’re not geniuses, they tend to see fact checking by the media as a pernicious kind of nitpicking, done with an intent to hurt Trump. It’s mean, you see, for the media to fact check him. What they hear from Trump is an ignorance that reflects their own. What they hear is an opinion that reflects their own. They don’t care if he lies, because he’s speaking their truth.

So don’t call Trump a liar. Get them to say they don’t like lying, and then ask them if what they really don’t like is finding out that reality diverges from their idea of it.

They don’t want America. They want their version of it, which doesn’t actually exist. It’s a fiction. It’s a lie. They don’t care if he lies, because they know that what they want is a lie. That’s why they’re so desperate.

To make America into their version, extraordinary things must be done. They can be, but to do them, those people have to accept hypocrisy and cruelty and upturn even sacredly held beliefs. They have to perform exhausting mental gymnastics. That can only carry them so far.

Truth and compassion have an incandescent and pure power that requires very little effort from you. All you have to do, is not be an asshole. That simple. While they have to become more of an asshole.

So let them. They’ll wear out. You just keep asking questions. Always. Questions are how you win arguments. Questions are how you force introspection.its not manipulative so long as the questions you ask are focused and need answering. Stay away from logical fallacies or can’t point out theirs. (Which is itself a fllacy but hahahahaha I do love the irony created by dealing with higher intelligences)