Yesterday:

Piper For Missouri
[October 7, 2023]
How we can “flip” Trump voters? I remember so many of them wearing shirts that said “I’d rather be Russian than a Democrat” and “Grab them by the 🐱”
I don’t waste my breath. We have to register new voters, engage apathetic voters, and get them all to the polls.

Some of the responses:

Once a person joins a cult it’s hard to get them out

The right is very good at creating outrage and misleading people. They are excellent at that. People love that rage diet, you’d think it would be exhausting but they eat it up. One of my friends is a literature teacher and brought up banned books (she was speaking against banning) and one of her friends piped up about books that needed to be banned in 1-5 grade that showed “sexual positions” and other immoral subject matter. I asked her to provide the titles of those books. She told me to Google that it was “all over the news and that her friends took her kids out of public school because of it” I told her I did Google and could not find these sexually explicit books being taught in 1-5th grade, could she please tell me which books because I have elementary aged kids and I agree 1-5 graders should not be taught “sexual positions and sexually explicit content”. She responded to me but blocked me before I could read her response.

utterly ridiculous people just spewing straight up BS.

Ask them what evidence would change their mind.
IMO, the problem is the 20-year-old “get a trade, not an education” campaign. Critical thinking skills, bias, and logical fallacy are all taught in college. Not public school, not trade school. [….]

…Completely missing from the dialogue is the fact that education being available to people who weren’t born into the “upper classes” is a fairly recent development and was something for which people fought hard. This whole idea of “you won’t need it so why learn it” is exactly how they justified not teaching peasants how to read. Scary to me that people would even be willing to flirt with going back to that. But I’m a first generation college student, so I have never taken for granted how lucky I am to have gone to college, and I can see exactly what advantages it has given me over my parents.

I have asked the “what evidence would it take?” question hundreds of times. Literally, not one citing.
They’re choosing the Rule of One over the Rule of Law.
I thought We settled that 250 years ago.
I appreciate your perspective. I think we should learn our whole life. But I think empathy and consideration of the Rights of others can be taught at any (every) level. School or job site.
I’ve barely a high school education, retired from const/maint sector. Trying to see the world through another’s eyes has taught me, wherever I have ventured.
Please, don’t get me wrong. These attacks on higher education are appalling and clear as to their intent. I have and will fight for free and equal education always.
Because my education was majored in empathy.

I’m not saying [higher education] is the only way; it’s just the current accessible way. College is Bloom’s Taxonomy, a reading list, and rhetorical modes. People who are curious enough can access these and self-teach. I have much more respect for the people who did the work autonomously. They are my favorite thinkers. My famous people to learn from and be in a room with. However, we kill curiosity in this country with shaming. It starts in elementary school with smart shaming and dumb shaming. We put so much value on diplomas that people stop learning after achieving that goal. There is a great book called I Don’t Know: In Praise of Admitting Ignorance (Except When You Shouldn’t) by Leah Hager Cohen. She talks about this. It is the answer to Carl Sagan’s question, what happens to students between kindergarten and sixth grade. Reading is a great teacher of empathy but it must start at home. Travel is a great education.

the greatest freedom I ever found was realizing how little I know. The greatest peace, being OK with it.
It allows me to still learn and grow, but helps to beat back my hubris. And judging of others. Because of how much I just don’t know. I still do judge, no doubt. I’m not going to be blind, but it tempers it some.
After “playing outside hard” for 60 years, I’m too broken down to travel very far. All the more reason to be thankful that my parents had a subscription to National Geographic. Empathy 101.

The cult members are a lost cause. They’re brainwashed and can’t be convinced of anything. Need to go after new voters, never voted, undecided folks.

Fifteen years ago, on undecided voters.:

What. He. Said. (October 22, 2008)

Because we ourselves don’t realize the magnitude of what we’re fighting for. If we did, we’d be a lot louder. Magnitudes louder.
We’re deciding whether All have Equal Unalienable Rights or not.
How many of Us fall into “All”?
Republicans have proven they will take Unalienable Rights from Women, POC, and the LGBTQ Community. Attempting to violently take it from Voters.
The very Core of our Country, Equal and Unalienable means nothing to them. If everybody thinks they’ve got nothing to worry about, ask Women, ask POC, ask the LGBTQ Community.
Declare to all what we have at risk.
All with Equal Unalienable Rights.

I’ve also surrendered. Back in 2016 I worked in a pretty Trumpy department. There was wild support for that wall that Mexico was going to pay for. Then, Trump said something about keeping families together and allowing families with little kids into the country. And suddenly the MAGA folks were wildly in favor of that. He clarified after a couple days that he didn’t actually support families coming here, and everyone flipped back. That was where i threw up my hands. If your only “ideology” is supporting whatever Trump said most recently, there truly isn’t any point in engaging.

They will never cast a vote for anyone not named Donald Trump. They didn’t vote before 2016. They won’t vote in 2024 if TFFG isn’t on the ballot. They don’t matter.

You can not flip a Trump voter, but there are some republicans that will not vote for either candidate. So it will be blank and not count. We need to get people to the polls and to register. I also know people who think because we are such a red state now that there vote in the blue pockets, like STL do not matter. We need to scream yes they do matter.

We out number them just vote

Otherwise, why would republicans make it more difficult to vote?

100%. We can’t afford to waste our time on minds we can never sway or educate. We have to spend every minute wisely

The Trump Cult is alive. Can’t do anything about it.

It is impossible to speak on logical subjects with totally illogical people. A person who still supports trump isn’t dealing with a full deck.

because it is a cult. It is emotional. Logic has nothing to do with it.

Yep.