This question’s on my mind because my coworker today mentioned they would vote for Trump if they could (mind you this is 2023, in Canada). I don’t generally have the talking points or the desire to fight about it, so I just deflected the conversation. But I often wish I was more strong-willed and could try to figure out why someone believes what they do and, if it’s invalid, then convince them otherwise.
Thus, I’m curious what you all would say or what you’ve done in the past!
The privilege it is to even ask this question is extremely telling. I don’t mean that as a slight to OP, but it is worth noting that we are in a place where, for a non-insignificant amount of people, this isn’t even remotely a possibility because one group has made their existence criminal.
Right? Like, I guess if one of my few friends got a serious brain injury and become a totally different, terrible person, I’d sob for hours, maybe days, mourning the person I lost. But that’s the caliber of life event it would take. None of these people are going to get a new job or new partner and become a murderous bigot. Often this sort of change in a person is predicated by something personal, someone in their life from the relevant group hurts them. But I’m the truama informed friend that everyone comes to when fucked up things happen. If someone deeply and personally hurt one of my friends to the point that it could change them as a person, they’d be on my couch, smoking my weed, processing with me.