One big reason why most Trump supporters simply can't be reached.

[Garrett78]

The "alternate reality" is real.

It's one thing to disagree about the cause and effect nature of various facts. It's one thing to disagree about the appropriate response to various facts.

But flat-out denying facts (while simultaneously inventing or buying into utter falsehoods) is a whole other ballgame. That's what we're up against, and it isn't going to change anytime soon.

And you can give up on the idea that presenting facts will bring people around. As a Boston Globe article made clear years ago, presenting facts actually backfires.

Inspire and motivate the base, raise hell about race-based voter suppression and gerrymandering, put some time and energy into youth turnout, and just outnumber the opposition. Forget about reaching across the aisle, and "fight dirty." Someday, perhaps, some semblance of sanity will return to the opposition party (be it the Republican Party or a new party). For now, though, Democrats just have to win. Our species and other species need Democrats to win.

[dameatball]

1. Most Trump supporters I know almost consider a rational question of their choice a personal attack.

[yurbud]

20. that has been the case since at least the Bush years--arguably going back to Clinton

and their obsession with investigating his business dealings and penis.

[sunRISEnow]

2. We see that regularly from those that say both parties are the same. Facts do not matter.

[Crutchez_CuiBono]

13. I love

your handle. Creative!

[Thomas Hurt]

3. you can't fix magical thinkers/cultists without deprogramming...or like an addict

they have to hit bottom.

[Comatose Sphagetti]

28. Agreed

But they're taking everyone down with them.

[cilla4progress]

4. I completely agree.

It is a psychopathy that has taken over the Republican "base," some 80%? of whom still support trump.

I really like your suggestions, garrett78.

We must remember we are in the majority. We just need to mobilize BIG TIME!

[unblock]

5. Indeed, many of them literally never hear us at all

Except through the selective editing of foxnews and hate radio.

So they'll hear Hillary's "deplorable" comment, but nothing about her accomplishments or positive proposals for America.

How do you reach someone who only watches FoxNews?

[Garrett78]

6. You don't.

And that is one reason why I've repeatedly written about how disturbed I am by what some consider to be the big takeaway from the 2016 election results.

[Downtown Hound]

7. At this point I'm pretty much just waiting for the old generations to die out

And the younger, much more liberal ones to take over. The right has proven themselves immune to truth. But every year more old people die and more young people reach voting age. And poll after poll shows those young people are way less religious and more liberal. That's where the hope lies.

[Garrett78]

9. With a caveat that white millennials are far too much like older white folks.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/03/millenials-race-115909

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2017/10/31/a-new-survey-shows-white-millennials-think-a-lot-more-like-whites-than-millennials/?utm_term=.ddd698590d6d

We still have a lot of educating to do.

[nini]

10. LOL

yea.. that's it.

[Downtown Hound]

18. Like it or not, it probably is. n/t

[Nictuku]

8. It is a Cult

[Garrett78]

11. And it was before Trump, too. And it will remain as such.

Trump is just a symptom. 50 years of Southern Strategy/dog whistling, race-based gerrymandering and voter suppression, a racist "Drug War," "liberal media" bullshit, denying science or getting in bed with those who do, off-the-charts hypocrisy and actively undermining trust in government has led to this moment. Russia couldn't have done what it did were it not for all of that.

Republican pundits and members of Congress who decry Trump all have blood on their hands.

[CrispyQ]

16. Recently a republican said that rocks falling into the ocean were the cause of seas rising.

https://www.livescience.com/62613-erosion-causes-sea-level-rise-mo-brooks.html

"What about erosion?" Brooks asked in a meeting of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space and Technology. "Every time you have that soil or rock or whatever it is that is deposited into the seas, that forces the sea levels to rise, because now you have less space in those oceans, because the bottom is moving up."

He's a congressman, for fucks sake. Who the fuck votes for someone this stupid?

[Garrett78]

25. That committee has, for years, been overrun by the cra-cra.

A majority of the US House Committee on Science, Space and Technology are creationists (including the Young Earth variety) or deniers of anthropogenic global warming, or both. It's frightening. If we build a wall around the US, the interior ought to be padded.

Here's an article from December of 2016: http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/house-science-committee-keeps-embarrassing-itself

[Elwood P Dowd]

12. Close to 40 percent of the voters have always been hopeless idiots.

Hell, Herbert Hoover and the repukes got 40% of the vote in 1932. After 8 years of total fuck-ups and creating The Great Depression with their policies, they still convinced 40% of the population to vote for their sorry asses. They got over 45% in 2008 after Bush Jr wrecked the economy and started two wars based on outright lies.

[Turbineguy]

14. It's Fox News' job to make sure

trump supporters don't notice the obvious.

[lark]

15. It's about survival!

If we don't have a #BLUEWAVE, we can kiss our democracy, our money and probably our lives good-bye. We will have all the privileges and status of the Russian worker - in other words we'll be starving, die when we get sick, have our environment destroyed and have our $$ from SS stolen, all to increase the power and $$ of the rich.

[CrispyQ]

17. They also share a key trait of his - they will double down before they ever admit they were wrong.

Admitting you were wrong is weak but lying is okay. Fucking hypocrites.

[TeamPooka]

19. Registering new voters and converting dissatisfied 3rd party voters and a GOTV ground game will win

in Nov.
There are a lot of 3rd party voters of Stein and Libertarians who were really just anti-Hillary in 2016.
They don't like Trump either.
reaching out to them and registering and GOTV are the secrets
Forget about converting Republican voters.
You can only talk sense to them for a few minutes.
Fox News tells them they're right all day and all night long.

[erronis]

21. I'm not sure that Stein/Nader/protest-candidates backers can be counted on

Anything that smacks of a main-stream party (repugs, dems) is suspect to these backers. And as we've seen the fringe candidates can be used to muddy the waters for any legitimate one. A little money goes a long way in messaging.

[TeamPooka]

23. We don't need a lot of them. Think what 1-2% would have done to change things in 2016

[Garrett78]

26. The other problem is we're talking about a very small percentage dispersed over 50 states.

Could a Trump supporter or just someone who is opposed to the Democratic Party be persuaded to vote Dem? With enough time, energy and face-to-face conversation, some could be converted. But time and energy are limited, and the Democratic Party needs to use those resources as efficiently as possible.

Focusing on a tiny subset of the population that is spread out across 50 states simply doesn't make sense.

[progressoid]

22. The unaffiliated voter is a growing demographic. We need to get them on our side asap.

Our local Dems just did a door knocking campaign of rural Independent voters. It was VERY SUCCESSFUL. We just need to talk to them. It's simple.

[Garrett78]

24. The vast majority of so-called independents are extremely partisan.

Numerous studies have confirmed that "independents" just like calling themselves independent. Most of them are actually more partisan than the average party-affiliated voter of decades past.

[samir.g]

27. the combination of dumb, hateful, and batshit crazy is difficult to penetrate

[0rganism]

29. +1

our problems are much deeper than Trump. he's the blackhead that formed on a zit that reaches to the core of our national identity, filled with the bubbling puss of dozens of unresolved cultural disconnects.

[Garrett78]

30. Yep, Trump is a symptom.

A monster 50 years in the making, going back to Nixon and the Southern Strategy. Fox News and right wing radio insulate people from reality, and then create an alternative.

[scarytomcat]

31. Dems need to put up progressive candidates that will bring out people that have not been voting

middle of the road repuglican candidates will not work
progressive ideas and honesty will win
tell it like it is and give answers to the problems facing us of which there are many