It's one of the reasons I don't bait them directly. I'm highly reliable about liking or commenting on non-political posts, but when they go a-ranting, I either don't respond or give them a literal elipsis like this ...
I've learned that if I say something, their extremely primitive emotional brains get involved long before their rudimentary reasoning centers even get their shoes tied, and it's a week of ranty-McRanty-rant butthurt. But if I'm just quiet, they recognize disapproval without knowing of what exactly I'm accusing them. (And since I'm the one that keeps getting them into rehab and makes sure the taxes are paid on the places where they live and manages their trusts... they believe my approval matters. It actually doesn't -- I have to do it, regardless -- but I'm not telling them that. And I will use whatever leverage I have with my yahoos.)
So then, a few hours or days later (my asshats are some of the dumber sort -- bad education, poor motivation, way too much meth and jesus), their reason will start to catch up, they'll realize they sounded as dumb as they did, and it very very slowly nudges them towards not being completely asinine. And since they had to do all the work themselves, they have a much harder time blaming me for making them feel bad. I didn't say anything. I was just quiet.
So when my asshats aren't talking... I'm pretty sure they're well aware they've fucked up and aren't ready to Justify and Gaslight their 180, but are done defending their old position. And they will try to Gaslight that they never said that thing they said, but that's not worth rubbing in their faces. At most, that gets another elipsis. Once I get them to stop behaving like a bunch of Randroids from the planet Asshat, we'll start working on emotional and verbal honesty.
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