I had roughly the same experience, and I've actually been scared of some of the responses I've heard from left-leaning friends.
I was explaining why I'd been reading many contemporary (primarily black and Hispanic!) conservative thinkers' writings about the current era and why they supported Trump, saying that we needed to understand wher…
I had roughly the same experience, and I've actually been scared of some of the responses I've heard from left-leaning friends.
I was explaining why I'd been reading many contemporary (primarily black and Hispanic!) conservative thinkers' writings about the current era and why they supported Trump, saying that we needed to understand where they were coming from and why they believed what they believed if we were to convince them that our ideas were better. The response I got was literally, "We've been trying to convince them, it doesn't work! It's never worked!"
To which I could only stare. If you've given up on trying to convert your political enemies, either you're giving up (which they haven't), or...you're advocating something that sure as hell isn't liberal democracy. And they can't see how far they've slipped from the values they purport to hold.
I had roughly the same experience, and I've actually been scared of some of the responses I've heard from left-leaning friends.
I was explaining why I'd been reading many contemporary (primarily black and Hispanic!) conservative thinkers' writings about the current era and why they supported Trump, saying that we needed to understand where they were coming from and why they believed what they believed if we were to convince them that our ideas were better. The response I got was literally, "We've been trying to convince them, it doesn't work! It's never worked!"
To which I could only stare. If you've given up on trying to convert your political enemies, either you're giving up (which they haven't), or...you're advocating something that sure as hell isn't liberal democracy. And they can't see how far they've slipped from the values they purport to hold.
Totalitarians on the cultural-left have been brainwashing people for many decades. I doubt that very many of them will ever recover.