Thread by @mattsheffield

"Reach Out to Trump Supporters," today's column from @WajahatAli, is important column that illustrates the difficulty of healing political divides. There will be no single way that will work and there are many that will never change. But... nytimes.com/2020/11/19/opi…

Change will be possible for some of them. Ultimately, the biggest divide in reaching Trumpers is that they see the world in religious terms. It's a continuation of Cold War propaganda in which Godly American capitalists were opposing Satanic atheist communists.

For decades, Boomer and Silent generation Americans were subjected to this propaganda from the government and from both parties. It has had a dramatic impact on them psychically.

Which is why outreach efforts will likely never work on them.

The other thing is that because American conservatism is fundamentally based on white Christian identity, people who are outside of that demographic will have less success.

It's lamentable and disgusting, but it's true.

So when secular reporters from big city media outlets fan out to the diners or when a Muslim from New York comes and visits, their identity will matter more than anything they say, no matter how good it is.

I personally found this when I was an atheist conservative. Even though conservatism as a philosophy was hugely shaped by secular and deist thinkers like Hume, me pointing this out to Christian right Republicans had no effect.

In truth, skepticism about church and state is a fundamentally conservative idea, but because US conservatism has forgotten its roots, I had no success trying to get people to educate themselves.

(I'm sure all the philosophy profs are nodding)

Ultimately, progressives who want to move the country forward need to elevate the voices of progressive Christians and ex-fundamentalists who know all the right-wing doctrines in detail and can debunk them.

The far right succeeded at taking over the brand of Christianity in the United States. This cannot be allowed to stand. Their doctrines and beliefs are nonsense even on Christian terms.

No one believed in The Rapture until the 20th century. And Jesus would've rebuked Ayn Rand.

And the idea of pre-millenialism or "dominion theology" is an obvious perversion of Jesus's teachings.

His entire ministry was about how "my kingdom is not of this world" and how followers needed to live as a peaceful, servant minority.

The actual, fundamental teachings of Christ are exactly what needs to be taught to Christians in this moment.

But they have enjoyed hegemony in the US for so long, they've lost touch with Christ in context.

Two other things are needed: 1) Affirmative action for right wing media figures needs to end. Most are unqualified talking point spewers like Hugh Hewitt who have no original thoughts.

The national media needs to stop inviting these automatons onto their air to promote ignorant beliefs that they cannot defend. TV political shows should be about educating, not worthless food fights.

The other thing that needs to be done is that public education needs to be drastically reoriented toward teaching critical thinking and identifying logical fallacies.

Junk news and Trump lies work because followers never understood what logic is.

Teachers and college professors must frequently force students to defend their core beliefs with actual arguments. If that is done, many students will find their beliefs to be unsupportable. Not all, but many. Ask your friendly local philosophy prof.

One final thought on why the ex-fundamentalists are important is that their experience matches that of many conservative cult members who are actually living in cognitive dissonance. When they see ppl like them who departed, it is harder to suppress internal truth.

PS: I think I should also say that if you don't want to reach out to Trumpists, you have no obligation to do so. They're annoying and defensive, so I don't blame you!

But for those who want to, it's best to do so in non-political areas where theu can't hear Trump klaxon.