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!
I would argue that the problem is the blindness to the hatred. Just because someone did a good thing once doesn’t mean they are a good person. People can be all bad and still do good things- like Trump. When the root of everything you try to accomplish is taking away from others then you are all bad,no matter how many good things you make your disguise out of.
That’s not stuck up- that’s reality.
Generally speaking people are a mix of bad and good- people who so wholeheartedly support Trump are not those people, sorry. You cannot base your beliefs on hatred and taking away rights and then use the same breath to say that you are also a good person, the grey area isn’t that deep. You cannot vote for the suffering of people and then say that you are a good person too.
But that’s exactly it, from another person’s perspective he’s not taking away anything, he’s giving. This is what I’m trying to highlight here and all I’m getting are squawks about Trump is bad, my sister is bad. To some people Trump is restoring a desecrated country. They grew up their whole lives with a certain world view of good and evil, it’s not their fault religion twisted their minds, this is the nuance I’m pleading you to take notice but all you can give me are limp platitudes that most people are good and bad, but Trump and his supporters are bad bad. Not very enlightening, because it doesn’t say much about the real life people we’re discussing.
Those people are not evil, though they may be doing evil. Just as you said, which means I expect you to acknowledge this point, “just because someone does good it does not make them good” works the other way around: just because someone does evil does not make them evil. This is why we need to find inroads with this group to create a space that can be shared peacefully by everyone. Calling them all bad and shutting down any effort to discuss only results in something even more horrifying, and frankly, evil: war.