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Related: Culture Forums, Support ForumsTrying to craft an answer to my niece. She's 20yo and a Biden hater
Said she voted for Trump because she voted for someone who would give her hubby a raise (he's Coast Guard). Figure she's pretty lost, but other people will see my reply to her. Here's what she sent. I am in the process of address each point by point.
If anybody has any particular feedback, I can include that too I'll post what I have, but I gotta get some work done for a meeting.
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Executive orders signed by an incoming president in the first few weeks in office
Trump 4
Obama 8
Bush 2
Clinton 2
Biden...30 and counting (19 in less than 24 hrs)
Some of the things Biden has done to unite our divided country...
1. 100 day mask mandate (doesnt apply to him as he was seen without one multiple times)
2 Rejoined Paris Climate agreement which will cost American workers millions of jobs and $3 trillion in potential economic growth by 2040
3. Welcomed illegal immigrants by opening borders (on the same day he sent National Guard troops to sleep in a garage btw)
4. Halted the Keystone Pipeline causing 11,000 people to directly lose their job in one day and 50,000 indirectly. To this, Biden said they can find another job
5. Reversed Trumps order to remove Chinas access to our power grid. Making us susceptible to cyber attack
6. Thwarted religious freedom by reversing protection of healthcare workers from having to perform sex gender change surgeries and abortions if their religion is against it.
7. Moved to lift the cost cap on insulin and Epi-pens
8. Ended all gas and oil leases on federal land. Ensuring more jobs lost and your gas pricing sky rocketing.
9. Made it so your daughter has to compete In sports with men who identify as a women and share womens showers and dressing rooms with them.
10. Rescinded the Presidents Advisory 1776 Commission, which was established by to better enable a rising generation to understand the history and principles of the founding of the United States
11. Moved to include illegal aliens and non-citizens in census counts. This provides places like California, New York etc additional congressional seats despite the inability of these people to vote.
Although not executive orders Biden also sent troops back into Syria on his first day. He has also stated that there is nothing that can be done to change the trajectory of the pandemic in the next several months but openly and blatantly criticized Trumps handling of the pandemic stating that he had a plan.
LakeArenal
(28,823 posts)Didnt do it for her then give it up.
There is nothing worse than that, pay raises notwithstanding.
A pay raise....her husbands pay not hers??? Seems so very immature.
Walleye
(31,028 posts)Tell her to chill out for a while and see if all this crap actually comes to pass because most of it is based on lies and disinformation. Also shes just playing into the hands of the Russian propagandist. Real patriots do not side with Russia. Other than that I dont know what to tell her. Im sure her peers reinforce these lies when she speaks with them
dawg day
(7,947 posts)"I'm not going to talk to you about this anymore. These conversations make me feel like we're not meant to be friends, so if we value our friendship, you'll have to let me enjoy President Biden in happy silence."
They're just unreachable, and they're stupid too-- I mean, really, if her husband is in the Coast Guard, she might have noticed that MOST presidents push for servicemembers to get raises.
drmeow
(5,020 posts)Last edited Tue Jan 26, 2021, 10:05 PM - Edit history (1)
a few days ago that was a teamsters response to the keystone pipeline pointing out how many truckers jobs would be lost compared to his many pipeline jobs would be gained. I thought it was a very effective counter to the BS keystone pipeline job loss comment.
Edit - I was wrong - it wasn't here it was on FB:
Upset about the Keystone Pipeline? Read this.
Sharing from the Teamsters Organizing Page:
This is not left or right, but merely facts.
The Keystone Pipeline was being built to ship shale oil from Canada to The Gulf Of Mexico to be shipped to China. Shale oil is the sludge of the oil commodities market. American refineries do not want to process, and refine it when there is brent crude available. Building the pipeline will take 2,000 workers two years to build. After that, there will be 35 permanent jobs manning the pumping stations, and checking for, and repairing leaks.
That oil is already being shipped. How? By truckers, and railroad workers, keeping them employed, along with the truck stop workers, mechanics, motel workers, restaurant workers, filling station workers, etc. who man the trucking networks. The pipeline would cut out the need for thousands of truck drivers, and the other workers I mentioned in the trucking network.
The pipeline also crosses the largest aquafer in the United States, and if a break occurs at that point, drinking water for thousands of miles will be undrinkable. You talk about 5 dollars a gallon for gas? How about 30 dollars a gallon for water?
The pipeline serves one purpose, and one alone. That is to increase profits for the oil companies. It will eliminate thousands of jobs in doing so, but it is made to look as if killing the pipeline will kill jobs. Think about it critically. It is a corporate lie.
NoMoreRepugs
(9,435 posts)will take years to correct, life is too short.
redstatebluegirl
(12,265 posts)I go in early before the shop opens. Her husband works on the pipeline and was let go. He is considred a "private contrator" so he is not eligible for unemployment. Instead of blaming the oil industry for hiring their workers this way so they don't have to pay unemployment of anything if they are injured, they blame Biden.
Glamrock
(11,802 posts)You are wasting your time. There is no reaching these people. You are screaming into a vacuum, basically.
jmbar2
(4,895 posts)A common debate technique of the far right designed to force you to try to address each point, and wear you out. As soon as you start addressing one point, the number of "issues" will grow exponentially until you are firehosed. That is how they "win". Don't take the bait.
There are some good tips on Wikipedia and on debate sites on how to handle a Gish Gallop.
Another tactic is to engage in conversation for which there are no preexisting RW talking points.
Try this
Encourage her to discuss that better place in depth, wherever it is. Ask how her life would be better there. Agree with her on points where you agree. This moves you away from the oppositionality.
If you can get that conversation going, it is most likely she would choose a country that is relatively socialist, usually a Nordic country. Get her to build her case for why her choice is best. She will likely back right into a progressive platform.
Chuck Shumer did an excellent interview with Rachael Maddow yesterday. I'd pull his key points from that interview, and share them once her resistance is down. But don't expect to get anywhere. Her debate tactic suggests her mind is not open to other views yet.
Let me know how it goes.
moose65
(3,167 posts)On a couple of Facebook posts from a friend-of-a-friend who doesn't seem to be a total Trump cult member, I've asked him about some of his posts about taxation being "theft." I said something like "If conservative policies are the best in the world, then shouldn't there be multiple examples of countries who have enacted those policies? What country has no taxation? What country with no taxation has a strong military?" and questions like that.
I can't remember all of his responses, but one of his utopia places seemed to be the Cayman Islands. I did a little research and found that, yes, there is no direct taxation on the Cayman Islands - no sales tax, no income tax, no capital gains tax, no corporate taxes, no inheritance taxes. There are more businesses in the Cayman Islands than residents! But of course, the devil is in the details: the Caymanian government gets its money from tariffs on most imported goods (usually 22 - 25%). There is also a flat fee for financial institutions that operate on the islands, and work permit fees on foreign labor. There are also tourism taxes on accommodations and a tax on every airline ticket (called a "departure tax" . So to say there are "no taxes" really isn't true.
I also reminded him that in 2003 the Cayman Islands became the first country in the world to require its citizens to purchase health insurance. And, the government of the Cayman Islands owns Cayman Airways. I asked him if he was in support of the government owning businesses. I got no response on that one!
grumpyduck
(6,240 posts)she's looking at short-term effects instead of long-term ones in several cases (Keystone Pipeline, for instance).
A couple are just incorrect (Biden didn't send troops to sleep in a garage, besides which, they weren't quartered in the garage: they were on breaks during their shifts).
I didn't read it, but the 1776 thing supposedly had incorrect information, including about racism.
If you really want to respond, I think maybe 2-3 hours online would give you enough information.
Paladin
(28,265 posts)There are countless others who can benefit from your humane and intelligent actions. She's not one of them.
OAITW r.2.0
(24,506 posts)Pretty sure she's relying on experts from FreeRepublic to provide her talking points.
procon
(15,805 posts)Talking points. Example:
Made it so your daughter has to compete In sports with men who identify as a women and share womens showers and dressing rooms with them.
That needs to be rephrased if you're going to drop down lists. Like Quixote, you've set it on an impossible mission. No one can undo the effects of brainwashng and self radicalization. She's lost, reason and logic cannot counter conspiracy theories.
mtngirl47
(990 posts)Read #1 over again. Really? It wasn't a mandate---it was an ask.
The only mandate was for Federal property and transportation.
Someone from Fox asked Jen Psaki if the Bidens kept their masks on in the private residence since it is a "Federal building."
This is why we can't talk to these people.
They're petty and ill informed.
snowybirdie
(5,230 posts)Why should any intelligent, fact based person be required to refute the ridiculous ideas of the dumb folks? We have better things to do. I'd just dismiss all of this and tell the person they are foolish and naive. Tell them to wait and see. Time will take care of it.
Donkees
(31,424 posts)https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/trumps-budget-cuts-13b-from-coast-guards-funding
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/24/trump-coast-guard-endorses-biden-420953
quickesst
(6,280 posts).... this person will never change her mind. It is like Trump's tax cut. Although it only benefited the rich, and did little to nothing for the citizens, the only part a fanatic can hear is, "tax cut".
Nowadays, I do my best to follow a little advice Mark Twain left us with.
The Apocryphal Twain: Never argue with stupid people. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.
Jirel
(2,018 posts)Hate to say it, but nothing, and I do mean nothing, you say will change her mind. She obviously loves her fantasy world, and no facts will change anything. Im sorry this brainwashed fool is your niece. But you cant save them until they realize for themselves that they did wrong. Its no different than convincing a member of any religion that they should leave it.
CurtEastPoint
(18,652 posts)ZenDem
(442 posts)...to fact checking sites.
https://www.politifact.com/
https://www.factcheck.org/
https://www.snopes.com/
She'll tell you they're all liberal garbage, because she won't take the time to actually visit and research the links they provide. That's how these people roll. They get all their talking points from memes and shared YT vids...and TV people that yell and raise their eyebrows a lot because, "OMG!!! So, scary!1!"
You won't change her mind.
jmowreader
(50,560 posts)Would you like to talk about Trump illegally profiting from the presidency, his unconstitutional gun grab (1), his unconstitutional vaping ban (2), his ties to white supremacists, that he cut his own taxes and raised yours, or his attempts to get offshore drilling everywhere except in front of his own house?
(1) Trump banned bump stocks. When he did, he ordered their owners to either turn them in or destroy them without compensating their owners. This is in direct violation of the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment. And don't think about using the "he was going to destroy them so he wasn't 'taking them for public use' counterpoint. When liberals decide to take guns off the street, we buy them from their owners because the Takings Clause would be invoked in the lawsuit if we didn't. Same thing applies here.
(2) The acts of smoking and vaping are not articles of interstate commerce. As such, the 10th Amendment puts them under the purview of the states. If the feds want to get the states to impose a new law they have to use a carrot-and-stick approach - "raise your drinking age to 21 or we'll pull your highway funding." Trump, knowing that a couple million 18-to-20-year-olds with nicotine fetishes don't have the money or pull to file a suit in federal court, went outside his authority by dropping an illegal law on the states.
gratuitous
(82,849 posts)Does your niece think for-profit prisons are such a good idea that their contracts with the government should be renewed?
Take one thing at a time and show her little by little that she's bought a pig in a poke.