Reframing the Trump conversation with Supporters of Trump
As it takes ten times the effort to refute bullshit as it does to create it, Trump supporters are able to make arguments or hold their support for Trump based on erroneous information provided by Fox News, The White House, Trump's Twitter feed, or any other number of sources of dubious character.
With that said, how best to handle a situation where perhaps a close fried or relative is a Trump supporter who makes ridiculous claims and fails to critically examine their own beliefs or blindly accepts information provided to them from the dubious sources?
In such cases, putting effort toward refuting bullshit claims can be exhausting and in most cases the supporter will brush evidence aside, as Sartre side about people who argue from bad faith....
At any rate, it is best when having such discussions to firmly try and keep it simply and to control the conversation. The foundation from which one should precede a conversation from is that Trump is a bad person. From that follows that what Trump does is bad and is done out of his own self-interest because he is a bad person. With that said, it is important not to present this to the Trump supporter as a "Fact" but rather your "belief", though you will not want to make this clear to the Trump supporter.
The advantage of the above is that it is simple and also happens to be True, even though the Trump supporter refuses to accept it, either due to ignorance, or from being susceptible to propaganda as a "low-information" individual. Saying to a Trump support "I don't think Trump is a good person", is the equivalent of a baseless bullshit claim, it puts the Trump supporter in the position to then try and prove Trump is a good person, though at each claim, you can respond simply that you do not believe what they are saying about Trump.
This may further lead the supporter to look for additional details, to bring to you and say "here look at this, you see Trump is a good person", at which point you can say "fake news". While this may infuriate the supporter, the important thing to remember is that the goal is to have them question the information that they receive.
Alternatively, if when you tell the Trump supporter that you feel/think/believe Trump is a bad person, they might reply simply with "Why?". Now this might seem like a bad thing as it could undermine the purpose of trying to keep it simply and puts the burden of proof back onto you, but it actually serves the above stated goal of having the supporter question their own belief or received information.
For instance when a small child will ask "why" it normally leads to an infinite regression of "why's", where you provide reasons or explanations and the child responds to each with another "why?". In both the discussion with a young child and the Trump supporter, the response should not be to answer the why question for them, but rather to put the focus back on them by responding with another question - "why do you think?".
As with the child, the Trump supporter may taken off guard, but more importantly it will hopefully cause them to reflect on Trumps aberrant behavior, though they may simply reply "I don't know" - at which point the conversation is over but there is the possibility that it will linger with the supporter who will then be left thinking about it.
In either case, you have not called Trump derogatory names, you have not attempted to refute claims made by the supporter (as this will typically cause the supporter to dig their heels in deeper, similar to a tick), you have conserved your energy and hopefully allowed your integrity in the eyes of the supporter to remain in tact (the advantage of which is that they may not necessarily perceive you as the opposition - the value of which will reduce division, hostility and hate).
Maintaining favorable perception in the eyes of the Trump supporter, especially if a friend or family member, is to retain lines of open, non-hostile, communication. It is important to remember that the reign of Trump will not last forever and will hopefully be over sooner rather than later. As such, giving Trump supports an "exit ramp" so to speak is something that should be actively sought (see the Harvard Business Review article below from the pre-Trump days for an expansion on this idea).
https://hbr.org/2016/10/how-to-build-an-exit-ramp-for-trump-supporters
With that said, how best to handle a situation where perhaps a close fried or relative is a Trump supporter who makes ridiculous claims and fails to critically examine their own beliefs or blindly accepts information provided to them from the dubious sources?
In such cases, putting effort toward refuting bullshit claims can be exhausting and in most cases the supporter will brush evidence aside, as Sartre side about people who argue from bad faith....
At any rate, it is best when having such discussions to firmly try and keep it simply and to control the conversation. The foundation from which one should precede a conversation from is that Trump is a bad person. From that follows that what Trump does is bad and is done out of his own self-interest because he is a bad person. With that said, it is important not to present this to the Trump supporter as a "Fact" but rather your "belief", though you will not want to make this clear to the Trump supporter.
The advantage of the above is that it is simple and also happens to be True, even though the Trump supporter refuses to accept it, either due to ignorance, or from being susceptible to propaganda as a "low-information" individual. Saying to a Trump support "I don't think Trump is a good person", is the equivalent of a baseless bullshit claim, it puts the Trump supporter in the position to then try and prove Trump is a good person, though at each claim, you can respond simply that you do not believe what they are saying about Trump.
This may further lead the supporter to look for additional details, to bring to you and say "here look at this, you see Trump is a good person", at which point you can say "fake news". While this may infuriate the supporter, the important thing to remember is that the goal is to have them question the information that they receive.
Alternatively, if when you tell the Trump supporter that you feel/think/believe Trump is a bad person, they might reply simply with "Why?". Now this might seem like a bad thing as it could undermine the purpose of trying to keep it simply and puts the burden of proof back onto you, but it actually serves the above stated goal of having the supporter question their own belief or received information.
For instance when a small child will ask "why" it normally leads to an infinite regression of "why's", where you provide reasons or explanations and the child responds to each with another "why?". In both the discussion with a young child and the Trump supporter, the response should not be to answer the why question for them, but rather to put the focus back on them by responding with another question - "why do you think?".
As with the child, the Trump supporter may taken off guard, but more importantly it will hopefully cause them to reflect on Trumps aberrant behavior, though they may simply reply "I don't know" - at which point the conversation is over but there is the possibility that it will linger with the supporter who will then be left thinking about it.
In either case, you have not called Trump derogatory names, you have not attempted to refute claims made by the supporter (as this will typically cause the supporter to dig their heels in deeper, similar to a tick), you have conserved your energy and hopefully allowed your integrity in the eyes of the supporter to remain in tact (the advantage of which is that they may not necessarily perceive you as the opposition - the value of which will reduce division, hostility and hate).
Maintaining favorable perception in the eyes of the Trump supporter, especially if a friend or family member, is to retain lines of open, non-hostile, communication. It is important to remember that the reign of Trump will not last forever and will hopefully be over sooner rather than later. As such, giving Trump supports an "exit ramp" so to speak is something that should be actively sought (see the Harvard Business Review article below from the pre-Trump days for an expansion on this idea).
https://hbr.org/2016/10/how-to-build-an-exit-ramp-for-trump-supporters
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