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Old 04-23-2017, 10:12 PM   #1448
flylock shox
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I seem to recall there was a TED talk on how to persuade extreme right wingers, and it basically came down to making emotional, moral arguments rather than well reasoned ones. Basically, if they feel something is right, it is nigh-on impossible to persuade them otherwise through reason - you almost have to appeal to their sense of moral outrage.

That's why it's so difficult for a liberal-minded person to reach them - they're not used to making emotional arguments or using rhetoric.

And it's also why a guy like Trump appeals to them so much. He embodies their outrage, and provides them with an outlet for it: Mexicans, Muslims, immigrants, whatever. Once they've hitched their emotional/moral wagons to that train, you're not going to reason them out of it with stats. You need to give them another train, probably with a louder whistle, that they'll hopefully switch over to.

As a pretty rational chap myself, I find the idea of making my arguments in this way a very, very difficult proposition (call it cognitive dissonance, hypocrisy, whatever). But the Democrats are going to have to find a way to do this somewhere along the line.
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