My parents have had complete TDS for years now. Literally, if POTUS came out in favor of breathing they would frantically call me to stop breathing.
Yesterday, I was able to convince my father that Trump has done at least 2 good things. He agreed that his hardline approach to China over human rights violations and the massive crackdown on human trafficking (things he hadnt heard about from lamestream media) were good. I took him from drumph is Hitler reborn to Trump has done some good as POTUS.
I count this as a major victory pedes! We can break though TDS with honest polite conversations.
It takes time, but the more radical stuff the media and social media try to make seem normal, the easier it gets.
I think these two videos are pretty good for normies on the fence.
Brandon Straka on his journey to walk away:
https://youtu.be/1AkbfmMNVP8
The best campaign ad from the 2016 campaign imo:
https://youtu.be/pm8n9qVIK_8
Thank you. I dont think Straka would be able to convince them unfortunately. The fact that their gay son supports #Trump2020 wasn't enough to break them out.
I hope it can help others going through the same thing.
A lot of people with TDS hate Trump mostly because of his perceived behavior/demeanor. They have this high expectation of what a president should be, even if it is all smoke and mirrors. It is best to neutralize that first, so you can get thru people's heads and have objective discussion about policies (no personalities involved).
"I don't need the plumber to have good personality. I just need him to do a good job."
Next is to focus on things that a person considers important. Some people don't like wars. Some people care about economy. Use that as way to soften them up. Don't go raw with conspiracy shit (yet).
It sounds like China is a good attack point. Argue that whatever progressive issues one considers important, will all be banned once China is the military and economic superpower of the world. Whether its LGBT issues, climate change, freedom of press, freedom of religion (Uighurs), gender equality, race equality, political correctness, etc.
All of it (even mere debate/discussion) goes out the window once China is king.
Fun fact: Our second and third Presidents (Thomas Jefferson and John Adams) hated each other's guts, to the point where they led opposing political parties from almost the instant Washington retired.
Both sides even launched negative PR campaigns against the other, with Jefferson saying Adams had a
while Adams retorted that Jefferson was
The Presidency has been low-brow and dirty basically since its inception.
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/12487/adams-vs-jefferson-birth-negative-campaigning-us
Thanks! That was a great article, I had no idea they went that low.
Later in life, they made up. They were great friends during the Revolutionary War but their political differences divided them until their later years.
Reminds me about how Clinton knew Trump prior to the election, and they weren't "friends" but they knew eachother and didn't hate eachothers guts.
The comparison with Trump and the Clintons is appropriate though I have a much harder time putting the Clintons in the same company with Jefferson and Adams than I do Donald Trump.
Very good advice. You should make a dedicated post for this comment.
That's the thing I find amusing about people talking about Trump's "brutish demeanor" when can't rub two braincells together concerning the other candidate. Biden sniffs children and has a literal junkie of a son that had a crack pipe left in a rental car. Let's not forget the Ukraine dealings, or the fact during the 0bama administration there where countless scores of dead Ukrainian women found in cargo containers in Houston, multiple times. Dear God let's not have a President that tells it like it is and doesn't pander to a literal mob, no sir.
very true. Most say "he is not presidential, or he is stupid and says stupid things." I bring up what he has accomplished and they just sweep it under the rug. With my fellow Christians I always bring up Matthew 7. Needless to say they do NOT like it LOL
TDS sufferers want their politicians to say what they want to hear in a slick, polished manner, while ignoring their actions no matter how rotten or ineffective.
Trump supporters want their politicians to do what we want you to do in a strong and effective manner, while (sometimes) ignoring or overlooking their less-polished words.
Leftists go by words, not actions.
Trump supporters go by actions, not words.
That's partly why the two sides have been screaming past each other for the last four years.
They don't understand why polished, feel-good words are not enough for us, and we can't understand why mere words are enough for them.
When they defend Obama, they're usually saying something like, "He was so polished and eloquent! He said such wonderful things! Drumpf is so horrible and mean and crude!"
All they cared about what hearing what they wanted to hear and feeling good about that - nothing more.
Ask him what he thought of Trump bringing soldiers remains home from North Korea after 60+ years, bringing closure to many families. If your parents love this country and military, they will undeniably appreciate that!
I definitely will. Thank you pede
Congrats pede! I wish you the best. I'm not sure if ill get them to vote Trump, but I would accept them not hating trump before the election as mission accomplished.
Even converting would-be Biden voters into non-voters will help. Obviously turning Biden voters into Trump voters is even better, but the election outcome could easily be determined by a lot of anti-Trumpers recognizing that Biden is just a puppet with dementia and long history of corruption, and deciding to skip voting altogether this year.
Send them this,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVKRAcTJCyQ
Ask them if they've seen it. Don't try to inform them too much. Just let them watch it and let it all soak in slowly.
That is exactly what I showed my father. After viewing it he told me that he finally gets why I pay so much attention and rag on China all the time.
This is heartbreaking. Damn it...China is ASSHOE!
Found a followup to that that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kp1mX7qoxeU
I get what you mean bro. I live in the Seattle Metro. Everyone I meet are hard-core leftists. But liking Trump doesn't make you an asshole, it means you've broken through the mind control.
Who hypocrite batman...Conservatives are awful to the poor...then you "Whew I wont be kicked out if I vote Trump"...The problem is they dont see this HUGE Blindspot.
School is the ultimate test. Soooooo you think kids shouldn't got back to school..OK, then where should they go? Daycare? Then why not back to school? The mental gymnastics they then go through is nuts.
I mean, ask her what Trump has done to a poor person specifically?
There won't be a single example of Trump hurting anyone, unless you count hurt feelings. Conversely you could name 5 examples of where he truly helped.
Your mom is indoctrinated into an ideology that, like all ideologies, presupposes a lot of falsehoods. But as long as each of these can be discussed calmly and respectfully, with the understanding that no one in the conversation believes what they do because they are stupid or acting in bad faith, you can agree to a common truth that lacks most falsehoods.
Its sounds like the mom is confusing intentions with results. The intention of govt money to the poor is so that the can have basic necessities,offically anyways. The result is someone who doesn't have to figure out how to take care of themselves. These types think that if you dont want to give them money then you want them to starve.
Yes, a lot of people think using their feelings and gonads instead of analytically. You can't really blame them for it.
The knee-jerk gonad reaction is "someone is suffering, you need to help them".
The larger truth that you can't force-help improvement on anyone. That person must want improvement and actually wanting it is already 3/4 of getting it.
This calous reality of letting those content to suffer suffer isn't very easy to pitch, but it can be done.
Especially if you start with the actual facts on the ground and not with feelings. And the basic factual question is: are poor people better off after 3 years of the Trump presidency?
That's funny. If you were in the South, you would be surrounded by others who think like you, and you wouldn't believe what was happening in other parts of the country. Like when all the BLM riots were happening, the only way I knew about it was through the internet. Literally nothing changed where I live.
Ahhh! I read that wrong, thought you were in PA too. Guess they are infecting us down here too...
Lucky you. I had a long conversation with my mother last night. We agreed on cancel culture, she got perturbed by the "three number cases" trick on Google, and we disagreed on Covid but talked maturely.
As for Trump, she raved, ranted, called him the worst man who ever lived, and would not even ALLOW me to say a word defending him, because that's too much of a betrayal to hear from her son.
Right after we agreed that it's a problem with cancel culture not letting people speak.
Sigh.
Your mom is funny
This is why I started with my dad. I love my mom, but she's nuts. My dad understands thats its important to listen to his kids ideas and his scientific background allows us to each give our own arguments. I also started with some things that would be extremely difficult for him to reject as good things. Best of luck with your mom!
My Dad is harder to talk to. He's more likely to respond with some lame joke or completely switch subjects.
I find when people go full tds they have to admit they believed lies and as the old saying goes "its easier to fool a man than convince him hes been fooled".
Yeah, I don't know where there's an opening.
If America stopped watching propoganda news networks (this includes fox too) then they wouldn't be so fucking insane.
Most likely. I'd say it's social media. My mother is addicted to Facebook. She was mad at me for deleting mine several years back. She only ever sees the leftist propoganda. It turned her from a moderate republican who dislike her union to a socialist in 5 years.
I agree. I've seen a lot of people who were fairly rational go totally off the deep end over the last few weeks, because they've all had more free time to spend on social media due to the lockdown.
They have been endlessly gaslit. Think about the polls from the 2016 election vs what actually happened. That type of cognitive dissonance broke a lot of people's minds. That my theory anyhow.
My dad is the same way. But he approves of whats been done about H1B
Congrats, always a good feeling when you're able to break one of your own out of the spell of MSM!
They have public sector pensions for when they retire. And they convinced themselves that the rise in their state taxes was Trumps fault. Like I said, serious TDS. Human rights was a big one for them. My next goal is convince them that Trumo isn't a homophobe. Once I was outed that became a huge issue for them.
President Trump is the first president to support gay marriage from the start. Unlike shitbag barry and hillz
You say that like it's a good thing.
Some of us consider that one of his faults.
I’m not saying it’s good or bad. It’s a fact that op can use to help further red pill his tds parents.
Edit: I called barry a shitbag bc he is, not bc he didn’t originally support gay marriage.
Careful, I did that and BLAH REEE The market is down and I LOST MONEY...LOL. WHY did you lose money?? They DO NOT see the REASON, only that somehow Trump is the reason. LOL now I got my statement and I was up 18% for 2nd quarter! Considering that the market tanked for over 2/3 of it.
the "honest polite discussion" is hard to come by. i think between parents its significantly more likely since there is at least a baseline of respect for one another. my dad is virulently democratic but we manage to have a debate for the most part.
Its very had to come by. It probably helps that by boyfriend had a masters in law, I had to learn to debate if I ever hoped to win an argument
its a skill everyone needs. the skill of persuasion follows
My Dad: "DRUMPF!" Me: "Did you do any actual research about what he has done on your own or just from the news?" My Dad: "The news" Me: "Whats your opinion of Obama?" My Dad: "He is a POS Me: "What did the news tell you about him for 8 years?" My Dad: "He is wonderful blah blah. All lies." Me: "So after 8 years of lying to you, suddenly they start telling you the truth? No.. you are just gullible." Walks out of the room while he gapes
Suddenly he didn't have much to say about ol' Drumpfy boy and he went from being a full on raging TDS sufferer to at least no longer raging about it. Not sure what he believes now because I don't bring it up and neither does he.
Hilariously though, he voted for "Drumpf!" in 2016 because he thinks that Hillary is literally Satan. At least we agree on that.
It's amazing how easy it is to take a TDS victim from precisely that to sane again when you simply start telling them about things that the MSM won't cover.
I've successfully (half-way so far) done the same with my Christian mom who didn't know about Gov. Blackface's statement on killing living babies AFTER they're born and other red-pill topics. She's gone from Dem to "I won't vote for anyone" after hearing about things that she simply didn't know happened because NBC, CNN, ABC and CBS simply won't talk about them!
The goal with any TDS sufferer is not to convince them that Trump is the good guy. It's to get them to realize that Trump is not the caricature they have been presented with, and that they aren't being usefully informed by their current set of news sources. Resentment over being deceived, and curiosity, takes care of the rest.
Please tell me more on how you did this. My family has lost their minds
I started it off with getting my father informed on the Uighur Muslim situation in China because its finally getting some attention. After we had this point of agreement, I used it to talk about what Trump is doing about it, in a very neutral manner. That's when I was able to first make him admit that Trump is doing something good.
After that I worked us into the topic of human trafficking. I chose this topic because its close for my father (being a teacher) and because its something that Trump has been doing since he started. When he agreed that this was also a good thing, he had to accept that Trump had been doing at least one good thing during his entire presidency.
I hope this helps
Mine, too. All of my adult kids are seriously threatening to block me on FB, and since we all live in different cities that is largely how we communicate.
One wants to block me because I did talk about politics for a short time (their city is having serious violence)
while another wants to block me because I don't talk about politics enough.
It's horrible. In a couple of cases, their cities are burning just miles from where they live but it's me they want to block.
Yeah, their politics are really making their lives better.
My dad died in 2015 so he is definitely voting Biden, but I think my life-long Democrat mother is voting Trump.
Now that they're aware that Trump has done some good, the propaganda will likely start to slowly unravel in front of their eyes, as they watch the media keep claiming those two issues (hardline on China and human trafficking crackdown) are somehow another example of how "Drumpf is Hitler reborn".
So long as they can keep their heads calm enough to NOT irrationally hate everything Trump does, the media's constant attacks against everything Trump-related will do the rest of the red-pill awakening work for you.
My wife has the worst TDS I've ever seen. She absolutely loathes Trump because of his "grab them by the pussy " comment. Every time his name is mentioned she seethes. It's got to the point where she hates him so much she's even considered leaving me because of my support for POTUS. I'm not sure of she would because we have tow young kids but the worst arguments we've ever had have involved Trump.
Pretty sad...even though I disagree with her left-leaning politics I am able to debate them in a calm and civilised manner. All she can respond with is intolerance, insults and emotion.
She never used to be like this...
Does she refuse the hear the rest of his statement, which was "They Let You Do It" (when you're rich and famous?)
I often think that women who go berserk over the "pussy" comment just don't want to admit that some women really are groupies who go after the men, sometimes very aggressively.
Some women still want to pretend that sex just "happens" and they have nothing to do with making that choice (and therefore are not responsible for any of the consequences.)
This mindset explains why so many refuse to use any long-term birth control, like The Pill, because that would be planning to have a sex life and they absolutely cannot face that.
I am not kidding. Have spoken to many, many women over the years who 100% have that approach when it comes to sex. Why do you think the abortion rates have skyrocketed over the years, even when long-term contraception is cheap, safe, and readily available?
I hope you two can work it out
Could you ask him how he feels about when back in 2015 0bama was playing golf every time while Drumpf was hands on helping with the hurricanes (plural) responses.
Keep going
I’m in the same boat with my parents. They suffer severely from TDS. They are currently so obsessed with COVID, that they seem to tune everything else out that is happening in this country and world.
Now talk about how he wants to end the war in the middle east and bring our troops home.
What do your parents think about defund the police, reparations and antifa riots?
At first they said it would never happen. When I told them about the 50% cut in Seattle I could hear it in their voice that they had no idea what was going on anymore. Thats why im trying to warm them up to Trump. Show them that there is a good (or at least acceptable) option this election.
I think these events will wake up a lot of people in time for the election. They've dealt some damage to Trump in their panic to bring him down in time for November, but a desperate haymaker leaves you open to counterattack and I'm not even sure they fully landed the punch.
They've basically ramped up their frog-boiling speed and awakened a lot of people who thought they never would see socialist riots or deliberate economic shutdowns or bald-faced admissions that they want to confiscate guns and literally defund the police.
A lot of lefties used to mock us for supposing that these things might one day happen if their candidates were elected. Now, they're seeing that they're all happening at once and I can't imagine that's a good thing for Joe Biden. Again, desperation moves always have the potential for huge downsides and backfiring.
Are they not able to see the looting and rioting though?
I don't watch MSM but I hear they never show it. Is that true?
They live in a Democrat city that is riddled with crime but isn't a major city. I live about 1k miles away from them.. The only way they know about whats going on with the riots here is when I literally send them videos of the events. Usually their rose glasses get in the way