Tom Shrugging

yes. we must remember that the loudest voices often don't represent even the majority.

Is there anyone still not convinced of one side or the other?

Yeah, it’s a good point.

Despite all the ideological sorting of the past few years, it’s probably the case that there’s still a small but decisive slice of undecideds out there — whose identities could mark them as either Republican or Democrat.

I’m thinking of a white suburban mom with a college degree who attends church but has gay friends. Who is concerned about the economy’s direction, but also wants her and her daughters’ right-to-choose protected to some degree. Who was fine with wearing face masks for awhile, but tired of wearing them everywhere seemingly endlessly. Who is freaked out by crime, but who also recognizes the humanity in those whom our criminal justice system routinely chews up. Who drives a large gas-guzzling SUV but still spares a thought for the world’s climate. Who is married to a Republican, but doesn’t take her political marching orders from him.

Wherever they are, with elections on a knife’s edge, democracy depends on those people.

It doesn’t really matter what you say, ever. They will:

—Deflect to an unrelated or barely-related issue.
—Knowingly or unknowingly, cite to falsified/debunked information to “support” their claim.
—Ad hominem and insult you to death.
—When all else fails, word-vomit about “BLM riots” or “Hunter Biden’s laptop” or the “MSM” or the “deep state.”

Those caught within this MAGA thought-bubble aren’t logging into Imgflip (or whatever other site) to engage with an opposing viewpoint. They’re logging in to have their ideological conceptions validated, pretty much.

One option is a soft-boycott of the politics stream — posting all your memes with comments disabled, or just not posting at all, and never commenting on other memes. I’ve done that from time to time, saves me a lot of time and energy that I can use to focus on building up our own PoliticsTOO community.