Man, that read felt satisfying.
I personally haven't dealt with white supremacists near me, or any sort of Trump supporter, but having experience with relatives and close friends who have views I really strongly disagree on, I can relate to what happened here. Of course, Matthew went even further, but I've found that rather than give up on people, if you come into a conversation or relationship with some guidelines, you can legitimately change people's mindsets.
1) Don't base your emotional well-being and satisfaction on your success in this. Any conversation should be one you come into detached.
2) Engage on points, that you think you can make the slightest amount of progress on, the common ground that you think that based on their founding beliefs, you believe you can change their opinion on the very essence of these secondary beliefs/applications.
3) Accept that sometimes, you won't get change. If you're dealing with someone much older, for example, there are time when you very well won't be able to get anything out of them, at least at that moment. Don't continue to bother them about it, souring your relationship, etc. You're making it more unlikely that you might change their views.
4) Be happy with any minor progress. Honestly, if you've made a minor amount of progress, even if you only made them admit that their view on something, in the most circumstantial of circumstantial of cases, maybe shouldn't apply, then you've made progress you should be proud of.
If you come into an argument demanding full change, or you don't try and find some common ground off of which you can work, you won't get anything done, and yes, you're better off not engaging whatsoever.
Depends on their age and how far down the rabbit hole they are.
If they are young and/or clearly open to new information, then yes the focus on them should absolutely be slowly turning them into a more accepting person through education and understanding.
But if they are too old to change their views and too far down the rabbit hole of bigotry, then you are better off just shaming and humiliating them until they stop being comfortable being openly bigoted. They will never change their viewpoints, but when they stop spewing their bigotry the overall discourse is improved and you will have an easier time educating others without the bigots shoving their views onto everyone.
....
No, no, no. I would say that this is a case where you should honestly not engage with them, because you're only making the situation worse.
If they're older, and more set in their views, then yes, it will take much more work, and yes, it may very well be that they would die before you got a full change, but there is always progress you can make. If you come into it thinking: "let me see what progress on this person's views I might be able to help happen", rather than "By the end of this this person will have changed their views", then you can make some progress. I don't really believe in the idea that people are fundamentally lost causes, although I can understand if you don't find it worth the personal effort to engage and thus choose to disengage.
Over the internet it's probably different, because although it's played a role in changing my views in many ways, and probably many other's people's, it just never seems as effective as personal communication would be. There would need to be a much more receptive two way conversation for nay sort of change to happen in my experience.
