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this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2025
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Practice helps. So does being a stranger that's visibly working class. I suspect you've run into a wall for being known and as a "hostile" for being a "liberal". My best success comes from when I can get around that, one on one. Got a former coworker who still goes to that evangelical church, but watches Democracy Now every day.
But also... Yeah, that happens. Sometimes it makes people question their ideas, sometimes we're sewing seeds for someone else to water. And that's okay.
In a very real way, we are talking about Christian-style evangelism.
At the time, I was very much a good young man who never claimed to be anything more than a moderate around these people. Those who knew me largely took it as what we might call 'debatelording' rather than seriously.
Me, having just led them by the nose to water and watching them not drink: "I'm just saying, you have to consider all sides of the issue."
"Whatabout whatabout whatabout? Ha ha ha, let's not talk politics anyway"
In any case, I stopped wasting my time years ago, and wear my socialism on my sleeve nowadays.
Those people ate out of Bernie's hand on his fox news town hall.
At that pivot, sometimes before? I like to come out of the closet as a raging Leftist, and promising that I hate Liberals more than my audience does. "I want you to have a fair shot, even if you've been told I'm the devil." I need a context where that won't get me shot to pull that out.
"Capitalism just means that everything is owned by those elites that don't f#$king live here." Is one of my favorite lines. It goes well with calling the person in front of me "my neighbor because I can look you in the eye."
That's not the same as being convinced. In 2015 and 2016 I was all over Bernie's potential for convincing conservatives, because they seemed receptive - as it wore on, it became increasingly clear that it was the same passing agreement I was familiar with that would be entirely forgotten and reversed by the next hour. It's the same phenomenon as Trump repeating whatever the last person who spoke to him said.
That pisses people off in my experience, especially with many in the lower-middle class owning land that they don't live on in Appalachia. Besides, the elite WORKED for that land. It's basically the same as telling these poor folks that they don't deserve what THEY work for too! /s
It only pisses them off if they think the elites who own it are filthy liberals - as long as the elites virtual signal about rugged capitalism and Christianity, they get their boots licked even as they raise prices and squeeze an already impoverished community.
Well, different rhetoric for different locales.
This has been fun!
Next time let's explore how you might bring up some Appalachian history that isnt being taught.
Unfortunately, they side with the strikebreakers anymore. Might be different in coal towns.